Un-killing a character...

I just rewrote it so she was shot, near fatally, but not killed. Her death was too Whedonesque for my taste, so I had to bring her back.

Depends on the genre. Fiction, I'd go with something like Deadly mentioned. Fantasy...well, there's a lot of room to work with on that one. I axed a character, but he had to be alive for something later. Problem was, his earlier death was important to the storyline, so I just had another one of my characters sacrifice himself to bring the other back. Character two was SOL, but such is life.

Killed the second MC with an extremely unholy, soul-devouring weapon.

First MC (who was a Grim Reaper) forced Thanatos to revive second MC.

Second MC comes back as a Grim Reaper, since a true resurrection is impossible after the circumstances of her death.

Still not sure what happens next. End of book?

In a WIP I killed off a couple characters...but then I missed the complexity they brought to the book, so they kind of just came back...they hadn't actually died...

it's amazing, innit?

Yep. I killed a character last summer, but she was having none of it. So I re-wrote the ending, and it worked much better.

Give yourself a few weeks to decide, though, if your character really needs to die. Sometimes they do, so you want to be sure you don't resurrect them just because you're grieving.

I killed two characters in my first draft. Then I realized I couldn't kill Jack AND Udo in the same page. So I ended up re-writing it and adding in a third character to take Jack's evil traits (so he becomes a good guy) and take Udo's bullet. Ha! That worked.

My dude just wouldn't die to begin with. He refused. Which is surprising, since he spends a lot of time being borderline suicidal.

In my original loose outline for my series one of my main characters was killed in the 7th book. Well, when I was going through and writing the detailed scene outline for that same book some months later, her brother, my true MC, informed me that if I killed his sister, he quit. He loved her too much to carry on with the main plot, and her death had the (quite unexpected) result of him losing his magical powers (uh, it's complicated why). Basically, if I killed her, the series would end there, in tragedy. I certainly couldn't have that, so I had little choice about changing the scene. I decided to strike a bit of a compromise and made it so one of the bad guys created a magical illusion that made it LOOK like his sister had been killed, when she was actually just captured. I couldn't just eliminate the scene because I needed something that would distract and disorganize the protags enough that one of the three different villains could carry out her malicious strike against them. Having it be a magical illusion actually worked out better, because it left several aspects of her death that didn't 'add up', distracting the protags who didn't care deeply about her with a mystery to solve on top of the 'tragedy'. Then she escapes and shows up in time to save the day, which is just so much cooler than dying.

I also kill another of my main characters in the second book, but the main plot of that book is the amazing journey into the land of the dead to get her back. Resurrecting a character this way carries its own set of problems, though.

Anyway, I admit to being a complete wimp about killing MCs, just like I always insist on writing a happy ending. (Secondary characters, villains, henchmen, and innocent bystanders are a whole different story, though. I love killing them and do it often.)

I never felt any 'cloud' over my resurrected characters. I've made so many plot changes to the series that I don't take any initial ideas too seriously, no matter how good they sound. Since she didn't die, why would I even worry about it? I don't look at anything as having actually 'happened' until I type 'FINAL EDIT' at the top of the chapter heading. My first outline and the current draft of my completed novel are barely recognizable as the same story.

I've only had this happen once, in a short story. In the original draft, the main character gets speared through the chest, and dies at the end after much suffering...

In the second, the exact same thing happens, except that she manages to live--which is a more typical reaction for one of my heroines to getting run through with a spear, anyway.

I call this "Doyling" and I think it's probably the greatest sin in written word. Literally. It disgusts, confuses and annoys me.

Named after Sir Author Conan Doyle (or something like that) and his killing of, and later revival, of his character Sherlock Holmes. After killing him off fans demanded that he be revived; and so he was. The excuse was that the mysteries happened BEFORE his inexplicable dip into a waterfall, ergo, it wasn't cheating.

Doyling. Any time you revive a character that you didn't lay the groundwork out for PREVIOUS to the death is Doyling. If people can be revived, that's fine. Make it clear beforehand.

SPOILER ALERT.

Jesus, for instance, was not a Doyle. Jesus, before his death, revived Lazarus. Therefore, when comes back to life himself later on in the story, it's not impossible.

Doyling, noticibly, only occurs on likable characters and truly sinister villans. If you don't have a story without the death of the character you should probably rethink killing them.

More forms of Doyling:

Flashbacks: Yes, in the sense of context, you're not cheating. But if you kill a character off he should be good and dead and any more time spent with him is something you missed.

Notes from beyond the grave: Why does everyone who died in a parlor write out an exquisite not detailing, almost as if it were an outline for the story, characters and their true motivations? Couldn't they have just told the protagonist? Did they have to hide it from everyone but the hero? What is about being stabbed them makes someone so attracted to a stationary over a cellphone?

