Unease about killing off characters?

[TheIT]

I'm contemplating killing off a character in my fantasy WIP, and it feels very strange. A lot of characters have been killed in the past, some of the deaths are critical to the storyline, but I've never killed off a character onstage before. The scenario I'm considering would be a noble sacrifice of a (hopefully) sympathetic character, one man sacrificing himself so that others will live, and would make sense as part of the story. The world I'm setting up is dangerous so it would be ludicrous to think all the characters could get through the adventure unscathed, but I'm still having qualms. I know the characters aren't flesh and blood. I know they're not real. I still think I'm going to shed tears when it comes time to kill him off.

Does anyone else have misgivings about killing off their characters?

[awaitingthemuse]

I wish I did feel bad. I am writing my first novel and learning a lot as I go. When a character starts to be difficult for me to work with I usually kill them. Lots of work waiting for me on the rewrite.

[katiemac]

If you're having misgivings, the death probably isn't right for the story. Try rethinking the character's purpose to the plot.

If the character and scene are crucial, and you're just feeling sad about losing him -- cheer up, the readers will probably feel the same way. And that's the point.

[pconsidine]

My wife was reading a fantasy story I had written and when she got to the end, she breathed a sigh of relief and said, "wow. I was afraid you were going to kill her off." That's when I knew I had to do it.

The more distressing you find the thought of killing off a character, chances are the more distressed the reader will be as well. And that's what you want. You want your reader to have an emotional reaction to the story you're telling. If it's from the death of a beloved character, then so be it. But, boy, will people remember your story as the one that made them cry.

[maestrowork]

My wife was reading a fantasy story I had written and when she got to the end, she breathed a sigh of relief and said, "wow. I was afraid you were going to kill her off." That's when I knew I had to do it.

The more distressing you find the thought of killing off a character, chances are the more distressed the reader will be as well. And that's what you want. You want your reader to have an emotional reaction to the story you're telling. If it's from the death of a beloved character, then so be it. But, boy, will people remember your story as the one that made them cry.

Hmmm... yes and no. I see the danger in that. If it fits the story, then yes. If there's a purpose to that death and it's something that fits the character, then yes.

Otherwise, even if you manage to squeeze a tear from the readers, you'll be shamelessly manipulating them, and smart readers can see through that and feel betrayed and resentful.

If you kill the character just to make someone like your wife cry, then you're doing it wrong, IMHO. Your wife would read it, cry as you wanted, then whack you in the head because she'd feel manipulated. I have felt that way about a few books I've read. The author got what he wanted, but I felt so cheated that I didn't want to read his books anymore.

[My-Immortal]

My wife was reading a fantasy story I had written and when she got to the end, she breathed a sigh of relief and said, "wow. I was afraid you were going to kill her off." That's when I knew I had to do it.

The more distressing you find the thought of killing off a character, chances are the more distressed the reader will be as well. And that's what you want. You want your reader to have an emotional reaction to the story you're telling. If it's from the death of a beloved character, then so be it. But, boy, will people remember your story as the one that made them cry.

I'm with Maestrowork on this - don't kill off the character unless it fits the story. Honestly, as I was reading your post the first time and I got to the passage I boldfaced I thought - 'way to go'. You'd obviously kept her on the edge and made her want to read until the end. But then when you next wrote "That's when I knew I had to do it." I stopped and wondered...are you now going back to change the story and kill the character? Why?

You then go on to state you want your reader to have an emotional reaction to the story - of course, and your wife had a very good one I would say. She had one throughout the entire story, wondering if the character would live or die. Killing the character at the end (especially if it doesn't fit the story) just so you can make the reader cry when the book is over....I don't know if that is as good as the suspense you've built up throughout the entire book.

Good luck with your writing. :)

[Zonk]

J.K.Rowling confessed that she cried when she killed off one of her characters, but not apparently when she killed another.

