Young Writers Society

I'm having trouble deciding which characters in my story to kill off!!! I like all of them so much *holds to heart*

I know I can't leave ALL of them alive...much as I'd like to...or can I? How do you decide that kind of thing?

Another problem is romance. I'm having problems in deciding which of my characters should fall in love with which other characters.

I know this is kind of a general question that's hard to address if you haven't actually read my story, but maybe you could help anyway? How do you all decide which of your good characters should die, etc.

Oh, and by the way, this is a fantasy story...I dont' know if that would make any difference...

Thanks so much for your help!

Love you all,

If this is Mercenary Wings, then on romance - Valery/deLucio. Kiera/Brad. Eric... Witcher Bubber!

No, keep Eric single.

I think YOU have to decide who to kill off, as you know best how it'll affect the story and the other characters. When I write something, I usually know who's going to die from the very beginning, so I don't get too attatched to them

Thanks, Twit. Helpful, as usual.

Just kidding, I actually agree on the romance....
and I know it's my decision on who to kill, but it's just so hard! I know I want to kill the stupid king, but he's the only easy one.

~

Yeah, when I write stuff out, it's not like a make a big list at the beginning and go, "Okay, and YOU die, and then YOU die... eheheheheh!"

It just sort of happens as I'm writing. I think, "Oh, this guy needs to die in order for x plot device to work so that y can be revealed later." Or maybe, "Ooh, I think Bobby is starting to fall in love with Jane." It's more a passive action than an active one. My characters sort of start doing things on their own sometimes without me pushing them along. Sometimes they need a little coaxing, but for the most part things like deaths and romances tend to fall into place when I'm outlining the plot. It's not like there's a "death quota" for my stories - sometimes no one dies.

My characters usually either start off dead (Mitchell) or I've been planning to kill them for years (Savior), so I can't say I've ever had a problem deciding who to kill.

If you want to do the Rowling thing, kill of people to make a point.
[spoiler]For example, she said she killed Tonks & Lupin because she "wanted to kill parents;" war orphans are, in her opinion, the saddest part about war. So, parents had to go to get her moral across.[/spoiler]

As for who falls in love ... I'd just write it and see what happens. Mariel/Uriel was totally not supposed to happen; I don't think either of us (my "co-author" and myself) saw it until it happened. It was like "EH?!" but there was nothing we could do to change it. I think it's much more natural that way.

For killing characters:
Some people do it when they get tired of them, I personally think there exist other ways to get rid of a character.
Some do it to shake the reader.
And I do it when the thought comes to me after a long analisis.

For pairing characters:
Some of us like opposites, some like the impossible love (dramatic as a soup opera if you ask me) and others see if they look cute together.

Now the decisiom is yours, that's all my advice

Be careful when killing any character. Depending on the situation:

A) Your main character will -
1) Rebel/Hate you to pieces/Refuses to speak to you until they feel the need. This could lead to days, weeks, months or longer
2) Be greatly affected emotionally/physically/mentally or all three. In a nutshell, again depending on the situation, their anguish can have huge effects or affect them slightly as time progresses.

B) All of the characters will hate your guts, leaving you with a Block.

C) It might start warfare.

D) Your characters get entirely too bold, and change the plot twists, thus taking over the story completely.

E) Do you really need to hear the other reasons? Characters are truly evil, and when something happens, usually a death, it can have different levels of annoyance for the writer. So instead of putting them in a cookie jar, let your chars grow outside of the box but consider death to one of them.

It's a delicate decision and shouldn't be done for the sake of killing but for the sake of the backbone of the plot.

You should wow your readers by the death. Kill off the characters that will make the readers surprised. This will make the book more interesting and when its over people will just be astounded. Like in Harry Potter when Dumnbledore, Snape and Ron's brother died. I didn't expect that and it really made the book interesting. Thats how i will kill of my characters.

I agree with eveyrone else. your characters will decide who needs to die, who needs to fall in love, etc. in my story, the love interest was absolutely never supposed to be a love interest. he was supposed to be a long-lost cousin. as for who's going to die...i don't actually know yet. but i know whatever happens will just happen. So don't sweat it and just let your big go where it wants to go.

You can kill characters in such a way that they are still important to the novel/ still affect the actions of other characters. Heroic sacrifices aside, the deaths of characters can actually men something.

And i agree with the fact that more characters seem to die in novels than move to another city, as opposed to real life.

Killing characters should be purely a matter of moving the plot (since these are apparently main characters), so there really shouldn't be a whole lot of deciding to do. Obviously, you don't have the story blocked out (I never do either), but presumably you at least know where you want it to go, so the only question is how do you get there? If a character has to die in order to reach a certain point in the story, it should be fairly obvious which one it is. If it's just killing them off to get rid of them, because you're just absolutely sick of that character, to be honest, I would go back and redo the entire thing; If I was sick of the character, imagine how the reader must feel.

The same thing goes for love. If there's no reason for them to fall in love, why waste time making it happen?

you do not have to officially kill them, you can just make them seem to the characters like they are dead and bring them back later if they want. ex. characters being pursued on horses. one characters horse is shot by an arrow in the head and killed. that character falls from horse and urges other to go on with out him. they keep going but do not actually see him die, but hear shouts of conflict.

R. J. Hoffman wrote:you do not have to officially kill them, you can just make them seem to the characters like they are dead and bring them back later if they want. ex. characters being pursued on horses. one characters horse is shot by an arrow in the head and killed. that character falls from horse and urges other to go on with out him. they keep going but do not actually see him die, but hear shouts of conflict.

But that is so clichéd. I'm generally against bringing supposedly dead characters back at all, unless it can be done in an original way. Just kill them, and have done with it.

I totally understand what you mean. I wrote this story for NaNoWriMo and the whole premise was that it was supposed to be a tragedy and the main character's love interest was supposed to die at the end. I never really finished it (although I did come close and I'm still working on it a little bit) but it was SO hard to write the death scene. I was seriously crying when I was done with it.

You don't have to necessarily kill your characters unless it's the way that you've planned it, and even then, you don't really. It is, after all, your story, and I know firsthand how hard it is when you get attached to a character and then you have to kill them. It seems so cruel.

All of the above, and circumstance. [for both the killing and the romance].