I made this one when I was working on draft 2 of Spirit Bond. I made it to be a desktop background with a calendar on it. This is the picture sans calender.
When I looked at this for the first time in months, I was like, “Awww, what cute friends.” Then it suddenly struck me that Desta, the girl on the right, is no longer a character in my latest draft. Lauren, the blond girl, has become even more important in her stead. Though this is a cute picture it’s a bit like looking at a photo where one of the people in it is dead (Haha, I didn’t mean to be so morbid all of a sudden).
Oh well. All writers would agree, I’m sure, that sometimes you’ve just got to chop people out of your story.
Hi!
I know you don’t get enough of me and my rambling, so I thought I’d tell you my random theory regarding this sort of thing.
Do you want to hear it? No?
TOO BAD.
My theory is that in any given story, there is only a certain amount of “coolness” to go around. By “coolness,” I mean being interesting, unique, and engaging. Maybe I’ll call that aspect “It” from now on.
At any rate, there’s only so much It, and the more characters you have, the more thinly that It is spread. 2 examples to back up my theory:
The Little Mermaid. Originally, Ariel had one more sidekick: a dolphin. When they deleted the dolphin, a lot of the It from the dolphin re-allocated itself in Ariel–she gained a lot of personality and spirit.
My own story, in which there used to be two detectives. One was the main-ish character, and the other was his mentor. As soon as I simply deleted the mentor, my main detective got a WHOLE lot cooler and more resourceful.
So, yes. You done right when you done deleted that there extra dagnab character.
Yep! That sure happened in this case. Lauren has become much more important and awesome. In my first draft I was always just trying to fit Desta in anyway, and it never really worked. Things are much better now.