It can be successfully done, as Clavell did with Lady Mariko in Shogun; her sacrifice was integral to the story, and provided a motive for Toranaga to keep Blackthorne alive, and for Blackthorne to side completely with Toranaga.

I tried (twice!) to kill off one of my main characters, but my beta readers threatened me with grievous bodily harm :Shrug:

I didn't feel any remorse about it. My characters are bondslaves, they do whatever I tell them to, though I do enjoy writing some characters more than others.

The story is the important thing, I believe. If you cry over a character's death, maybe your readers will too. I don't think there's anything wrong with having misgivings about killing off a character. Go ahead and cry. :) Anytime a character in a story gives themselves so that others may live, it touches something primeval in us (Aslan, Mariko, Gandalf, etc.)

So slay, and flay, maim, disfigure, dismember, and otherwise destroy any character you must, to write a good story, and weep afterwards.

:D:D:D

[pconsidine]

I stopped and wondered...are you now going back to change the story and kill the character? Why?Sorry, I left out the most relevant part of the story - I had originally written it with the character dying but chickened out and rewrote it. Of course, it could really go either way. There's plenty of death and mayhem to go around in that story.

[Maryn]

For what it's worth--perhaps very little--one of the things fans of George R.R. Martin's epic fantasies rave about is his willingness to kill off the occasional featured character. In a series as war-torn as his, I think he'd have made a terrible mistake if all the characters readers get to know well were to survive. That would be predictable.

I'm sure Martin knows which two he can't kill, too.

Maryn, who would love a movie in which the big-name star doesn't make it to the last reel, because it would surprise her so much

[My-Immortal]

For what it's worth--perhaps very little--one of the things fans of George R.R. Martin's epic fantasies rave about is his willingness to kill off the occasional featured character. In a series as war-torn as his, I think he'd have made a terrible mistake if all the characters readers get to know well were to survive. That would be predictable.

I'm sure Martin knows which two he can't kill, too.

Maryn, who would love a movie in which the big-name star doesn't make it to the last reel, because it would surprise her so much

Kinda like Drew Barrymore in Scream....? (I think that's the actress and movie - I haven't watched it in a long time).

In the grand scheme of things - Sean Bean (though not perhaps BIG-name) as Boromir died before the first of the three LOTR movies ended (so if you watch them back-to-back-to-back he dies early on)

I do know what you mean - I enjoy watching a movie (especially when I don't know about it ahead of time) where a big-name star dies early in the movie.

For what it's worth, I had quite a few characters die in my first WIP and it is not easy to write some of those scenes. I didn't want to go too far over the top, but yet, I didn't want to understate the death either.

Take care all...

[maestrowork]

I think you should have put up a "Spoiler Alert"!

J.K.Rowling confessed that she cried when she killed off XXXX, but not apparently when she killed XXXX.

[Zonk]

I think you should have put up a "Spoiler Alert"!

Edited...

:D:D:D

[scarletpeaches]

Let's own up - we're all megalomaniacs and the whole point of creating people is so we can kill them off at our leisure, right?

Oh, so it's just me then...

[brinkett]

For what it's worth--perhaps very little--one of the things fans of George R.R. Martin's epic fantasies rave about is his willingness to kill off the occasional featured character.
I'm not one of those fans. One of the things I don't like about the series is the number of characters he kills off. Sure, some have to die, but it's to the point where I don't want to invest in any of the characters because many will die, anyway.

[Vomaxx]

If it fits the story, then yes. If there's a purpose to that death and it's something that fits the character, then yes.
Otherwise, even if you manage to squeeze a tear from the readers, you'll be shamelessly manipulating them, and smart readers can see through that and feel betrayed and resentful.


Bravo. Truer words, etc.

I like to try to move readers by the actions of live characters, not by the memory of dead ones.

[Celia Cyanide]

Sorry, I left out the most relevant part of the story - I had originally written it with the character dying but chickened out and rewrote it. Of course, it could really go either way. There's plenty of death and mayhem to go around in that story.

I understand what you mean, but do you think maybe keeping the character alive made it more surprising for your wife to read?

