As a sequential writer I’ve found that I have to be prepared at some point to forge ahead with your instincts and present ongoing development of your characters and events, with no further luxury of leaving things in what physics might call a “potential” state.
It’s still scary, even after all this time. Once you’ve got those words coming out of their mouths or those deeds coming out of their actions in front of an audience, that’s a commitment, and you hope that whatever you just portrayed jibes with what you’ve presented previously. It’s scarier of course the more what you’re presenting might be considered unexpected — on the one hand, the predictable becomes boring; on the other, a plot twist that’s too unfounded might also mess up your story, right?
Now it’s probably a given that nothing will make 100% sense to 100% of your audience 100% of the time, but I think it’s also safe to say that it’s more likely more people will accept one of your characters being shot in the heart and dying than will accept a character being shot in the heart and living. The latter outcome is one that benefits far more from you having laid the groundwork for such a situation, even if it’s something as unlikely (in a real world sense) as the classic “good thing I kept this cigarette case in my vest pocket” save.
Mind you it also is a benefit if the character with the cigarette case is one that (again, most of) the audience would rather not see dead. We accept that flimsy rationale wholeheartedly. Superhero comics in particular are known for tying themselves in utter logical knots in order to bring characters, both villains and heroes, back from the veil, and oddly enough this again seems to be tied into how much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and closing of wallets) results from the idea of that character no longer being part of the tale.
But if you’re aiming for something of a more realistic tone, then there is a sense of finality that can weigh heavily. “Wild” Will can complain all he wants that the victims are of no consequence, but as the author I’m still conscious of snuffing out lives whose only shortcoming is arguably that the narrative did not center around them. William Munny’s words from
Unforgiven can come to mind:
“It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.”
That’s the most extreme case, but if you think about it every published image, every canonical word that makes its way from author to audience, closes off pathways and possibilities. And yet that’s exactly what has to happen for a narrative to be anything more than just random ideas haphazardly slapped together.
It’s a hell of a thing. But then again, when an author closes those doors I guess that’s why fan fiction sometimes opens the windows.
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