Questions you didn't ask #1

As promised, this is the first of my 'stuff you really didn't want to know but think you do,' series, guised as a series of questions my nonexistent readers never asked.

This first faux question contains spoiler material if you have not read 'The Serpent and the Unicorn' books (at least through book 3) and may one day wish to do so.  If so, stop here…

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Okay, I will assume my remaining audience can safely tolerate that which is to come.  Here is the question that has been boggling readers (in theory) for at least a few seconds now: Why did you kill off Tristan?

That is an excellent question, and I'm glad I asked it.  Serpent was my first attempt at literature (and may yet be classified as an attempt by some) and still my favorite story arc.  It started more as something to occupy my time while my husband was working weird hours and I was alone for much of the time.  I never imagined it would be the first of many writings to clutter up the virtual-universe.  As far as characters go, he was (and is) one of my favorites, but the point came in the story where the question was poised: is this story about him or about something greater?  Writers can get very protective of their work, it is something that comes from the very heart and is very personal; I do not want to liken my characters to children, but it is a significant bond.  I felt a little like Abraham being asked to offer up Isaac, 'your son, your only son.'  But I knew it had to be done.  I didn't know why, but I knew it was necessary.

So I wrote the fatal words and the series went places I had never imagined and I even got my character back for random cameo appearances to boot.  If I hadn't done it, I think the whole thing would have fizzled out and still be a half written story moldering in the hard drive of a defunct laptop and all that came after would never have come.  A little dramatic, perhaps, but to a writer, our dramatis personae spring like Athene from the head of Zeus and we get a little attached to our creative offspring, but if we get too attached and sacrifice the story for the sake of a single character, our writing will suffer for it and that is by far the worse outcome.