[TheIT]

Part of what's bothering me is the lack of anonymity. I've got no compunction against killing off pawns offstage. In the history for this WIP there's been plenty of betrayal, intrigue, and a war which nearly destroyed their civilization.

But the character (victim) I have in mind is not a simple pawn. In order for him to be sympathetic to the reader I'm going to have to get inside his head and give him words, actions, and dreams. Then I'm going to bump him off. It feels wrong, somehow, from a moral sense, though I'll do it if it makes the story better.

[DamaNegra]

It has happened to me. There was one character that I liked a lot, but then I realized he was going to die, because it was essential to the story. I cried because I liked him a lot and didn't want him to die, but that's just the way of things.

In another WIP, I was writing when suddenly I realized one of the main characters, my favorite, was going to be killed. I nearly cried, but he was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it.

My friends think I'm crazy, they just go like: 'Why don't you make someone else die? Or make them live', but they don't understand what it's like, when a character is meant to die, there's actually nothing the writer can do about it because the story won't be the same. It's like life, people sometimes die but we have to live with it.

[britlitfantw]

I know where you’re coming from, as I have a similar situation in my fantasy WIP. It’s the first of two books, and near the end one of the secondary characters dies to let the others out alive – she couldn’t save someone earlier, and sees it as a bit of an atonement. She’s also a religious character and, since her family is now on a different planet, she hopes to be able to watch over them now after having thought she lost them forever.

Also, near the end, a character very dear to my heart is lost to the protagonist, though not killed, and not forever; loss that seems permanent to the characters makes me sad, sometimes moreso than death itself.

Something else that almost makes me cry more than writing the death of a main character is writing (or reading, for that matter) about the death of a minor character who is barely mentioned, but you know their name, who they are, and they’ve had a few lines of dialogue; often that upsets me more than another death. Not sure why.

However, if you have unease in killing off your characters, I’d say it’s for one of two reasons; a) because you know, deep down, that it’s really not the right way to advance your story or b) you very much care for the character. If it’s the second option, I’d say go for it; as others have said, if it elicits such a response in you, it will do so in the reader, as long as it’s not a meaningless death.

If it’s the first option, I’d say try it; if it really doesn’t sit right, change it. If it does, leave it, and look back on it in re-writes and see how you feel then.

So sorry, this turned into a monolith, and most of it is my babbling. Good luck!

[Euan H.]

I'm not one of those fans. One of the things I don't like about the series is the number of characters he kills off. Sure, some have to die, but it's to the point where I don't want to invest in any of the characters because many will die, anyway.
I'm with you. I have lost interest in that series--and one of the reasons was the death of one of the main characters. I feel like I have wasted my time reading about that person's threads in the story. Yes, I know it's more realistic, and life is like that, but fiction is not life.

Edited to add:

Thinking about it, it's not so much the fact that the character died, but the manner in which he died. At the end of Macbeth, narrative logic demands that Macbeth die. Same with Romeo and Juliet. But in this case, the death of the character just felt like the author setting out to prove that he could and would kill off main characters if he felt like it. This is fine (cf. the first chapter of 'It' by S. King), but not, I think, after so much time (the third door-stopper book of a six (?) book series).

[maestrowork]

I understand what you mean, but do you think maybe keeping the character alive made it more surprising for your wife to read?

Actually, by his wife's comment my guess is that it's actually more emotionally satisfying for her to see the character live. So if he actually kills the character just to make it tragic, I bet his wife would resent that... unless there's a very good reason, and it makes sense.

[scarletpeaches]

I once killed a character with a rolling pin. Do I win a prize?

[TheIT]

I once killed a character with a rolling pin. Do I win a prize?

In the scenario I have in mind, I'm using an avalanche.

Right now his fate isn't sealed. The idea to kill off this character came to me last night when I was considering possible directions for the story. If it happens, it'll happen toward the end and I haven't written that far yet, so I've got time to decide. If he dies, it will have ramifications for the other characters and part of the story will need to deal with the consequences.

