Tonight, we are wrapping up Character Relationship month by talking about signs our characters are not working in the roles we have given them. 

 

Maybe they need to be recast in a different role. Maybe they don’t need to be in the book at all. Much to Stephen King’s disappointment, his editor for the first edition of The Stand, left a character, ‘the kid’ on the cutting room floor. 

 

I own both versions and the absence of ‘the kid’ did not change my enjoyment of the book. Of course, in a first edition, I didn’t miss anything at all. It was just that good.

 

After reading the uncut version of The Stand, well, ‘the kid’ added a creep factor and I never really bonded with him. In my readerly opinion, ‘the kid’ should have been cut from the first round.