Killing characters

[Dju]

Most of us are either writers or artists around here- in other words, we're storytellers! And I'm fairly sure we've all encountered the tough decision of...


killing your characters.


Or at least one or two.


As George R. R Martin (a.k.a character serial killer) put it himself, killing a character is not an easy decision. It deeply affects your plot, the mood of the story, the audience and of course, the remaining characters. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. But it is always rough. How do you deal with your character's fate?
What kind of writer are you? The butcher, the fair or the merciful?
And what do you think about reviving characters? Is it a wise deicison? And also, something that constantly bugs me...



The character that was born to die.
(Choose your last words, this is the last time
Cause you and I, we were born to die)


Ya know. That character. The nice friend that is merely put there to be the emotional break. To make you feel sad. Sometimes it's a dog (I always cry at those), sometimes it's a horse (I kinda cry, too), but mostly it's just the best friend of the main character (I'm talking to you, Captain America). We have all seen it before. Is it good? Or is it cheap? Is there a certain to way to make it look good and make the audience care? Do stories that characters die often catch your eye, Like Game of Thrones or, perhaps in a lighter comparison, Harry Potter?


Anyway, share your thoughts! Let's have an interesting, storytelling discussion that will bring positive growth to our writing skills!

[Joker]

I find that killing of a character has the most impact if you do it in a realistic way. Let me see if I know how to explain that...

So, for example, when George R. R. Martin kills off certain characters - it is truly SHOCKING. (At least I find it so!) Like, say, when he killed of a certain character in the very first book, or a whole bunch in the third. 0:-) Whereas, when the character in some stories that you so aptly label "born to die" actually does die, it might be kind of a cheap tearjerker but it doesn't really get you in the same way.

I think it has something to do with the fact that in real life, death seems kind of like this random aborted arc. You had a future ahead of you, a whole life was going to happen, and then BAM! It's over. Nobody is "born to die," it just kind of happens, and it's often truly shocking. That's what I mean by a "realistic" character death: you fully expected the character to have a future, you can envision the future they would have had if they hadn't died, but...they died. You don't get a wholesome sense of tearful satisfaction, you feel genuinely upset by it.

That being said - I don't know what I am as a writer. I don't set out to kill characters but I don't shy away from it either. I guess I try to make it as real as possible - whatever happens, happens! I do try to avoid revivals though. xD

P.S. I also don't like it when authors kill a character just to kill a character and shock the audience. It shows. And it's not as shocking!

[Kiddo]

I have gotten steadily more violent as I write, to the point where my current project has someone dying almost every chapter. And if they don't die for realz, they die in a dream. And it's not just quick deaths, either. It's graphic, drawn-out, and I intend to kill off a LOT more before I reach the end.

But that being said, I've also written a novel recently where there's only a handful of deaths and none of them were particularly graphic.

I think it really depends on the type of story you're writing.

For me, the important thing of whether or not to kill off a character is to ask myself: does it make sense? Given the situation, would this character survive? This applies to more than just death, but really, anything bad that can happen to a character. I think we tend to stay away from that stuff and if you think you're not one of them - just wait. Sooner or later you'll hit a situation that you find yourself unconsciously avoiding. I'm doing it right now in my super-dark story, there's one type of violence I've been avoiding even though it doesn't make sense that it hasn't shown up.

I set up for character deaths by writing the story. When I reach a point where it could go either way, I stop and think about it for a moment. Would this character survive, logistically? Does he/she have the skills/circumstances/whatever necessary to get through unscathed? That's usually an easy answer. If you find yourself working miracles to keep them alive: STOP. Go make them die. They need to die.

And sometimes characters die just because they're in a dangerous situation. I think the character death I remember the most was when a character died in an accident - no dramatic fight scene, no noble sacrifice - she just fell. And was gone. And it was such a punch in the stomach because it made sense but it was so... pointless. I hated it and that author is my favorite author.