I don't remember the source offhand, but I read some writing advice once which stated, "If blood, then grief." I dislike stories where characters get killed and none of the other characters seem to notice, or care. Death should have an impact.

[brinkett]

But in this case, the death of the character just felt like the author setting out to prove that he could and would kill off main characters if he felt like it. This is fine (cf. the first chapter of 'It' by S. King), but not, I think, after so much time (the third door-stopper book of a six (?) book series).
I agree. I haven't lost in interest in the series (A Feast for Crows is the first book I've ever pre-ordered), but my interest has gone down a notch.

There's an interview with Martin in the latest issue of Locus. In it, he says, "I didn't plan to bring in such a multiplicity of viewpoint characters, but the stories are sufficiently complex in themselves that I needed to. (Still, I'm going to have to start killing some of them!)"

So I suspect some characters aren't killed for story reasons, but to make his life easier. The reader can tell, and it grates.

[Gabriele]

(Still, I'm going to have to start killing some of them!)"


So, that's the way to deal with a cast of thousand.

*makes list for desposable characters in Kings and Rebels* Most of which do get POVs. ;)

In fact, I do kill MCs. I cannot imagine a happy or even satisfying end for Roderic Sinclair (Kings and Rebels), torn as he is by conflicting loyalties, broken oaths and the incapability to accept the forgiving of his friend, his liege and even one of his enemies because he can't forgive himself; someone has to die at the end of Storm over Hadrian's Wall, and I picked Cailthearn because Talorcan has gone through so much that he deserves to survive or some readers might be really pissed; Alamir (Endangered Frontiers) dies in a vain attempt to save his king, which responds to his very first scene where he does save the king. All those novels have several MCs, though. The only NiP that has only one, The Charioteer, will not see Ciaran dead in the end, but he won't get Julia - no way I can make that work in the historical context.

As a writer, I don't have problems to kill characters dear to me. After all, I like those scenes as a reader if they are well worked into the book.

[azbikergirl]

In my fantasy novel WIP, I pretty much have to kill off at least one minor character, a child, and I hate to do it. I've heard from some beta readers that killing an animal character is rarely a good idea (readers hate it). Is the same true of children characters?

[TheIT]

I'm not sure about reactions for killing off child characters, but I've read that Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) received more hate mail for killing the sperm whale by dropping it out of orbit than for blowing up the earth.

[TheIT]

Putting a child character in jeopardy is definitely going to provoke a stronger reaction from parents or anyone who has to take care of a child. My brother once commented that he can't watch Law & Order: SVU since he became a father because the stories about crimes against children are too difficult to bear. As a father, he automatically pictures his daughters in those horrible situations.

I think it goes back to the "If blood, then grief" advice, and also most of the comments on this thread. Does killing off the character make sense to the story? A child or animal character is almost by definition sympathetic when something bad happens to them because they can't defend themselves like an adult. Many powerful stories have been written which deal with the deaths of children or animals.

[katiemac]

Dear authors:

Please do not kill any animals. Thanks.

Kids? Knock yourself out.

-- katiemac

[LloydBrown]

Does anyone else have misgivings about killing off their characters?

George R. R. Martin doesn't. He plays Whac-A-Mole with his. Hey, readers like this guy. Whack! She's just too cool for words. Whack! Oh, this one has some serious plot potential going on. Whack! Whack!

[Zonk]

Dear authors:

Please do not kill any animals. Thanks.

Kids? Knock yourself out.

-- katiemac

:faint::faint::faint:

[SeanDSchaffer]

Does anyone else have misgivings about killing off their characters?


I do to some extent, feel uneasy about it. Especially if the character is a Main Character. Nevertheless, if the story won't work in my mind without the character dying, I feel I have to go with killing the character off.

But every time I do something like that, I find it very difficult, almost to the point that I feel like I've slain a part of my own soul.

