Killing Children

Kill the boy, my friend. If he was meant to die, kill him. Don't go soft based on feedback from emotion. They haven't even read the execution yet. Mayhaps they will read the death and weep like Betty Crybaby...and they say they'll kill you if you lose it. Kill the boy. And then make your group suffer the read. Shame on them.

CaroGirl said:

Aw, that's sweet. Where else could I go on the internet and be so heartily encouraged to kill a child. Thanks, man. <3

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That's a signature worthy quote right there.

allthefeels said:

I took a creative writing class in college. One of our assignments was to write a short story. Mine was dark, and involved a mother who went insane and murdered her two children. My professor required me to change it and have the children run away.

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I take it this prof would have had Euripides change the ending of Medea as well then?

I don't think you should shy away from writing something that serves the story just because some readers might not like it - maybe they're just not your target audience. Write the story you feel moved to write, write it well, and it will find its audience. Writing a story by committee trying to cater to the vagaries of public opinion is like trying to net smoke.

I dunno I remember Donald Maass talking about how stories can be as dark as anything but they MUST have a glimmer of hope in them somewhere for the reader.

There have been cases in the news where children were "this" close to dying before they were saved such as Lauren Kavanagh and Jordan Bleimeyer. You could have dialogue or internal monologue from cops comparing him to similar cases where the child did not survive to be honest about the message, but I say don't kill off your main character. Or have a sibling die but not the main character. Although mind you in many of these cases there are siblings who are not abused, the parent tells themselves "well see it's not my problem. I was good to the other kids it's this bad one," while using one or two of the children to take out all their rage and sadism.

Uh-oh. I just realized I sort of violently killed two children in my last story and three puppies in the one before. What's wrong with me?!? Worst of all, I didn't even consider how it might turn readers off...

In both cases, the deaths are essential for the plot, thematically relevant, and not very graphic at all. And I do want readers to be upset at those points in the story. Now I realize many readers might be upset enough to stop reading...

James D. Macdonald said:

I've killed kids in various stories.

Not a whisper of backlash.

Like anything else, the death should: advance the plot, reveal character, or support the theme.

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Yes, there are many books out there where children get killed. But I think how they're killed, how much of it is offstage, how graphic it is, all matters. I close a book the moment a child gets killed on the page in a graphic manner. The same with child torture, or child sexual abuse.

There's nothing wrong with writing it, but there's nothing wrong with choosing not to read it, either, and I won't. There will be backlash if I do read these things on the page, in graphic detail. The backlash won't matter to anyone but me, but I will complain loudly to the publisher, if the killing/torture/sexual abuse is too graphic. Unless I'm warned ahead of time. Then I simply won't read the book. Fortunately, I usually am warned ahead of time, so it's seldom a problem.

I recently had a baby, so this is coming from someone who is currently really sensitive to seeing children get killed in books and films. KILL THE BOY. It sounds like the story calls for it, and the only reason you're hesitating is because your classmates are whining about it. Pfftt. Kill him. Do it well. Make them cry. Then direct them to GoT and make sure you have some good cheese at hand to go with all the whine.

CaroGirl said:

I'm not talking about killing my darlings, which I'm (mostly) prepared to do. I'm talking about killing a character who's a child. Has anyone successfully killed a child? Has anyone killed a child and got serious backlash for it from critique group members or reviewers of published work?

My WiP has a main character who's a child and I had planned to have the child die about 3/4 of the way through the novel. My story is based on a real-life incident in which a child died of abuse. But my critique group, which is only halfway through the story, has an idea of where I might be heading and have said they would be seriously upset if I kill him.

He's a four-year-old boy and is a beloved main character.

If I don't kill him, I feel like I'm doing a disservice both to the story, and the real-life child who was a victim of the circumstance I'm basing this on. But if I do kill him, I feel like I might be betraying readers. I don't want to cop out and let him live if it hurts the story. But if he lives and the novel still works, I might be able to live with that.

Thoughts?

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you gotta do what you gotta do......King got a lot of shit for saying he'd never kill a kid, then writing Pet Semetary. Maybe all the stuff about exorcising his demons after his own son nearly got hit is true, maybe he just sold out; I don't know and I don't care. Semetary did pretty damn well. And Bradbury is maybe most famous in Horror for The October Game. Two of my favorite books, Red Leaves and The Cormorant, both have dead kids at the end. I cried at both, and fucking hated the book. For a week. Neither would have been anywhere near as good though, imho, if they pulled that punch.

you gotta do what you gotta do.

allthefeels said:

I took a creative writing class in college. One of our assignments was to write a short story. Mine was dark, and involved a mother who went insane and murdered her two children. My professor required me to change it and have the children run away. Even though the alternative ending technically "worked" (the mother still made her intent to kill them clear so there was no significant deviation from her character), it still to this day bothers me that I changed the ending because I was told to.

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I'm sorry you were pressured to do this. It wasn't right. Out of curiosity, was this in the US? I like being American, but I noticed in our books and films, we are very wimpy about killing children. I never understood it, especially since compared to other "developed" nations, we are one of the most violent.

