"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach
When he deserves it - to put it flippantly so don't mind that for a moment.
If I don't knock into things too much, or hold on too tightly to plot, characters...characters die. I don't think of advertently planning it - usually. Death's the conesequence of all else going on; only now and then I have to recall not to avoid letting characters die.
ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem
"There is adventure in simply being among those we love, and among the things we love -- and beauty, too."
I don't know. I'm not a big fan of character deaths unless it's done really really well.
There has to be a point to it. People just randomly dying is annoying. It has to ... fit. Yeah, I have no idea what I'm saying, I just know the general shape of what I mean.
You don't kill a character purely to add interest. You don't kill a character because you can't figure out what to do with them (well, I don't think you should).
Oh, you're angry! Click your pen.
--Music and Lyrics
There is only one character that is being killed off but he has to die for the story to work out because of related issues to betrayal.
Other than that I hate to kill off characters. I've read so many books with co-characters that I like and then they get killed or die somehow that makes the story boring.
I'm hoping my character deaths are for a point, but then again, about half of them die for no real reason.
I am trying to hammer a point home about war and dying for something throughout the story though, so who knows.
I think a character should die when it fits too, to be honest, but my NaNo runs for twenty years so a lot of people are going to die anyway ... considering one of the battles is where everyone gets slaughtered.
Nate wrote:And if YWS ever does become a company, Jack will be the President of European Operations. In fact, I'm just going to call him that anyways.
I personally think a character should only die if it adds to the story, either by affecting the reader emotionally, or adding realism (eg. there's a war going on).
I like doing it when the reader less expects it. Its more shocking that way, and conveys some dark humour too, which is what usually is found in my work.
I give grand deaths when the character deserves it though. For example, I'm doing the suicidal pilot thingy in a comicbook script I'm doing, to one of the characters, to have him die a hero. Another one of the characters is going to die in an elaborate fight scene, but the death itself is going to be sudden, and quite imaginative.
there are many problems in our times
but none of them are mine
I think it's a tricky question, since every situation will have a different place in the story that would be perfect for a character's death.
As a general guideline, don't have the 'expendibles' die just to fuel the MC on, or to show the read what's at stake. It's a pet peeve of mine, and happens a lot in the fantasy genre especially.
But there are times when charactes should die. If a character's come to the point where he can do nothing for the plot of the other characters, and you cannot develope him further without it seeming contrived, a death is the way to go. Not always, but generally.
Also, sometimes a character is threatening to overshadow the character you want to be the focus of the story (sort of like Mercutio in R+J).
I don't think 'when he deserves it' is right. If that was the case, there would be no bad guy, ever.
Oh, and don't have a character die to please the reader if you have to have that as your reason. Stick to honestly. Sometimes the snake escapes, you know?
That's my rant.
-Fantasy
'It aint the size, love,' she says. 'It's how you use it. That's the important thing, methinks.'
Deaths to characters should only be done if it adds something to the story, character's profile or if it's manitory to add realism such as fights/wars.
Then again, a death to a character can happen out of no where, and it's not planned. Maybe those incidents are more acceptable because they were unexpected, and thus they're not crappy deaths.
They die when its appropriate. It should cause the reader some emotional distress otherwise.
The way I see it as an analogy...
you can have a string with a crazy knot in the center, as you pull the ends of the strings the knot eventually "pops" and you either have a knot or the string straightens out. It is at this pop, or climax, that a character should die.
You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, instead, you should read every single book to see what every book is about before you even come close to judging its viability.
I like quick deaths. I mean, for the first death for FREAK, it's like, "WTF? That person is dead? What did s/he do to deserve that?" So yeah. And the bluntness just hits you.
Obviously you can't do that for every death you have in your story, but still. It's an alternative to those deaths that you see which are like, "Let's describe every droplet of blood!"
*shakes head*
As far as killing characters? It depends on what kind of death they're going to have. If it's a random death and they're relatively minor characters, then yeah. Quick fast deaths are good. If it's a random death and it's a major character... wow. 1984 did it pretty well, but you have to lead up to it extremely well if you want to make it convincing.
And if you want to make it long and drawn out, OMG. Do that with major characters! And if it's suicides, consult the characters first. Or else. Because if they don't want to commit suicide, then they're going to hate you for the rest of the story, or until you scrape it, that is.
As far as when? Whenever the character gets too tired out. Like, for my stories, I have a lot of conflict and sometims my characters just get worn out and they don't want to live. And, if the story says they can, then I'll kill them off in some lovely way.
...nice, aren't I?
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.
"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach
The equation for a well drawn death... is setting it up.
Set it up since the start. Set up conditions, rules, and other obstacles that seem redundant until the end... then kill them.
You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, instead, you should read every single book to see what every book is about before you even come close to judging its viability.
Long and drawn out, or short and quick. Deaths shouldn't happen until they're supposed to. I have a feeling that one of the mains in Menagerie is going to end up dead at some point in the novel. I'm ready to accept it. I just don't know which one it'll be.
Write from the heart and nothing can go wrong. It's when you write from the wallet that the feeling goes away.
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