It's all a part of the Craft, I guess. The Story is what really matters, and I for one am never satisfied with the Story until I get it right. Even if it means killing off a Character.

[azbikergirl]

I'm not sure about reactions for killing off child characters, but I've read that Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) received more hate mail for killing the sperm whale by dropping it out of orbit than for blowing up the earth.
Oh dear. I kill a horse in my first novel. Maybe it'll help if the horse's rider is visibly grieved?

[PeeDee]

I always get really annoyed if, when I start writing a character, I know that later in the story, s/he's going to die. Annoying. Then, I have to focus enough on that character that I don't wind up making a boring cardboard cutout, simply because I knew they were going to croak and I didn't waste time building them up.

I love it when I'm churning through a novel or a story and I reach a point, and I sit back in surprise and blink because I just realized that when I bring these two characters together, there's honestly nothing to be done for it but for the one to kill the other. I love that. I'm shocked, dismayed, and all the future storylines I was building for that character are sharply cut off. Plus, I try to just let my shock and dismay fall headfirst into the story. It doesn't matter if the reader is shocked (of course I want it, to an extent, but whether or not they are is not entirely in my control) but I find that if MY shock and dismay are there while writing it, it's generally condusive to the same emotions in them.

[cwilliard]

I am considering doing the same to the main character in the novel that I am currently writing, the third I've written all of which are about organized crime. As a writer writing about the Mob, all I do is kill characters. The first novel I wrote three people die in the first chapter, including the person for whom the book is titled; Salvatore Dragoni, the books title; Belly of the Dragon.

In my current novel I am actually thinking about writing two endings, one where the main character lives and one where he dies and letting things sort themselves out natraully. However, it will be difficult to kill him given how he started out the story and how he has changed. If I decide that it makes the story better for him to die then "he's gotta go." If any writer thinks that it would make their stories more gripping and is realistic to the story and the character's environment go ahead and "whack" their characters.

[zornhau]

I quite enjoyed setting up the villain's son as the Guy of Gisborne character, then having my protagonist behead him after a short sword fight.

I've already killed one likeable character, and two are due to die fighting near the end. But, hey, it's fiction.

[Jaycinth]

I killed off a character that I really liked. I put it off for awhile, allowing him to get through a few tough situations and to teach the people around him how to get out of a tough situation. I had just decided to let him go back to his wife and grandchildren and cultivate peaches when a situation arose in the story and before I knew it...he was dead. I did not mean to do it. He just decided to be noble one more time, and if I resurrected him..if he lived, the entire story would not only change, but several other characters would die in a dreadful manner. So I had to let him stay dead.

I went into shutdown at that point and grieved for a month before I could write anything else. A few months later, my beta reader read the death and called me up in tears..."WHY??????" So we had a wake and drank wine and ate cheese, and that's what it took to snap me out of it. I still dread the re-write on this. I think I was in love. ( And wouldn't you know, he was married!)

In other words; don't force it. If your character 'wants' to die, it will happen in the flow of the story and trying to prevent it (or cause it) will make your tale stilted and unpalatable.
(Spelling devils haunt my fingers!!!!)

[DivaNicoletta]

I feel so bad about killing off my characters sometimes, especially the ones I have grown most attatched too and that I don't want to kill. I have to kill this one character at the end of my novel, but i really don't want to, even though it is for the benefit of the plot! :Hammer:

[SeanDSchaffer]

As some of you already know, I'm working on the second draft of one Work-in-Progress. But once I'm finished with that second draft, I'm going to set it aside and work on a brand-new one.

The brand-new one is a derivative work of a book that is out through P(cough, cough)a. In this derivative work, one of my favorite characters from the previous work is already dead, slain by, well, I'm not sure exactly how he died just yet.

But he was one of my most beloved characters. Yet for the purpose of the story he has to be dead, there are no two ways about it. The story requires it.

It's a painful situation, to say the least, but if I keep the character alive through the new work, the story just won't work, in my humble opinion.