The next question, if it's one way or the other on logistics, is: what does it do to the story? So in fairytales, there's a tradition of killing the mentor. The reason this is done is because the protagonist needs to have this support removed before he/she can come into their own and succeed. (this is how my folklore professor called out who all was going to die in Harry Potter about three books from the end and nailed it) You have to look at the story and gauge the role of the character and what their continued presence will do to the other characters. If they're going to get in the way of the development of the more important characters and said characters need a catalyst, then remove them. Kill them, send them to an alternate dimension, whatever. Just make it happen. This isn't the only reason you may need to remove a character, but ultimately, the supporting cast is there to support your main character, alive or dead.

Finally, I usually ask myself: has the cost been high enough? This is usually done near the end of the story, when we're getting close to the climax. I sit back and think, has the main character paid a high enough cost to achieve her goals? If not, it means the reader won't feel like something was overcome. Killing off a beloved character is a way to accomplish this, to give a real sense of loss, and if it follows the logic of the story, then the reader won't even realize what you're doing because it will make sense in context. I killed off one of my favorite characters in the last novel I wrote for just this reason and it was hard.

So there's my reasons for killing off characters.

Okay, there's another reason. I kill off characters because I've gone eight pages without violence and that's just not that kind of story. But I think my current project is a special case.

[Poldon]

Reading the responses so far reinforces my notions that the way most people approach and treat stories is very different from the way I do. People talk about characters and killing characters and how characters should die. I've seen people talk about character as though they might exist or as agents over whose fate the writer presides. I do not feel the same way as I have seen described.

For me the story itself is the living thing, not the characters, and the people within are as much a part of the world as the places and themes and histories. They are neither my tools nor my playthings, but many threads within a tapestry woven of many colors and types of threads. There is a sense in which whether a character lives or dies is not so much up to me, but perhaps what actually happened, or else is what "fits" into the greater picture.

I usually start at the largest, most broad levels and find the framework of the entire story from before its beginning to after its end. From there I work inward, working to clarify the blurry pictures and uncertain shapes. This follows from that, and this looks like it belongs there, and oftentimes I'll find things I never expected or that were beyond my initial ideas.

In this way, the story is not defined by characters, people are greatly defined by the world and story that they are in. They are beyond me, and the story is beyond them, and I will never fully understand either. They made their choices long before I came along, and I am merely trying to piece things together from where I am now. When all the puzzle pieces fall into place, then I have a faint idea and a glimpse of what really happened.

If I find that a character has a choice to make and I do not know what they chose, I look ahead and try to determine "What did they do?" If I discover a new place, I go back and find out how it came to be how it is, even if I would never write that as part of the story, it exists and I might find it. If I find someone I never knew existed before, I look at their past and their future as far as I can see.

If they are to die... that may be hard for me to forget. Certain fates like death have in the past caused me to not look into that person as much as I should, but make them almost into a husk with one purpose, and it can be difficult to move past that. But in the end... to switch whether even a minor character lives or dies could have such a massive cascading ripple on the rest of the story that would be felt in every directions that it would change the whole of picture of what happens. It may not always be so large, but the interconnection between all the threads is there.

This is how I think I view the stories and worlds that I make, but unfortunately I have thus far found my ability to complete them or to write them severely lacking. I do not think I can do justice to the greatest I have created, but hope to someday try.

[Bacon]

I tend not to kill characters unless I can't help it. I think of my characters as if they're people, and taking one's life tends to have an emotional impact for me to even think about it.

I don't think of my characters as destined to do anything, much less die. Characters make choices, and sometimes those choices kill other people, and other times those choices end up causing their own deaths. As an author, I feel it is my job to steer all of these choices in a direction that gives them meaning.

Usually I only kill off characters when it's the best thing to move the plot forward. I have a fantasy story where two main characters are slated to die, each death being a major character development point for the villain, the first by showing his remorse at killing the victim, the second by showing his lack of remorse, hence showing how far he's fallen.

So, yeah, I can kill characters, but I empathize with my characters too much to do it just willy-nilly.

[Selm]

I'll preface this by saying I don't have a definitive way that I write. It differs from story to story, and sometimes it differs between points within a story. I usually find that I relate most to Poldon's approach; I feel as if the story and characters are pre-existing and I am not creating them, but uncovering them like an archaeologist. Occasionally I feel as if the events that happen within the story are my decision to make. Sometimes I'll feel like both or neither. It just depends on the piece.

