Death of a Character

[Sii]

So, I just wrote a chapter and I killed off a character. They were one of the main characters but that's beside the point for my project because I have a bunch of them.

The plan to kill this character only just came to me last night as I was finishing up the previous chapter. I went into the chapter feeling pretty good about it and didn't really think too much on it.
Then, while writing, it hit me emotionally. I hadn't spent as much time with the character, probably a good 10-13 chapters, but it still kind of hurt. I like to think I'm a pretty callous person but I didn't expect to feel so emotional about killing off a character. I am, admittedly, a grimdark fan, but dammit if I keep getting emotionally attached to characters I'ma have a hard time killing them later on.

How do you all deal with killing off a character/death of a character? How emotionally connected do you all get to your characters?

 

[GDLiZy]

It feels good to cry when your character dies. That means you have succeeded in evoking emotional responses.

 

[D4isuke]

You have to let someone dies, so that others may live.

Although killing off some characters in the middle of horror/slasher setting like how American films do is just a straight-up fanservice and shock value.

 

[Leti]

I don't kill my characters, I send them to the afterlife instead. In a work of fiction, death isn't irreversible. However, there is no shame in feeling emotional over character deaths. It's acceptable for an author to be attached to their character. Especially when you spent a significant amount of time thinking about their development.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

So, I just wrote a chapter and I killed off a character. They were one of the main characters but that's beside the point for my project because I have a bunch of them.

The plan to kill this character only just came to me last night as I was finishing up the previous chapter. I went into the chapter feeling pretty good about it and didn't really think too much on it.
Then, while writing, it hit me emotionally. I hadn't spent as much time with the character, probably a good 10-13 chapters, but it still kind of hurt. I like to think I'm a pretty callous person but I didn't expect to feel so emotional about killing off a character. I am, admittedly, a grimdark fan, but dammit if I keep getting emotionally attached to characters I'ma have a hard time killing them later on.

How do you all deal with killing off a character/death of a character? How emotionally connected do you all get to your characters?

Yeah my characters if they die will become ghosts. If they are women, they'd still be dicked down. Men? Exorcised.

 

[ChronicleCrawler]

Make it damn glorious! Until it feels like you've done the character justice. So that even if he dies, he/she will live in you!Meh, not really. Just spam the chappys so everyone's happy.

 

[NotaNuffian]

I feel sad of course, to others who had not read the story or those who distanced themselves from the characters emotionally might think that those who cried are crazy, but to the writer who born and grew the characters and readers who stayed along the process, it is like watching a child or pet grow and having it died, might be worse for the writer who is the one who condemned the death.

 

[LostLibrarian]

How do you all deal with killing off a character/death of a character? How emotionally connected do you all get to your characters?

While I feel connected to them due to all the time thinking about them, I didn't really have to "deal with a death" so far. Simply because I plan ahead and these characters are introduced to die at a specific moment. So while it can be a hit, it's one I saw coming for months or years. My way to "deal" with it, is having their death impact the story/main characters in some way. So in the end it's the "the death wasn't useless" theme for me.

Weirdly enough, more than deaths, it's stuff like characters getting treated like shit or having stupid/unfair arguments that impact me more... maybe because that feels closer to reality for me...

 

[ForestDweller]

I don't really feel anything. Their death is necessary to the story so they would die.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

I don't kill characters anymore. I killed a character based on my dead boyfriend the day before he died back in 2015. I don't think it was a causal action but rather a prediction. That story is in a paper notebook and will never see the light of day. Still, I'm going to stay on the safe side.

 

[Tejoka]

I don't really feel sad when I write a character's death, more when I write how the other characters react to it, when they grieve or something. Or just when something really bad happens to them besides death, like getting tortured. But I don't kill characters that I really want to continue to write about, so I guess that's why it isn't so bad. The one time I'd planned for a main character to die, I changed it because I realized the story would be better without it, and there was enough trauma anyway (that was the one getting tortured), so I guess I cheated.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I don't have that problem because when I create a character, I'd have their life story be planned from beginning to end. The fact that the character will die would already be settled with me since their creation, along with all the grief and sadness I'm supposed to receive from their death since, well, I already know they will die somewhere down the line. I'm the type of guy to put more value on the journey rather than the destination. I'd feel sadder towards a character with missed potential than a really well-written character's demise.

To put an example, Joel from The Last of Us. He already finished his character arc and came to terms with loss by finding a new daughter. I find his death to be depressing, but not to the point where I'll bawl in tears and cry to the merciless heavens. It's bound to come at some point and I'm happy he was able to find a means to his end before his death. That's not to say I feel the same about how his death was HANDLED. That would be another can of worms to be open full of wrath and anger.

 

[JayDirex]

I'm pretty bad my main characters will get shot multiple times and live but if it's a background henchmen character, PLEASE! he'll be lucky if he makes it out of the scene alive.

Action, Fantasy novels are a ZERO SUM game. Somebodies gotta die to make the main character sexy and brooding (and able to acquire harems).