I try to think of my characters as actors and actresses. In my mind, I portray their 'deaths' as an act, and that the characterrs themselves are still alive in my mind, ready to act in whatever other job I might have for them to do. (Such as a prequel, or perhaps a story that takes place at the same time as the work previous to the characters' deaths.)

That's how I have, in the last few days, come to look at the issue of killing off a character.

[banjo]

Sometimes you just have to kill somebody. You won't go to jail for it, so waste him!:)

I have a villain who is so rotten he has to die. The problem I had was that my beta readers came to love his rottenness. I'm gonna kill him anyway and with extreme predjudice. But i have to write a prequel to this story so my readers will have more of him.

If the death of a character is necessary or furthers the plot, I believe that he, or she for that matter, should be done in.

I'm no sexist.:guns:

[triceretops]

I tried desperately to kill off somebody in my sci-fi thriller, and by rights, somebody should have eaten it, since it is a Starship Troopers type battle to the death. But I ended up stranding my zoologist and the geologist on a planet that is 12 light years out. So I as much killed them I believe, unless I travel out there in a sequal to pick them up. Lots of life threatening flesh wounds, but no deaths out of eight players. This tugs at me.

Tri

[Unique]

I had 5, count 'em, 5 dead people in my story. I figured out a way to 'unkill' 3 of them. The other 2...no way to unkill them without a total rewrite so they'll have to stay dead.

When a character dies right in front of your eyes, it's hard to unkill them; if you leave a nice loophole where they are presumed dead, you can go back and save them if you need to. I like loopholes.... :)

I don't know why I got so squeamish about killing them. I think it was an, 'OMG - what will people think?' reaction. My characters were a little too close to 'real life'. I'll have to wait and see if it happens with characters who aren't so close to me. <shrug>

[SusanR]

This past week, I've realized that I have to make my main character's life a whole lot more miserable, and I feel really bad about it. In my first draft, I gave a her a Big Problem: a New York state senator, running for US Senate, has a compelling political reason to quash her investigation of a nearly two hundred year old murder. (She's a medical examiner.) Given his (relatively) small potatoes status, there wasn't much he could do to her.

But then I raised the stakes. I made him the New York state governor running for president, and able to do a LOT to her. I also changed her husband from funny, charming, loving and supportive, to funny, charming, loving and for very plausible reasons, quite unsupportive. In fact, he sort of leaves her alone in the clutch.

As I write these "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", I keep apologizing to her.

I've also been known to cry while writing scenes of intense emotion. Then I laugh at myself, because I think of that scene in the movie "Romancing the Stone" when the character Joan Wilder, a romance novelist, cries while typing her pages.

I'm a cliche!
SusanR

[StoryG27]

I've never killed off a main character, but I've made them plead and even hope for death. I will kill off a sympathetic character, but my main one lives because I HATE when authors put me through that in a book. Sadness is fine, but if I wanted to be depressed, I could just call my mom. I like my emotions invested, but I don't like them to be manipulated when I'm reading.

As for writing... I truly love my characters, it's a shame I have to torture them so.

[aruna]

I am famous for killing off characters. In my first book, one major character loses 4 babies to death. A major, beloved character dies a horrible death. Many readers said they were devastated by that death.

In my second book, one fairly important character gets killed off. Another one has a fate which is as good as death.

In my third book, a child loses her mother, and then her stepmoter.

In my fourth, there's onle one death, but in the last chapter.

All the deaths were necessary.

[maestrowork]

There are certainly deaths in my first novel, but not what you expect...

In my WIP, within the first 10 chapters, I think there're at least 3 deaths. There will be more deaths for sure...

I don't kill characters just for the fun of it, though. They die for a very strong reason -- it doesn't matter if they're good or bad. And believe me, everyone of them complains... ;)

[fallenangelwriter]

I've written stories involving significant loos of life, but i've noticed a few dificulties in making it work.

for one thing, killing off characters emphatically does not work as a means of shrinking your cast. a dead character is still a character, and frequently just as important as a living one.

one of my stories killed more than half of the named characters, including multiple viewpoint characters. however, they all had a part to play in the climax, even ones who'd been dead for quite some time.

