Why Me?

This week’s prompt—the main character in a novel you are writing takes issue with you wanting to kill them off—coincided perfectly with a chapter I had just written in my latest crime novel (working title: The Cannabis Conundrum). I’ve included an excerpt from that chapter as part of this piece.

“So, why does it have to be me who dies?” Stephen Bridger asks. “I have a prominent role over the first twenty-one chapters of your novel, and now you want to kill me off in chapter twenty-two? What’s that all about?”

“It’s no offence to you,” I shrug apologetically.  “It’s just that, with the storyline going where it is, I need you to die.”

“I understand somebody has to die,” Bridger says, “but it doesn’t have to be me!  Why can’t you kill one of the others—Fletcher, for instance, or Lionel?”

“I’m going to need them later in the story,” I say, shrugging again.

“And you won’t need me, is that what you’re saying?” I can hear the heartfelt hurt in his voice. “Look, without me, the story wouldn’t be as good as it is now, right? Do you think it’s actually going to get better without me?”

“Listen,” I tell him, “I have thought about who else could be the one to die, and it’s not as if I don’t like you or anything. But the story has to come first, you know that.”

Bridger is silent for a few moments, and I wonder if he’s coming around.  But then he says, “So, how is it going to happen?  How are you planning to kill me?”

“Well, I have the first draft finished,” I reply.  “There’ll be lots of rewrites, but the basic outline is in place.  Would you like to see it?”

When he nods, I bring it up on the screen, turn the monitor toward him.  “See what you think,” I say.  “And feel free to make any suggestions after you’ve read it.”

The Cannabis Conundrum
Chapter 22
(excerpt)
   It wasn’t as good as his Maserati, but for a loaner car, the silver Mercedes-AMG performed very nicely.  Stephen Bridger had been driving it for a week, since the vandalized Maserati had been taken by police to gather evidence, and subsequently shipped to the dealer in Toronto for repairs.  The loaner had been driven north from the city by a junior staffer from CANCANNA’s office, whose reward was a bus-trip back the same day.
   Boasting a twin-turbo, 4.0 litre V8 and 9-speed transmission, the convertible fairly jumped whenever Bridger mashed his foot to the floor.  He had the top down this afternoon as he left the Duffers Bay Golf Resort, heading south toward Port Huntington on Duffers Bay Road.  He hadn’t played as well as he’d have liked, but his mood lightened as the emerald green of the forest, leaves brilliantly highlighted by the sun’s rays, flashed past on both sides in a dizzying blur.
   He didn’t notice the half-ton pickup that followed him from the resort, the club’s logo stencilled on both doors, until he checked the rearview mirror and realized he was throwing up a thick plume of dust the truck couldn’t avoid.  A grim smile crossed his lips.
   “Too bad, boys!  No way I’m letting you get in front!” he declared. 
   Slowing slightly as he approached the left-hand curve just north of the bridge that crossed Duffers Creek, he decided to show off for the guys in the truck by sliding the roadster around the bend in a controlled drift.  Too late, he remembered he hadn’t fastened his seatbelt, but he was committed to the maneuver and pulled it off expertly.  
   As he slewed out of the curve, roughly two hundred metres north of the bridge, elated with his success, he was startled to see the truck in his side mirror, pulling up as if to pass.
   “What the hell!  You crazy or what?”
   But instead of passing, the truck veered suddenly into the rear-panel of the Mercedes, slamming it wildly to the right.  Approaching the bridge at high speed, Bridger lost control, smashed broadside into the low, steel guardrail on the side of the road.  The stricken car flipped sideways, tossing him like a hapless rag doll onto the rocks that lined the embankment leading down to the water.  The car followed him noisily down, bouncing and crashing behind him, its aluminum shell tearing and rending, finally coming to rest upside-down in the creek.  
   The truck never stopped.

“That’s it?” Bridger said when he finished.  “That’s the end of me?  That quick?”

“That’s it,” I nod, turning the monitor back to face me.  “Pretty dramatic, eh?”

“It’s dramatic, I guess,” he concedes, “but pretty quick. I’m a main character in the story right up to this point, right? And then you end me, just like that?” He snaps his fingers as he finishes.

“Death has to come unexpectedly and suddenly in stories like this, Stephen.  It keeps the readers hooked into what’s happening.  And for dramatic effect, it has to be someone they identify with.  Otherwise, the whole effect is lost.”

“So, you’re killing me for a special effect, that’s all?  You’ve built me up through the first part of the story so that readers will identify with me, and like me, and then you just snuff me?”  He snaps his fingers again.

“Pretty much,” I shrug.

“How many chapters is this book going to have?” he asks.

“Not sure yet,” I tell him.  “My last one ran to fifty-six chapters, almost 114,000 words, so this will probably be in that range.”

“And how many words are you at right now?”

“I guess I’m up around forty thousand,” I estimate.

“Well, thanks very much!” Bridger snarls sarcastically. “You’ve written me out of the whole thing with sixty percent of the story left to write. So much for gratitude!”

“Gratitude?” I echo.

“Yeah, gratitude for everything I’ve done for you up to this point. This book could be the best you’ve ever written! But you must know it won’t be nearly as good without me in it, right?”

“You think it could be my best ever?” I ask, wondering if I heard him correctly. It’s the first time a character I’ve created has ever told me that.

“It’s a great story,” Bridger says, and I hear enthusiasm in his voice now.  “And I’m sure it will get even better as you continue writing it, but only…you know, only if…”

“Only if you remain in it, you mean?” I finish for him.  But he’s got me thinking now.  It may be that someone else could take the fall, but the killing would have to happen differently.  Bridger is the only character driving a Mercedes roadster.

“Seriously,” he says, “that guy Fletcher is a dweeb.  And Lionel is a minor character at best.  Either one of them could exit the stage and nobody would care.  If you want dramatic effect, build them up a bit more in the first few chapters, like you did with me, then pick one of them to kill.”

He sees me hesitating, takes that as a good sign.

“If you want,” he adds, “it could be me who kills the guy.  I wouldn’t mind, actually.  It’s only fiction, right?  We’re making it all up as we go.”

“Strictly speaking,” I say, “it’s not we who are making it up.  I’m the writer, remember?  But you may have a point, so leave it with me.  Nothing happens, anyway, ‘til the rewrites are finished.”

“I love rewrites!” Bridger smiles.  “And I’ll be happy to help if you want.  It’s not like you don’t know where to find me.”

As I shut down the computer, I wonder if I’m the only writer who ever gets into arguments like this with his own characters. Blowing out a resigned sigh, I wearily mutter, “Why me?”

_{© J. Bradley Burt 2023}