 

[Sacred_Night]

So, I just wrote a chapter and I killed off a character. They were one of the main characters but that's beside the point for my project because I have a bunch of them.

The plan to kill this character only just came to me last night as I was finishing up the previous chapter. I went into the chapter feeling pretty good about it and didn't really think too much on it.
Then, while writing, it hit me emotionally. I hadn't spent as much time with the character, probably a good 10-13 chapters, but it still kind of hurt. I like to think I'm a pretty callous person but I didn't expect to feel so emotional about killing off a character. I am, admittedly, a grimdark fan, but dammit if I keep getting emotionally attached to characters I'ma have a hard time killing them later on.

How do you all deal with killing off a character/death of a character? How emotionally connected do you all get to your characters?

Have you ever enjoyed writing a side character, more than the MC? Or just find yourself overall liking that character more? It's a bit scary but exciting when you're willing to kill off any character. It's like you have to do the fair well justice y'know

 

[GhostlyArtz]

When I create a character, I usually instantly kill them off and then work backwards. Sometimes I decide to change their death up, but usually it just sticks. Am I attached to them? Yeah, there is so much more to them than just their death. Everybody eventually dies, so I'm just giving them the ending they would eventually get anyways.
Like, there is a certain bit of peace by giving your characters a set ending. If you just leave them off willy nilly with their 'happy ever after', so much could happen. Life can happen. How do they deal with everything? Etc etc. Versus if they die in the story? That's it. It's closure for that character's story line.

Plus, nothing stops you from going back and adding a prologue for them. But at the same time, I am also the kind of person who enjoy their fav character dying/being tortured/etc. Probably because that's what happens anyways to my favs so I've just grown accustomed to it and mimic it to my own children.

 

[Queenfisher]

I don't have that problem because when I create a character, I'd have their life story be planned from beginning to end. The fact that the character will die would already be settled with me since their creation.

Oh, agree 100%. I have never really written a character whose life/death status I wouldn't know by the end of the story, or at least a looooong time in advance. Some times, I realized only by the midpoint that somebody has to die, but it's still long enough to prepare myself to it mentally. So once I'm deep in writing the second half of the book, usually everything becomes pretty much set in stone without toppling a ton of arcs and plots if I change even the smallest thing (and death of a character is not a small thing).

For me, it comes down to the meaning of the character's death. If it's meaningful, then it's unavoidable, and I won't feel sad about it at all -- it becomes like a 2+2=4 for my story. Just kind of a logical and not an emotional experience ^^.

If a character's death is not meaningful (shock value, for example -- sometimes it also has to be done), then I don't feel sad about it either. I would never give a not-meaningful (shock-value) death to a character that has a lot of storytelling weight. It is always going to be some redshirt. So why feel sad about them if they're only instrumental?

Where I absolutely can start bawling my eyes out -- is when I have to describe some other character's reaction to a meaningful death of a beloved +_+. Maybe I have a sleeping Stanislavsky actor inside me, but this kind of stuff really takes an emotional toll on me because I have to imagine experiencing such devastating grief in order to describe it correctly, and in the end... I kinda simulate that grief until it stops feeling solely simulated T_T.

(I have the same issue with simulating anger and fear to properly describe them. I sometimes scare myself so much with trying to imagine some seriously spooky shit my characters are seeing/being tormented by! I have to stop writing in those moments because I might start panicking, feeling pursued!)

 

[Sii]

I don't have that problem because when I create a character, I'd have their life story be planned from beginning to end. The fact that the character will die would already be settled with me since their creation, along with all the grief and sadness I'm supposed to receive from their death since, well, I already know they will die somewhere down the line. I'm the type of guy to put more value on the journey rather than the destination. I'd feel sadder towards a character with missed potential than a really well-written character's demise.

To put an example, Joel from The Last of Us. He already finished his character arc and came to terms with loss by finding a new daughter. I find his death to be depressing, but not to the point where I'll bawl in tears and cry to the merciless heavens. It's bound to come at some point and I'm happy he was able to find a means to his end before his death. That's not to say I feel the same about how his death was HANDLED. That would be another can of worms to be open full of wrath and anger.

I wish I could plan. I'm a discovery writer and I don't like to plan things out. Setting myself up for failure/heartache is kinda something I'm good at.

Your example makes a lot of sense. I haven't played TLOU2 yet but I'd be lying if I said I haven't seen any of the controversy surrounding it.

 

[AkalE]

Death of character = soul-saving side quest!!!
Have you learned nothing from I shall Seal the heavens and all the other CNs?

What you want is a dick MC from chapter 1 to chapter 10001+
That's the recipe to success.

No, no don't clap. It's embarrassing.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Death of character = soul-saving side quest!!!
Have you learned nothing from I shall Seal the heavens and all the other CNs?

What you want is a dick MC from chapter 1 to chapter 10001+
That's the recipe to success.

No, no don't clap. It's embarrassing.

it IS embarrassing, just not in the way you expect it to be

 

[AkalE]

it IS embarrassing, just not in the way you expect it to be

Guess I have the thick skin bit covered. All I need to do now is become an author...