Morbid a bit? Yes, rather, but I promise that this post is about writing. It is, after all, the only venue in which murders are allowable and assassinations are common fare; writers get to kill people any day of the week without fear of the law (although going around in public saying "I murdered someone yesterday!" is not advisory). It's one of the fascinating things about being a writer that you hold sway over the lives of your characters, despite the fact that the opposite frequently seems to be true.Unfortunately, this often presents difficulties in stories. Most writers - I have never known one who didn't - become attached to their characters and regard them as friends and children, and some grow so attached that the thought of killing one of the characters terrifies them. I frequently hear things like, "Oh, I love my characters too much to kill them!" and "[Name of Character] insisted that he wanted to die, but I wouldn't let him." This refusal to follow the path of the story may result in a happier ending, but I'm willing to wager that it will not be as satisfying or meaningful a conclusion as it would otherwise have been. The characters live, but to what purpose? They are all happy for ever after, but does that destroy the whole drive of the storyline? Writers, if they want to progress and write solid stories, must pay attention to this as they determine the fates of their characters.
This analysis does not mean that writers should go the route of Diana Barry and kill all their characters indiscriminately; a depressing story does not necessarily equal a profound story. In fact, the stories that end in the death of the main character are and should be a minority, since in general people do not want to follow a person through a tome of six hundred pages only to have him be killed off in the end (unless the novel is Russian, in which case this is to be expected). Death should be doled out sparingly, but it should be doled out.
One important consideration is whether or not the death is necessary for or at least adds to the plot. In The White Sail's Shaking, for example, a good portion of the plot hinges on the murder of one of the characters. I'm fairly certain I'm going to get hate-mail for that, but it is what it is - the character had to die or the story would not work at all. This can also work in a smaller way when the plot itself does not depend on the death of a character, but the main character's development or some other important element of the story does. Although perhaps not as readily evident as when the plot is driven by a character's death, the grief, guilt, or anger that the main character feels at the death of this other person may be important in moving him through his character arc.
Conversely, writers have to consider whether or not the death detracts from the story. In planning my to-be-written novel Tempus Regina I expected to kill one of the major characters toward the end, but then realized that to do so would bring the story full circle and rob it of any point. Therefore, the character lives. Don't kill for the sake of tragedy or drama; make sure it adds to the story as a whole.
Another consideration, which may seem painfully obvious, is whether the death is historically accurate. If dealing with a historical figure, don't kill them at Place A and Time B if they didn't die there and don't have them survive Scene C if they didn't survive. In The Soldier's Cross I got quite attached to one of the characters, but they had to die in order to be accurate to history. (I was extremely cut up about it; I put The Soldier's Cross away for about a month because I didn't want to write the death scene.) Although alternate history is becoming popular, it is in its own genre and shouldn't be mixed with others.
off with his head!
One important consideration is whether or not the death is necessary for or at least adds to the plot. In The White Sail's Shaking, for example, a good portion of the plot hinges on the murder of one of the characters. I'm fairly certain I'm going to get hate-mail for that, but it is what it is - the character had to die or the story would not work at all. This can also work in a smaller way when the plot itself does not depend on the death of a character, but the main character's development or some other important element of the story does. Although perhaps not as readily evident as when the plot is driven by a character's death, the grief, guilt, or anger that the main character feels at the death of this other person may be important in moving him through his character arc.
Conversely, writers have to consider whether or not the death detracts from the story. In planning my to-be-written novel Tempus Regina I expected to kill one of the major characters toward the end, but then realized that to do so would bring the story full circle and rob it of any point. Therefore, the character lives. Don't kill for the sake of tragedy or drama; make sure it adds to the story as a whole.
Another consideration, which may seem painfully obvious, is whether the death is historically accurate. If dealing with a historical figure, don't kill them at Place A and Time B if they didn't die there and don't have them survive Scene C if they didn't survive. In The Soldier's Cross I got quite attached to one of the characters, but they had to die in order to be accurate to history. (I was extremely cut up about it; I put The Soldier's Cross away for about a month because I didn't want to write the death scene.) Although alternate history is becoming popular, it is in its own genre and shouldn't be mixed with others.
we survived, but we're dead!
The somewhat easier considerations of when to kill a character aside, how do loving writers survive these deaths? All right, so I'm being a little facetious, but I do know the difficulty of killing off a likable character and knowing that he won't be there for the rest of the novel. An enjoyable and helpful solution is to work on fleshing out that character's backstory, which serves the dual purpose of giving you more time with that character and of deepening his personality in the parts of the story where he does show up. The deeper his character is, the more likely it is that his death will resonate with readers and make them care about the rest of the story.
