"I didn't know how to kill off a character unless I was able, as a narrator, to get really complicated. Because it was a big deal. I'd never killed a character before"
About this Quote
Killing a character is supposed to be the cheap thrill of fiction: a plot twist, a gasp, a neat spike of consequence. Rick Moody refuses that convenience. His admission frames death not as a tool but as a moral and aesthetic crisis, one that forces the narrator to level up. The phrase "as a narrator" matters: he is not talking about inventing an event; he is talking about earning it through voice, perspective, and the messy accounting of what a death does to everyone still stuck living.
The word "complicated" is doing double duty. On the craft level, it signals an anxiety about narrative plausibility: a character can't just be removed like a chess piece without the surrounding social fabric showing strain. On the ethical level, "complicated" is a hedge against exploitation. Writers can sensationalize death because it reads as importance. Moody implies the opposite: if you can't complicate the telling, you're probably romanticizing the violence or using it as emotional shortcut.
"I'd never killed a character before" lands with an almost sheepish candor, but it's also a quiet declaration of stakes. It hints at a moment in a writer's life when the private game of imagination starts to resemble the real world: choices have consequences, even if only on the page. The subtext is professional coming-of-age. Moody is describing the instant when fiction stops being primarily about control and starts being about responsibility - to the characters, to the reader's trust, and to the strange intimacy a narrator creates when they decide who gets to survive.
The word "complicated" is doing double duty. On the craft level, it signals an anxiety about narrative plausibility: a character can't just be removed like a chess piece without the surrounding social fabric showing strain. On the ethical level, "complicated" is a hedge against exploitation. Writers can sensationalize death because it reads as importance. Moody implies the opposite: if you can't complicate the telling, you're probably romanticizing the violence or using it as emotional shortcut.
"I'd never killed a character before" lands with an almost sheepish candor, but it's also a quiet declaration of stakes. It hints at a moment in a writer's life when the private game of imagination starts to resemble the real world: choices have consequences, even if only on the page. The subtext is professional coming-of-age. Moody is describing the instant when fiction stops being primarily about control and starts being about responsibility - to the characters, to the reader's trust, and to the strange intimacy a narrator creates when they decide who gets to survive.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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