Richard Castle's Guide to Destroying a Character.
"Babe, are you ready for dinner?" Kate walks into Castle's office, curious at what he has been working on all afternoon.
"Just a minute, I'm almost done," Castle seems to be captivated by his screen.
"What have you been up to all afternoon?" Kate gets closer to the screen, seeing the title "Richard Castle's Guide to Destroying a Character."
"Remember, that university that asked me to lecture for them?" Kate nodded. "I am doing a lecture on how writers have to keep themselves in check in order to stay true to the characters that they've written."
"That sounds interesting," Kate says, "But what does that mean?"
Castle points out some of his topics on the slide show that he is creating, "When you write the same character over the course of several years, the character grows and changes. But sometimes, writers want to do something with the character because it feels 'fun' and 'new.' The problem is that when writers do that without staying true to the character, the audience feels like they have fallen out of the story.
"You mean, if I was a character in a book and then all of a sudden up and left you, that wouldn't really make sense?" Kate's eyes made her way across the presentation, trying to understand.
"You better not," Castle grumbled, "But, sure, let's use you as an example. If you were madly in love with me and willing to fight for us (which you are, right?)…
Kate nodded and smiled. Of course she would never leave her husband.
"But then in the same day, you decide that some cause you were fighting was more important than me, that wouldn't really make sense. That would feel like a writer was doing that because THEY wanted you to do that, not because you actually would do that."
Kate is hesitant to bring this up, but she knew who she had been in the past. "But, I have fallen down the rabbit hole before…"
Castle smiles at his wife. How much work she completed in therapy in order to fight for them is one of the reasons that he loves her more than life itself.
"It is possible that you would fall down the rabbit hole. But most people who fall into addiction and then leave their families behind, finds this happens over the course of months or years. If some were writing this, they would need to show you gradually falling down the rabbit hole, in order to make it believable."
"I guess that makes sense," Kate looks down at her hands, "Castle?"
"Yes, love." Castle sees Kate struggling with something.
"If you ever see me falling down the rabbit hole again, please call me out on it. Call me out on it again and again until I listen. Don't ever just stand by and let me fall down or separate myself from you."
Castle pulls his wife into a hug, "Don't worry, just standing by and letting you go wouldn't be organic to my character."