My beta reader told me to kill my favorite character and I fought her for a week

Honestly, I thought she was nuts. I spent three months building this side character, gave him a tragic backstory and everything. She kept saying he was dead weight and that the plot stalled every time he showed up. I was like, no, he's my emotional anchor for the whole story. Then I sat down and timed how long the scenes drag when he's talking. Like 40% of my word count was just him describing his feelings, which did nothing to move the story. So I cut him completely and rewrote the middle act. The pacing is so much tighter now, the main conflict actually hits harder. Has anyone else had to axe a character they loved and seen their whole book get better?

2 comments

2 Comments

betty_reed611mo ago

Omg yeah, I've been there with a different project. Had this witty sidekick who was basically my voice of reason for the whole story, thought he was the glue holding everything together. My writing group finally convinced me to test it by removing him for one chapter and... the main character actually stood up for herself for once. Ended up cutting him completely and the story gained this tension it never had before. It's brutal in the moment but looking back, sometimes our favorites are just comfort characters holding us back from better writing.

the_wyatt1mo ago

Ngl @betty_reed61 that's a painful but necessary truth. Sometimes you gotta kill your darlings for the story's own good.