Most of the things that I write aren't actually "stories". I have short stand-alone poetic pieces that I write which tend to be projections of internal emotional conflict and philosophical paradoxes(whether my own or not). They're typically very abstract and experimental in subject matter and structure, and I have yet to write anything revolving around death at all. That's not something that's driven by plot; their purpose is really just to serve as a means of communicating complex emotional turmoil in a unique and lyrical way. So the event of an actual killing taking place within that kind of story is really out of place, especially since they aren't usually written in a linear fashion, and they're more of a reflection on past events and their psychological effects.

I have two major worlds within the works which have more of a narrative structure. One of them is a sort of sandbox universe with infinite possibilities for alternate dimensions and endless stories to tell within each, and the other is a story more confined to a single plane of existence and centers around one specific character and its character arc. The latter includes a lot of gory ruthless murder. The victims are all innocent creatures with good souls and pure hearts. But none of them are singled out as an extensive dramatic plot point, or to provoke emotion, or even written about as individuals. They're all just bodies. It's mass murder committed by a group of nightmarish physical and psychological creatures who are corrupt by nature of their existence who have escaped their confinement. The purpose of all that murder is to illustrate the aggressive and chaos-driven behaviour of those creatures, and how they've had to suppress their violence in captivity; because the story centers around them more than it does the other type of creature which inhabits that same world.

There are points in the story where individual death does become more significant. This happens a few times when the escaped creatures slaughter one another out of rage, or madness, or sheer boredom, further characterizing the creatures as unpredictable and vicious. This also heightens the emotional intensity of the story by raising tension and paranoia in situations where the characters (main character/s in particular) interact with other creatures of their same alignment. But there's more than just physical murder, because each of these two types of creature possesses a soul which is connected to a physical object stored and protected on sacred ground. So even "killing" a creature's physical form, while painful and damaging, doesn't necessarily mean they cease to exist. This is partially why this story allows for death to be thrown around so willy-nilly; it isn't as permanent on that world as it is in ours. The mass slaughterings are still chaotic and cause lots of grander problems, but the idea of death itself isn't as dramatic as it would be on earth.

Another reason why death can just be tossed about in this story is because it's realistic for the setting. The escaped creatures are bloodthirsty and anarchic. The entire story is a massive exploration and deconstruction of concepts of morality, alignment, and classic Good/Evil Right/Wrong Black/White systems of thought. But these concepts are explored through my main character, and it draws its own personal interpretations and faces its own conflicts and character development. I can't cut that short, because that's part of my story's purpose. In this situation, I can't have it die, or else the story doesn't happen. Using a different character would tell a different story. The story has grander meaning, but it is also about the growth and development of my character and its gain and application of experiences and wisdom.

From the perspective of a media consumer, I find myself most impacted by the kind of deaths Joker mentioned, which is when the character is well-developed and you can easily envision their future and their life is suddenly cut short. I find that unexpected and shocking, and very realistic, because that so often happens with deaths in real life. Sometimes people get hit by cars on their way to the bookstore. Hell, sometimes people just plain slip and fall and hit their head in the wrong place. And it's so awful to realize that. It's so awful to realize that not everyone dies feeling satisfied, feeling like a hero, having made a noble sacrifice. Some people haven't had the chance to do hardly anything. Some people die suddenly, unexpectedly, for something so trivial and reckless and easily prevented. Some people die with so much left that they could have done. I hate it when the characters I love die. I hate it when a character is so dynamic and substantial and complex and they enter the Villain's Lair™ with their fellow Good Guys Ready To Save The Day™ and they're just gone in a sentence or two because they aren't a perfect swordsman, or they lost their footing, or they mistimed their attack. I hate it because it's brilliant and that's what happens.

But there is a difference between unexpected and random, although the difference can come simply from the execution. Convenient deaths that appear out of thin air as an obvious gimmick or covering up of plot holes really irritate me. If the sole witness of a murder conveniently happens to have a heart attack, that's obviously just so the murder can be explored more in-depth for the story, you know? That just feels really unreal to me. I can tell what the author's doing and it detracts from my immersion into the story.

