Writing Tips

Character Deaths

If you're like me, you get a real kick out of killing off your characters.

While it is fun to sometimes (brutally) kill off your characters, you can't do it just because it's fun.

Make your character die for something, whether they take a bullet for their love interest, or if they died for something they believed in. Maybe it's your antagonist or villain and they need to die so the hero can succeed.

It doesn't really matter how your character dies, as long as you do some research.

If your character gets shot, look up some stuff on how long it would take for someone to die if they were shot in a specific area.

Now, if you're writing a fantasy novel and your character is to die at the hand of some magical weapon you've created, you can do your own thing, but I would suggest still doing some research on similar wounds to get a more realistic idea.

STUDY AND RESEARCH THE STAGES OF POST-MORTEM (AFTER DEATH)

This could be really important for your story.

I had to research all that for one of my stories, where my character died from a gunshot wound in the middle of a battle, which lasted three more days after his death.

Most writers (especially on here) don't include the stages of post-mortem, which would be neglecting a key factor to make your story more realistic.

Again, for my fantasy writers, you have a bit more control over this since some of your characters may not be human, and I would say you don't particularly need to research post-mortem, but if you want to, I'm not stopping you.

Okay, here's a fun part...

Your character's last words.

Last words are very important, and are incredibly subjective.

For example, if your character is dying in their lover's arms, you'll want them to say something to their significant other before they pass on. However, try and avoid "I love you" if at all possible. Yes, it's romantic, but it's honestly way overused in my opinion.

Sometimes, you'll have a character die unexpectedly. Say they're in battle and suddenly they're run through by an enemy soldier's sword. Your character will probably die almost instantly, and without them knowing it would happen. In this scenario, their last words are casual or occasionally humorous.

How do you know if I've written a sad death scene and made my readers emotional?

If you're planning on killing off a popular character, people might cry right off the bat, but some people don't cry as easily, even if they did like the character.

If you don't cry writing it, your readers probably won't cry reading it.

Well how can you make it emotional enough to make me cry?

If you know early on that this character is going to die later on, give them a goal. Perhaps it could be finding their true love. Maybe they have a dream they want to make reality.

Whatever the goal is, kill off the character before they achieve their goal. It'll make your readers tearfully wonder what it might've been like if that character had survived.

Here's a don't by the way; try and avoid having a funeral for your characters. A funeral will slow down the story and possibly derail from the actual plot line.

Again, a lot of these depend on your preferences, but here's a brief overview of the important stuff.

1) Do your research concerning the way your character will die

2) Research the stages of death

3) Don't let your character's last words be "I love you". It's too cliché.

4) If you don't cry writing it, your readers probably won't cry reading it either!

If this was helpful, please tell me in the comments how it helped or what I can do to improve on future tips.

Stay alive |-/
-Bailey