Very interesting thread. I'm currently working on an urban fantasy novel. I put an earlier draft up for critique at another site. In that version, the POV character has to shoot and kill a child. The boy was young, I forgot what age I said he was, 4 or 5 I think. One person said she couldn't possibly accept reading about a child being murdered and didn't know how any writer could overcome readers' abhorrence for child murder. Mind you, the scene showed the kid being shot, but that's all it was -- he's shot a couple times, I mention blood staining his shirt, he falls. That was the extent of the description. This reader didn't care what the reasons were for the murder, she just couldn't handle it happening.

Another critiquer had one of his own characters kill a kid, so he was fine with my story. But isn't it fascinating the different responses this issue will raise.

In the current version of my story, the POV character has a nightmare about committing the murder so it's shown in more condensed way, but the actual shooting is the same. No prolonged descriptions of where the bullets hit or brains flying, he gets shot twice and falls down. That's it. I'm hoping that scene won't lose me a bunch of readers, but I guess that's a possibility.

One thing a couple people did like was that the POV character woke from that nightmare in obvious distress over having had to shoot the kid. Since she's the protagonist these readers wanted to know that she was upset by what she had to do.

I'm leaving that in my current draft because the scene has a purpose but I'm a little nervous about it's reception! I feel better after reading this thread though, so thanks!

quicklime said:

you gotta do what you gotta do......King got a lot of shit for saying he'd never kill a kid, then writing Pet Semetary.

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I think the he killed the kid in Cujo, too, didn't he? I think that came out a year or two or three before Pet Semetary. And then in the movie version, they wouldn't let him die.

I think I need to add some classic King back onto my "to be read" list...

You really shouldn't worry about what will lose you readers. Anything you write (or fail to write) can lose you readers. Tell the story honestly.

Kill as many kids as you like, but kill a dog....

Write your story, CaroGirl. You won't be telling it true, if you don't. It sounds to me like if he lives, the whole point of the story gets lost.

I've read, or heard, or something . . . that you can't kill kids off. Publishers don't like it. People don't like it. So writers and movie makers shouldn't do it. The telling word here is "like". Nobody "likes" it, but let's don't pretend that child abuse doesn't sometimes end in the child's death. It does, and all too often. Don't whitewash your story. Anyway, that's my advice.

PeteMC said:

Yup, I have a five year old boy die violently in Drake (although sort of off-screen) which is a pivotal plot point for my MC. I haven't had a single word of criticism for it in any of my reviews, which I must admit rather surprises me.

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Haha. Yes you did do that. I was surprised, kept expecting it to turn out to be an illusion created by a demon. But no.

Two that immediately spring to mind:

Pet Sematary, Stephen King - from 1983. The story absolutely wouldn't have worked without it.
The Death House, Sarah Pinborough - from 2015. The whole *point* of the story.

Both are absolutely brilliant.

Sod it, Romeo and Juliet for that matter - from about 1600. It's hardly new.

James D. Macdonald said:

You really shouldn't worry about what will lose you readers. Anything you write (or fail to write) can lose you readers. Tell the story honestly.

Kill as many kids as you like, but kill a dog....

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hah...the beginning of The Dead Zone

Well, Jane Eyre; I imagine a couple of Dickens' novels. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles- a baby less than a week old!

I would say do it if it feels natural for the story- don't cheat the reader out of some drama. There is the potential that it could be too sensationalist or sentimental but I think that as long as you write it honestly, you should avoid those pitfalls. It sounds like your intention is to write the story honestly so I would go for it.

The Golden Compass and Ender's Game kills Roger and Bonzo respectively, though neither of them are necessarily fan favorites. The books really hone in on the tragedy and the consequences.

I agree that death can be a powerful and important aspect of literature. A lot of writers will use it for anything from gratuitous shock value to something central and meaningful in the text. Both are legitimate uses, but I dislike the first, and I think that's what a lot of agents and critiques target. Your death doesn't sound at all gratuitous, so you're fine.

If you're worried about reader response, maybe make the concession of having the death happen off screen, or describing it in a way that is ambiguous or simplified. I think some find it in bad taste if you draw out the act of death in any way.

I always thought it was a kind of compliment that readers get so protective over characters and don't want anything bad to happen to them (death or otherwise). If people care that much about a character, then the writer must have done a fantastic job making them realistic/interesting/lovable/etc.

If people don't get upset over bad things happening to a character (at least ones that don't deserve it), then that says the total opposite.

I killed a twelve-year-old in the fourth chapter of my first book. Granted, she wasn't a main character, but she was adorable and people have told me they loved her.

I haven't gotten any backlash, unless you count the "OH YOU FUCKING FUCK AAAAAAAAAAA MUST READ MORE" style of backlash...

I write adult SF superhero thrillers.

slhuang said:

I killed a twelve-year-old in the fourth chapter of my first book. Granted, she wasn't a main character, but she was adorable and people have told me they loved her.

I haven't gotten any backlash, unless you count the "OH YOU FUCKING FUCK AAAAAAAAAAA MUST READ MORE" style of backlash...

I write adult SF superhero thrillers.

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I'm definitely one of those people that was totally find with the twelve-year-old dying, but if you'd killed the puppy in the Rio short story THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN RIOTS.