I guess you can stay sort of true to the story; you don't have to artificially bring the character back from whatever doom you've designed for them, you can tell the story, I suppose, honestly.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
You can be true to the character all you want but you've got to go home with yourself.
In the old days, I just could not leave characters alone. Now I just try to keep the ones that still have something in the way of stories to tell.
I'm not saying that I am all of my characters, but for me to bring a character to life, you've got to be able to find your own truth.
You have to suspend disbelief a little bit to buy into your situation and to the story and to how the character will react. You have to tweak your credibility a little bit, is basically what it comes down to.
It's much easier to come back as a recurring character. Because you already know his traits and who he is and what he's about.
All you can do is focus on telling the best story you can with compelling characters. If you do it right, it will endure. If you do it wrong, it won't.
The goal is to have every character take on a life of his or her own. Sometimes characters will come into the story that I haven't planned.
In real life, people are constantly saying one thing and doing another, but if you write your characters that way, the story becomes too hard to follow.
If you can relate to what the character's going through, the story can be as ridiculous as possible, and people will relate to it. You can be fearless in your storytelling if you're vigilant about protecting your characters.
When you put your characters in a dire situation, they often do things that surprise even you, so you have to go back and revise your original conception of who they are.