McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Killing Characters
Wordmaker:
--- Quote from: comprex on May 06, 2011, 04:14:04 PM ---I see both schadenfreude and loss of empathy as being completely independent of the readers' evaluation of in-narrative risk.
It is possible to have a quite accurate assessment of risk even if one doesn't care about the character surviving, no?
--- End quote ---
It is, but I find it difficult to stay interested in a book or movie if I don't care about the characters. As a writer, it's my goal to make the reader care about what happens because they're emotionally invested in the characters' fate.
comprex:
--- Quote from: meg_evonne on May 06, 2011, 04:14:19 PM ---We aren't supposed to know everything or we'd be bored, but we need to have complete confidence in the author. Otherwise, we'd just be reading horror movie kill zones, and those are not on my list to be read.
--- End quote ---
Do it wrong and you get horror movie kill zones. Do it right and you get Antigone, Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Glory, The Magnificent Seven...
Quantus:
--- Quote from: meg_evonne on May 06, 2011, 04:14:19 PM ---
Quantus felt burned, badly burned, or he wouldn't have posted his concern. A sign that an author went without thought and against the contract the author had with Quantus specifically. Perhaps it was fine for most, but for Quantus (and any of us who find ourselves in that position) and fatal failure on the author's part. We invest in characters, because we are drawn to them. Death without logic is killing something inside the reader that was intimately tied to that character.
*Oops, off the soap box and back to work now.*
edited because I had an either without the or.... now back to work.
--- End quote ---
oh No, not at all. Thats just my point; I was very pleased with CA (which is what spawned the conversation). Characters we had known for several books of the series were killed, permanently maimed, etc, but in each case I thought it was done well, with proper literary justification (be it plot, theme, or even just a personal sacrifice for someone who arguably did not deserve it). What has me so baffled is the seemingly widespread comment that there should have been more death, and I just don't see any good ways to do that without it becoming just character death for its own sake. However Im far from an experienced writer and not much of a horror reader (which typically has a much higher death toll), so I wanted to see what you all thought of its use as a literary device.
The more I think about it, the more I think the root of that "more death" outcry may have just been that one particular "near-death experience" (Trying my best to avoid spoilers, so hopefully you know what Im talking about). As I said I personally don' t gravitate to heavy death stories or like writing lots of death without a particular need, but it does bug me when a character seems to die, with all the proper form and justification and whatnot, only to have a line at the very end to the affect of, "oh ya btw character X wasnt hurt as badly as we thought, he's going to pull through" despite the six bullet wounds, three stabbings, two story fall, and inspirational deathbed speech (in a pear tree). In those cases it seems like the writer needed a death but basically chickened out at the end, so they just put a mickey mouse band-aid on it at the end. I did not think this was the case in CA, but I was a big fan of that particular character and so maybe I was just paying more attention to the motives/explanation/justification...?
But even that can be done well at times. Ill take a film example because I dont mind spoiling it: In the old flick SWAT (not great but entertaining) one character of the team gets shot, and we get the casual "looks like he is going to pull through" line at the end. But in that case it had purpose: it showed that Sam Jackson's character didnt know he was going to survive, even though he just said same thing to the traitor in the team (who got said partner shot). The traitor asked how shot-guy was, just before blowing his own brains out. It showed that despite the treachery he cared about his team/regretted his choices; it also showed that despite the treachery Jackson's character cared enough to try and make him feel better.
Its all about getting the circumstances to support it; not just from a logical standpoint, but from a thematic, emotional, or storytelling stance. It made me start wondering what circumstances would compel you guys to reach for the CharacterDeath tool?
Glorificus:
--- Quote from: Snowleopard on May 05, 2011, 06:16:32 PM ---What I hate is when a character is set up just to be killed and it's very obvious.
A sacrificial lamb.
--- End quote ---
aka Red Shirts?
comprex:
--- Quote from: Wordmaker on May 06, 2011, 04:20:14 PM ---It is, but I find it difficult to stay interested in a book or movie if I don't care about the characters.
--- End quote ---
As a counterpart to this, I find it difficult to stay interested in a story if there is -no way- for the protagonist to lose, and lose big. More than just "temporary setback for the space of 20 minutes movie time".
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version