[Yoyti]

I kill off characters liberally, but then, most of what I write is a parody of some sort, and I do it for either comic effect, or because I need a character out of the picture (usually because they'd become some impediment to the plot to keep them around) and dropping an anvil on them is an easy way to be rid of them.

Come to think of it, I've never actually dropped an anvil on anybody, even though I've been joking about it amongst my friends for ages. I should get around to that.

I don't get so attached to my characters, since they're really more caricatures that characters. Most of what I write is comedy, and I do love some dark comedy. That said, I only like to kill off characters if it's within the general tone of the story. After all, there are a lot of different types of comedy. Ruddigore has a dramatically different tone from Iolanthe, but both are clearly comedies. Not just comedies, but farces, and with a very similar style, as they should, being written by the same people. Occasionally this does present problems. There is a piece which I still haven't finished (it's currently on hold) in which the plot requires a character to die. So I killed her off, but I really didn't want to darken the tone at all. Especially at the end, I didn't want to be left with a character dead. So I also revived her once her death had served its purpose. It's not hugely contrived, since one of my major characters is Osiris, and my interpretation of him is fairly agreeable. (In fact, not that you need to know this, I worked her death into part of Osiris' plan, so I had him kill her, with the full intent of bringing her back to life once his aims had been fulfilled, so I'm actually quite proud of how I skirted around that one.)

So I kill off characters mercilessly if it suits my purposes or is good for a laugh (I always make liberal use of redshirts, who are introduced solely to die, usually in some sort of comic manner), but then, I'm more likely the exception, particularly given what I've seen in this thread so far.

[Breakingchains]

Like a lot of people, I spot born-to-die types coming a mile away, and I'm ruthlessly cynical about it. I watched a movie recently where I was literally sitting there going, "Bet'cha they kill the mentor." *mentor death scene comes up* "Ohhh, noooo! Not the mentor! But wait, MAYBE HE'LL MAKE IT! Live, mentor! Live! LIII--well crap."

...You can tell I don't like the audience manipulation that goes into your average born-to-die, and I also don't like obviousness. It can probably be done well, but the key is not to tip your hand. The sooner I sense that the character is there for one purpose only, the more skeptical my reaction becomes when it happens; in the absolute worst cases, my empathy breaks so sharply that I can't even enjoy the story on a shallow "popcorn" level and I just end up mocking it, loudly, until it goes away.

From a writing standpoint, it's extremely rare that I kill a character off. I likewise tend toward the view that the story as a whole is deeply affected by this and it can't just be tossed out there, so while I've stopped to consider killing characters, in almost every case so far I've just felt like it was better for the overall story if they remained alive.

With at least one of my villains, for instance, his major defining trait was keeping secrets--cover-ups, manipulating everyone around him just so, living and operating in the dark. By the end, despite his atrocities, it's so much more damning for him if he is arrested, has his crimes exposed, and is chattered about endlessly by ignorant TV pundits than if somebody just righteously murders his face.

Another example: I considered ending my WIP with the death of the main character. But when I weighed the pros and cons, I realized that it would have made his life send a totally different message from the one I wanted. I didn't want "redemption equals death", I wanted him to take charge of himself and his impact on the world--going from a scared, brooding, useless doofus to a heroic figure who could work toward the greater good for the rest of his life. Killing him would not only cut that short, it would be punishing him for having ventured out into the world and for the sacrifices he'd already made, and I didn't want that implication in my story. TBH, I do still want the death, but unless I figure out a way to mitigate those implications, it remains the worse option.

So I guess what I'm saying is that, when I need to kill a character, I'll kill them--but there's so much that goes into that decision. At the moment, it so happens that I'm one of those writers who never kills anybody. Will that persist? No idea.


EDIT: Um... I noticed that this post came out sounding fairly condescending/judgmental, which wasn't really what I wanted. By all means, if a writer has a born-to-die character and they feel this makes their story better for their trouble, then they should trust their own judgment, not my theory or personal reactions.

[Sabre]

I know that at least two characters are going to die in my latest story. One of them does fit that 'born to die' character, but it's the main character's mother, and it's only at the climax that she dies.