[Avalon]

I'm coming into the discussion late!

For what it's worth, I had to bow out of George RR in the middle of the third book. I just couldn't take the death anymore. In the beginning it was fresh and new and engagingly tragic. By the middle of the third book, for me it had become nearly comical, in a twisted B-horror movie kind of way... a sort of Titus Andronicus for the fantasy-loving masses. "Enter the empress' sons with Lavinia, her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravished." So, I put the third one down and am done with the series. I doubt I'll ever try it again, and I think it likely I'll do a little research before picking up another George RR.

(An aside: The other night was watching that penguin movie with some friends and their little daughters, and after about a half hour I had to leave. I couldn't stand to see one more poor frozen egg or poor dead hatchling or pathetic grieving parent penguin.)

As for killing imy characters in general, I wonder if I should be sadder about it. It doesn't tend to make me sad; on the contrary, it tends to make me chortle and wring my hands in unholy joy, as I contemplate the effects on all the other poor characters. Look at them! They're devastated! This... rocks!

Ok, I'm twisted. Maybe I just need more coffee.

[Sage]

I found it much easier to take killing off important characters in my NaNo novel than in my WIP, though both have some deaths. In my NaNo novel, besides my villains & extras, I killed off one of my favorite characters & barely worried about it. I think it's because the speed at which I wrote the novel (& was writing the death scene) didn't allow me to get as attached to that character as I am w/ the ones in the WIP. In my WIP, I only killed off characters that deserved it (on varying levels), but one of them deserved it less & was a reluctant kill, but necessary for the plot.

[Novilia]

Kill them! Kill them all!

Okay not really, I just felt like saying...well typing that.

When it comes to the killing of a character it all comes down to..is it the right thing for the novel. Personally, i believe in very little exception making based on audience reaction. If they don't like it, too bad. This is my book and my character and if I feel like killing him...he dies! As the writer, I have a point to make that requires his death or in order for my character to stay true to his personality he has to do such-and-such in such-and-such a situation and therefore, he dies. What else is there to do? Is he going to magically loose his integrity for the event just so he'll survive? Unless that's his character, than of course not! That would be unrealistic and cheat the reader of the deep emotional connection he/she may have with the character.

[fallenangelwriter]

Novillia-

taking your readers views into account isn't the same as changing it to please an audience.

the reason we have beta readers is to find out what works and what fails. occaisonally you will want your readers upset or hurt, but if everyone who reads abook says it would be better if so-and-so lived (not just that they're sad he died) then they're often right.

anyway, you don't have to destroy character integrity to keep someone alive. first of all, given any reasonably complex character, there are a number of plausible ways for them to react to a situation. the more intense and complicated hte saituation, the more options and the mroe potential for them to do something unexpected. if they still make the fatal decision, you still have at least tow options: rewrite the story so that the situation doesn't arise, or let them make thier decision and survive it. in many cases, a character chooses to undertake something extremely dangerous, but you have the ability ot decide whether they make it through or not.

[Novilia]

Hmmm, yes I do see what you mean about not having to change a character's integrity in order for them to survive, but I do think that that if you have to think forever for a way for some small piece of the character's brain to make an ulternate decision, then maybe it wasn't ment to be. There have been instances were I tried to make something work, but it was like I was betraying the story because I was defying logic by doing such-and-such. If it is a MAJOR thing that needs to happen, then, yes, you can mold the story around to fit your purposes. I'm not reaaly the kind of person that organizes a bizillion events and tries to string them together. I just have a general idea, sit down, and begin letting the characters take me on their own wild adventure in their own world. It's really kind of cool. The point being I don't usually think about characters dying, they just sort of do. When I force it, it feels wrong.

[CaelinPaul]

This thread has been fun to read...I killed off one of my main characters in the first 30 pages and my wife wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the day :)