Writers Who Kill

Killer Questions – Killed Anyone Real in One of Your books? 

People often ask writers if their characters are based upon real people. Authors usually answer that their characters are a combination of imagination and composite characteristics of people they have met. We decided to be a little more honest today by discussing how many real people we have figuratively killed off in our books and telling you the best story about one of them.

E.B. Davis - Two—and I disguised them in books because their stories shouldn’t be known. They are toxic people.

Paula G. Benson - Actually, not any. I know writer friends who have used fiction as an effective therapist. I need to think more seriously about this approach.

Debra H. Goldstein – One. She shall remain nameless, but let’s just say her behavior was such that I held a memory and a grudge for many many years – only to let it go when I killed her when I first started writing.

James M. Jackson - Sad to disappoint, but that number is zero.

Grace Topping - I haven’t figuratively killed off anyone real yet. However, I used a real person as the model for my villain in Staging is Murder.  He/she dropped the victim’s body down a laundry chute—where it landed at Laura’s feet.  

Annette Dashofy - Now this question could get me into a lot of trouble. I think I’ve killed three real people in books but I’ve killed those same three multiple times. One person had made me extremely angry by treating someone I care about very badly. I killed them in a book and then happened to run into them. For the first time in a long while, I felt no ill will toward them. It was like “you’re dead to me now.” Murder (fictional, of course) is very therapeutic.

Heather Weidner - My body count is up to 36 now. Wow. I’m deadlier than I thought. My sleuths are amateurs, so they have to use whatever weapon they happen to have nearby. I have two favorites. Jules Keene in VINTAGE TRAILERS AND BLACKMAILERS subdues the killer by knocking him out with a large, iron skillet that her campers use to make s’mores on the firepit. And Emory the prickly bookstore owner in STICKS AND STONES AND A BAG OF BONES was strangled to death by a string of Christmas lights. 

Margaret S. Hamilton - I almost killed a member of the neighborhood yard police by putting her in a screaming coffin filled with dry ice (carbon dioxide) and suffocating her. I am reported by the yard police on a yearly basis.

Marilyn Levinson - Just one, and I'd best not reveal anything about it.

Mary Dutta - My first published story had a character who was the fair-haired boy of his MFA program, who was most definitely based on the fair-haired boy of my graduate program. I didn't kill him off, but he didn't emerge unscathed.

Susan Van Kirk - If I might turn this around a bit…I helped raise money for our local art center by auctioning off character names in my Endurance series. A junior high teacher, who was also the Christian Education person at our church, won the auction. She chose a character in the 19th century who poisoned her abusive husband with mushroom gravy. Made me wonder…

Martha Reed - I’ve only figuratively killed off one real person – a jerk of a boss. It turns out that I’m grateful to have known them because that anger made me mad enough to finish writing my first book, and once I finished the first one, I knew I could write and finish more. Ha-ha. I won. 

Lisa Malice - When I first started writing mysteries, I planned to kill off my husband’s business partners. They had teamed up to steal the business he built for them and needed to die (figuratively).

Kait Carson - Sorry, no can do. That’s why I use a pen name 😊

Nancy Eady - I didn't kill off someone, but I sent them to jail.  A few years ago, there was a state attorney general I really did not like and the antagonist in my book is a state attorney general gone wrong who gets caught. and will have to go to prison. 

Shari Randall - I have tended to stay away from real people in my books, but I will say that if a character is dealing drugs, they might want to hurry up and get their affairs in order.

K.M. Rockwood - My characters are very real to me, and some of my protagonists are based on people I know (with their knowledge & permission) but I can’t think of anyone I’ve killed off. I can tell a few stories, though. The “model” for my Jesse Damon character was very gifted mechanically, and liked to keep busy. He was a hard worker. He was often assigned to maintenance details. At one point, he was working on an old boiler of a heating system, and it became necessary to call in an outside contractor. He was showing the contractor around, pointing out what the problems were and what he’d done to try to fix it. The contractor was a bit uneasy and glancing around. He finally said, “Doesn’t it make you nervous to be working in this prison, with all these murders and things all over?” My Jesse character shook his head. “Since I’m one of the murderers, it really doesn’t bother me all that much.

Korina Moss - My characters aren’t based on real people. The characters I kill off have the negative characteristics cumulated from several people.

Teresa Inge - I kill one to two people per story. My favorite method of murder is my protagonist lassoing a lanyard around the killer’s neck to strangle him.  

Sarah Burr - I plead the fifth on this one.

Lori Roberts Herbst - I could tell you, but then I'd have to...well, you know...

Connie Berry - None. And I hope I never do. To hate someone so much you wish them dead is deadly to your own soul.