The villain in the same story is a crazy-powerful telepath (emphasis on the crazy), and in the end when he knows he's about to have his world crash down around him, he tries to take everyone down with them using his powers. Cue the main character who has empathy thanks to genetic manipulation accomplished by the villain. She's able to overcome the assault to her mind and fight against him. Since he's gone nuts though, she has no real option but to kill him off, and she does this using a gun rather than her other superpowers. (I know there's a trope for this, but hey). So in this sense she doesn't kill him so he can be punished, but she does it to save the people that are close to her.

So yeah, I kill characters off in my stories mainly as obstacles for the main characters to overcome. The one I previously described will not have an easy time with the fact that she killed someone, even though he killed her mother.

[Diana]

Hmm. I'm not particularly psychotic when it comes to killing off my characters. In fact, it's something I avoid as a whole. The main characters in my stories are pretty much always immune, because I'm a sucker for eventual happy endings. Tinge of bittersweet, but happy on the whole. Enemies die a lot, but that's more of a trait of the settings and characters I've dealt with lately. I occasionally - very occasionally - will kill off a named and introduced ally in a dramatic fashion. Generally, my 'victims' will be faceless cannon fodder that serve no other purpose than to illustrate a setting's danger, or side characters that have been introduced and been in the story for quite a while, even had some PoV sections. It's either going to have no impact, or as much impact as I can cram into it, but it's rarely going to be one of the story's focal points.

Like... for example, if I were writing Harry Potter, in the climactic final battle for Hogwarts. Harry, Hermione, and Ron have plot shields. I'd consider killing off one or two of the named and familiar students, like Neville or Luna. Might kill a professor or Order member. Would probably kill lots and lots of faceless students to underline the fact that it's a war, and that it's unrealistic to get through with few casualties. All of the named deaths would happen on-camera and witnessed by at least one of the Golden Trio.

Not saying this was how it should have been written, or that this 'version' would even be any good - just, that's how I would tackle that sort of situation.

I wouldn't say I'm a merciful writer, though, because I love torturing my characters. I will repeatedly put them through hell and make them lose and lose and lose because I want to roll in the delicious character interaction that indubitably follows. Hurt/Comfort is a hell of a drug.

Killing characters used to be a thing I never did, but... well. I used to avoid swears, too. Problem is, Prototype fanfiction. I cannot avoid those things and have it be remotely faithful to the setting and characters. If you're aware of Prototype, you'll know what I mean. It was actually an interesting point at first, because Alex Mercer is so inured to killing that it has basically no impact to him - he can accidentally slaughter an innocent civilian and feel nothing more than 'oops'. Maybe a few seconds' guilt, before he has to move on. But for all of his sociopathy, he's still a sympathetic character that feels and hopes and wants and loves. I think that's why I like writing him so much - he's such a tangled, confused little ball of rage and osmotically-learned humanity that has no idea what to be.

Reviving characters is bad. Now, if you killed off a character in a way that they could have survived, intending to have it so they actually live - that's fine. But literally killing a character and bringing them back, unless it is heavily tied into the plot and is a total once-off thing, is not good. Having resurrection be possible and employed cheapens death to near-pointlessness. Eventually your audience is just going to stop caring. Character death should be one of the most impactful things in the story; it is either the height of loss and emptiness, or dealing with having ended another's existence. It is a heavy, heavy thing. Having it be reversible takes away that weight.

Characters made to die? I can spot them from introduction with maybe 75% accuracy. They're not a good thing - again, the audience can see it, and being able to predict that sort of thing really cheapens the actual act. I mean... well, I never create characters with the intent of killing them off, but I generally don't plan that far into the future when I write. I leave my options open. I suppose, if you were to hash out an entire storyboard before writing, you might introduce a character knowing that they're going to die, but I'd like to think you brainstormed them and fleshed them out as their own character before deciding to polish the axe.

[PFA]

I'm definitely no stranger to killing off characters. >_> My stories tend to be kind of gritty, so oftentimes I find myself in the early planning stages of the story pondering who might need to die. In that way, I guess I kind of end up with a few "born to die" characters, so to speak, just because I start writing them expecting them to die before the end of the story.