Spontaneous revival, or, the AH-HA: No. Either kill your character or don't. If you have them falling to death, don't make every character in the book so damn stupid that they can't look down the hole and say "Hey, this is only a few feet deep!" This is typically done with villains but can be done with good guys, too.

It only LOOKED like I was dead!: Also, no comatose states. Unless someone else is in a comatose state and revives out of it, or you've specifically introduced the vial of elixir that causes this state, don't. This rule is also know as a J&R or a reverse Romeo and Juliette.

I'll leave you with this: You're sad that your character died. Do you think your audience will feel the same way? If they do you've done your job as a storyteller. You've made them feel something genuine. If you're going to keep them around they damn well BETTER be able to pay more in whatever qualities you like than that tragic death. Otherwise you're just taking the suckers money.

In my most recent manuscript, I killed off a favorite supporting character as part of a plot twist (about 100 pages before the end). As I kept writing, I realized that I didn't want to his death to be permanent. Figuring out how to "resurrect" him gave me great fodder for Main Character Angst in the final few chapters, and helped define yet another supporting character.

And let's face it, Main Character Angst rocks.

Hmm. I don't think Nicole means to leave the death in; I think she's considering a rewrite that would make the character not die in the first place -- right? Rewriting holds endless possibilities.

Anyway, it's best to assure yourself that the death is necessary -- and if it is necessary, leave it in, no matter how much your character begs to live.

I had to kill a character in order to enrich another character. I didn't want him to die. No one wanted him to die (shut up, dude! It was for the best! No, you can't come back...) Ahem. This guy was my other guy's only friend. I had to kill him for a number of reasons (yes, they were good reasons, stop whining!) -- it was the only thing that would work for the story.

I'm probably not making any sense at all. Excuse me, I need more coffee...

I've killed off characters and then changed my mind, went back and re-wrote the scene so that the character lived. She was just too b!tchy to die.

One of the guys I killed was a big leader of a religious group, so I just brought him back for a kind of war. I brought a lot of characters back at the same time so it was fun writing about those that I had once really loved again.

ChaosTitan said:

In my most recent manuscript, I killed off a favorite supporting character as part of a plot twist (about 100 pages before the end). As I kept writing, I realized that I didn't want to his death to be permanent. Figuring out how to "resurrect" him gave me great fodder for Main Character Angst in the final few chapters, and helped define yet another supporting character.

And let's face it, Main Character Angst rocks.

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Speaking of Main Character Angst, I had killed off my MC's love interest and then realized that that just sucked, so I switched who died--I killed off her brother instead of her lover. And it ended up making the ending much better and more Angsty.

(Oh, and is your avatar of Simon by any chance, or am I just imagining things?)

The beauty of writing is you can undo death and the readers never know! I've toyed with killing my MC at the end of the story, but she doesn't want to die, so I simply highlighted the text and hit "Backspace." Poof. She lives happily ever after (sort of).

As Zoombie would understand, you could also have the ChronoGuard fix it.

What if you don't kill off your characters at all?

MilesZ said:

What if you don't kill off your characters at all?

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There's no rule that you have to kill characters. Loads of books have characters who all live.

You know inside whether they need to live or die. I had a tough time of my WIP until I realized one of the MCs was dead. She only showed up in flashbacks and once I realized she was dead it made the whole thing SOOOO much better. Now her death scene, when I finally got to it, was devastating to write. But it was made easier knowing she had to be dead. Look inside and sleep on it. Trust your dreams. Wow...look at me being all deep today?!

Watch my soap (General Hospital) or any soap, they unkill folks all the time! Be it an identical twin, a totally UNrelated identical twin, I've even seen identical COUSINS on GH...or just folks that didn't actually die. They went underground. They almost died and had amnesia. They were kidnapped and a lookalike died. Etc etc.

WordGypsy said:

You know inside whether they need to live or die. I had a tough time of my WIP until I realized one of the MCs was dead. She only showed up in flashbacks and once I realized she was dead it made the whole thing SOOOO much better. Now her death scene, when I finally got to it, was devastating to write. But it was made easier knowing she had to be dead. Look inside and sleep on it. Trust your dreams. Wow...look at me being all deep today?!

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I realized my MC's father was dead. He's not the type of man that would EVER abandon his children, but he was never around. Then, I thought, oh, well, he's dead then. And it actually fit the story well, and gives my MC the angst I need her to have.

Yes, I too love MC angst.

I can relate to that. I enjoyed killing one of my characters so much that I brought him back in an alternate reality and killed him again.

Let the dead stay dead or you are cheating the reader. They went though the appropriate emotional reaction, but pulling a fast one by bringing them back is a cheap trick to create drama without consequences.

It can be done deftly, but when it's in every other story, and happens to half a dozen characters, I get really peeved!