McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Killing Characters

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Snowleopard:
What I hate is when a character is set up just to be killed and it's very obvious.
A sacrificial lamb. 

OZ:
I have mixed feelings on the killing off of characters. I will try to list my arguments for both sides.

The Pros of killing off characters:

 It gives the readers genuine worry about the fate of the characters they love. If they know that none of the major characters is ever going to die, it can lessen the dramatic
 tension in times of danger.

  It shows that there are real consequences to poor choices. This is the classic approach where in a trajedy, the main characters must die else their actions would be seen to have
  no consequence.

  It's more realistic. Especially in stories where there are massive battles many feel that to allow the main characters to survive over and over again paints an unrealistically rosy
  picture of the horrors of war or mass violence.

   It avoids the trope of the hero who survives everything.

The Cons of killing off characters:

  You may anger or disappoint readers who are emotionally attached to the character that is killed. This may lead to them no longer being emotionally invested in the story.

  It does not allow for hope. Redemptive themes which allow a character to overcome the poor choices of thier past can make very powerful stories.

  It is not unrealistic to have the heroes of your story survive if their survival is part of the reason you chose them to tell the story. If they didn't survive, they wouldn't
  have been able to accomplish their goal and there would have been no story. Sometimes some people do survive amssive battles or there would be no victor.

  IMHO the anti trope has become the greatest trope of all in much modern writing and theater.
   

Nickeris86:
I plan on killing several of my character's, some of them will be slaughtered senselessly to motivate the main character and demonize the antagonist. There is another that i plan on killing in a truly heroic fashion. However there are other characters who have the potential for death but whether or not they will die depends on how the story will progress.

The main reason i think so many people want more characters to die because it makes the story more realistic. I was rather annoyed with CA because the main characters kept getting into unwinable situations and most got out of them without even a scratch let alone horrible death. It seemed like an over abundant use of luck.

OZ:
I will admit that I tire of stories where the characters suvive time and time again because of blind luck. I don't have a problem, however, when the characters for the most part "make their own luck" because of their surperior skills, intelligence, or friends. I thought CA fell into the latter category.

LizW65:
Depends why the character is killed off.  If the death serves some kind of narrative purpose, I'm all for it.  Killing a character simply for shock value or because you, the author, tires of him/her, is not a valid narrative purpose, IMO.

@ Gruud:  I think the "kill your darlings" quote actually refers to ruthless editing and revision, rather than literal character death; at least Stephen King seemed to use it that way in On Writing.

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