Maybe We Should Go Back

Killing off a character- the why's and how's

When I was in high school I was quite a morbid little weirdo (I know, shocking), and I enjoyed killing off my characters at the end of my stories and leaving the reader with an overall sense of hopelessness about life. I particularly enjoyed working out all the major conflicts and getting the character to the peak of his/her happiness before pulling the rug out from under it all. It's not to say I didn't love my characters, because I did and do, but because of a series of events this was how I viewed life at that point: good thing happens, but it can never last. Since then I've matured, become a lot happier and a lot more hopeful, and no longer believe this is an effective plot device and that it rarely needs to happen and is a risky move even when it does.

I killed off a main character this week, and since this had been planned from the start I didn't feel a whole lot of sadness about it. I know the character had reached the optimal point of growth and development, learned what they needed to learn, and their death is necessary to weave together the events that come later in the Reaper series. But it was still hard. I never know how people are going to react. Are they gonna hate it and hate me so much that they stop reading? It's a risk I have to take sometimes. Everyone loves a happy ending, but sometimes to achieve something else, death must be the end.

Why do you kill characters?

1. the larger story cannot come together without their death. I'll give an (SPOILER) example from 1984 (the book not the year). I read this book at fourteen and was flabbergasted when Winston was brainwashed by Big Brother in the end (no, not a "death" but basically it was a death. If you read the book you know what I mean). I thought this was horrible, disgusting, unnecessary and downright CRUEL. Let the poor dude find love and happiness and escape! God, the setting was depressing enough! His whole life was one big shit show! Now you gotta take away the one thing he had, his freedom of thought?! Now I realize that the story was much bigger than JUST Winston, and that in order for Orwell to get his point across that Big Brother had permeated every corner of society and if we're not careful we could end up the same way, Winston simply had to be stopped.

2. It's necessary for another's character growth and development. This was the case when I killed off Gus AND Lucas in the original draft of the Reaper series, so that I could save Nora and Hex and their future offspring. But then I thought about it and realized that death is the end of far too many addiction stories in real life, and I had to show that there's at least an ounce of hope for the real life addict. Plus, it just hurt too much guys! For real. You try killing Gus and see how you like it!

3. Some characters only REALLY live in death. I'll give the example of Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series. Sirius Black was a cool enough character with the potential to become a main character and as far as I know everyone liked him and was gutted when he died. But he was much more influential to the plot in death. In fact, he continued to be a major character in the story after death and influenced much of Harry's inner motivations and decisions in the later books. I feel like he thrived in death. In Azkaban he was merely a prisoner, in life he was merely Harry's godfather, but in death he was who he was meant to be for the greater good.

How do you do it?

1. I keep my character deaths sudden. Why? Because death is sudden! Even when you know it's coming, it's still like getting run over by a train. I always want real life to be represented in my stories, and I feel like death is a shock to the living. We know it's there. We know it's our fate. But we just find ourselves totally and completely shocked when it is thrust upon us. As much as I'd like to hint around or prepare the reader, this does not mirror real life.

2. Leave hope. I based this latest death off of near-death/paranormal stories I've heard over the years. I fully believe in an afterlife and I fully believe in the Grim Reaper as being more of a benevolent, gentle spirit who is there to help us transition to this new state of being. I wanted the Reaper to make an appearance in this story to mirror what was to come in the next book and also as a reminder that death isn't the end or even something to be scared about. It's not fair to leave your reader hopeless. I'm not saying you have to make death this happy event, but at least leave them with hope. If you can't, leave them with something to think about (like in 1984). I've never died but was very close two years ago, close enough to feel like I only had one foot in this world. During that time I developed a sort-of... relationship (for lack of a better word) with the Grim Reaper. This is really hard to explain, but I felt sometimes like I was talking with Death in the midst of my deepest depression, and I did find this comforting, benevolent, and gentle being who just told it to me straight. I feel like, in some ways, Death talked me out of dying while showing me that death is nothing to fear. Leave your readers with something to hold on to. Help them feel less afraid about their own deaths, in whatever way you see fit.

3. Be gentle. There are sensitive souls out there who don't like to read about torture in graphic detail, and I'm one of them. Sure, sometimes we gotta put the character through hell. We just do. But don't do it in a way that is going to eternally scar the reader and turn them off of reading your future works. Hint around, use those awful details when you must, but shelter both your character and your reader by not dragging it out forever in some House of a Thousand Corpses way. Your character doesn't deserve that. And neither does your reader. Kill them quickly, and if you can't make their death swift and painless, make sure they have some higher thought, purpose or love to hold onto during the dying process that brings comfort to both them and the reader.

Thoughts?