This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 220th episode of the Helping Writers to Become Authors Podcast.

The New Year is Upon Us.

For me, 2013 was a wildly busy year, but with writing storming, switching both my sites over

to WordPress and new designs, and seeing structuring your novel.

My goals for outlining your novel.

My goals for 2013 are to write the first draft of my next book, a Historical Superhero Story, set in Regency, England and tentatively

titled Wayfair.

I also want to perhaps do a couple more webinars on story and scene structure prep for the annotated Jane Ayr's

launch in July and start work on some workbooks for outlining your novel and structuring your novel. I hope your year is shaping up to be just

as productive and fun. The January issue of my e-letter hit inboxes last week. It included more drawing winners, the article

Forget Something in your story's climax, and my response to a subscriber's question about how to write a first-person narrator's thoughts.

If you're not receiving the letter and would like to, you can sign up for my mailing list on my website at helping writers become authors.com.

You can read back issues online at helping writers become authors.com

slash resources. And now I hope you enjoy this week's podcast entitled How to Successively Kill a Character,

The Checklist.

I love killing. a character, the checklist.

I love killing people, or rather I love killing characters.

I love it when a noble character, or perhaps an ignoble one on his way to redemption, gets his grid on

and sacrifices himself for someone he loves or for the larger cause.

I love pulling on my own heartstrings, never mind my readers.

I love the epicness, a well-placed death can bring to an otherwise mundane story.

Authors are always being advised to be mean to their

...