That said, it's definitely a thing I give a lot of thought to. Sometimes the characters who I thought would die end up living, because I thought their death might be a little too dark for the story, or because it turns out they have more to do, or simply because I like the character too much to let them die (I'm one of those writers who gets really attached to her characters). Ultimately, who ends up dying depends on what fits for the story, though. If there's some plot-defined reason for the character to die, or if the character gets tangled up in dangerous business that they shouldn't be able to come out of, in general if the circumstances call for their death... not even my personal feelings for the character will save them.

[The Scrac that Smiles Back]

I discover who is going to die as the story progresses. I can't write "born to die" characters because frequently the story will surprise me and let them live while killing characters I was certain when I began were not going to die.

[Coaster]

I'm going to post in the context of NTWF Medieval because that's the one I've actually had significant involvement in, and where characters have deaths that were optional. <_< Spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn't read it.

SPOILER: Click to show

Frankly, I made Ancel with full intention and half a plan of him ultimately coming to a gruesome death, and I enjoyed most of the minutes of writing it, because he was invented as such an utter scumbag that the audience actually wants to see him dead. If there's any death that can make a reader feel good, I prefer to stick with those.

On the other hand, I really didn't want Kaldora to die via game mechanics, and I kept trying to convince Pixie to leave Ilaria alive at the end of everything (because that character was an NPC and game mechanics didn't affect her), but in the same way, Pixie had in mind fairly early on that Ilaria would end up being a martyr for someone.

On the other other hand, Kelcey Kidde was just the wake-up slap that started the plot really rolling, and nobody expected it (except Carricon because they were bloodthirsty and nobody wanted to kill any player characters). But it's a mixed bag in that case because he ended up being a ghost (...much later in the RP), so he still had some more chances at comic relief.

So basically, I tend to avoid death as much as possible if it's a saddening-type death, and especially if there's a permanence to it (things like interacting with them posthumously or rejoining in some form of afterlife or whatever tend to ease it a bit, even though it's a bit weird/hard to justify in-universe). I tend to enjoy death as much as possible if it's a well-deserved comeuppance and Heel Face Turn is impossible, whether or not it's permanent. I also tend to be oblivious of when a character is Born To Die and my view on whether they should die depends on the previous sentences, because I'm shallow like that.

[Blu]

I have never truly put any thought into killing characters and that is why I am going to lurk(ish) on this board for awhile to get some opinions.

On the one hand, while George R. R. Martin kills a lot of characters (as I hear through rumors since I've only watched the first season and read the first book) I find his killing methods fantastic. It sound weird, but one of the reasons I keep reading these books is to find out who lives and who dies. So I think if you are George R. R. Maritn, you are almost strategic because as a reader I root for the deaths of certain characters and pray for the life of other characters. In his defense, the time period(ish) he seems to portray does have a huge death rate so even in contextualization of the setting I am okay with serial character killing.

As a writer my killing methods have varied over time. In middle school and high school, killing/suicide was most of my writing, however, now I find writing it less pleasing. Perhaps this is due to maturity that conflict can be more than death of a parent or death of a best friend. Thus I haven't written a born-to-die character in a long time. I suppose also I haven't written many deaths since I have been writing for the NT a lot since April and most of those characters can't die do to NT restrictions.

With this my thoughts lead into other stories I have written. For example, a short story that I plan to make longer, will have a lot of serial killing. In context again though, the book is about an assassin set in medieval(ish) time period. (The world is gonna be created but it will resemble the dark ages as far as architecture and possibly technology)

So those are my general thoughts. After the ramble I suppose killing a character all depends on the appropriateness and the context of the killing. A story about assassins is going to have a lot of death obviously and George R. R. Martin is arguably and in my opinion a character killing genius.

[Thorn]

I am usually pretty fair, I think. Not too many characters die per tale. =P
Buuuut I did once, when I was maybe thirteen or fourteen, write myself into a dead end and ended up killing off my main character. I refer to it as accidentally killing him off. It was horrible but opened up new possibilities and ideas for the story, which sadly I never managed to finish.

(he was also my favourite character, being of one of only about three morally decent characters in the thing. These days I enjoy characters lurking in a grey moral area, but I think around then was my Good Hero phase. xD).