Character Assassination

Allow me to introduce myself.

I am a serial killer. There. It's out. It's told and announced that I am a killer.

But who are my victims? What is my Modus Operandi?

Both can be answered simply enough. Yet, my Ego demands a bit more attention than that. I must tell it slowly, delicately, descriptively and, most importantly, gently. There are those among you who may faint at what I will disclose.

Or not.

Let us see, shall we?

First of all, let's look at my motivation. Why am I driven to kill? What is it within me that must hunt, trap and eliminate those who catch my eye?

Well, I gave you the first clue. My Ego.

My Ego is such that it must never take second place. Its need to be first and foremost is paramount. There is no room for allowing anyone else to take the light. I am the one who must shine. My ideas are the important ones, not the ideas of others! Their lives and growth must never deviate from what I have planned for them! Never! I am the one in control! Not they!!!

I believe I have just given you the second clue as to who my victims are.

Characters. Entities within the Writing Project who dare think they are autonomous beings who have lives of their own and may go where they will without permission or even notification. Just who in the Pit do they think they are? It is my story! Not theirs! Mine!!!

I am a task-master and must not be disobeyed. So I kill.

One character had the audacity to be the nexus of a spiritual caste who possesses an important thing. She just popped up without even a hello in one, solitary chapter and acted as if she was really that important. As if it was all about her and no one else!

It made me angry. She thus died in the same chapter. Her brains were sucked out.

Another character would not stop whining about how much she was being left out of the political loop. She made me sick to my stomach with her pathetic ideas of a coup. She hung herself at my instigation.

Another one was, quite simply, ugly. Loud, demanding and very ugly. She got an arrow in the head.

Liking that particular image of an arrow in the head, due to my archery practice as well, another character went by that means. He was stupid. And ugly. And served no real purpose beyond carrying the conversations of the moment. Therefore, he had his soul sent elsewhere.

Maybe another writer will find him?

I doubt it. He isn't worth the trouble.

And a great trouble it is to work upon the Writing Project. All these characters demanding a slice of the pie, the lime light, the chance to actually live and do! How can I function in such a communal piece of work?!

I must kill. It is inevitable. Unavoidable. It must be done.

And now here is the dilemma. If I kill them all, there would be no Writing Project. There would be no entertainment and pleasant distractions to keep me sane. I would, in short, die.