death

writing-questions-answered:

Anonymous asked: People say a lot that there have to be a purpose for a chracters death, what does that mean? What is a good reason for killing a character?

Let’s start with bad reasons to kill a character:

• for shock value
• to liven things up
• for the development of another character
• because you don’t know what else to do with them

Good reasons to kill a character:

• to set off a chain of events
• to provide an important clue or piece of information
• to motivate other characters (though this can be tricky, beware of fridging and make sure the character who dies has some other purpose in the story besides acting as a motivator in death)
• because it is the only logical way to complete a character’s arc

Character deaths should serve a purpose beyond furthering another character’s development or creating shock value. However, that doesn’t mean those things can’t be a side effect of the death. It only means those can’t be the sole reason for the character’s death.

Ultimately, a character’s death–especially if they are a main character–should come as a natural completion to their story arc. They should have had a purpose in the story other than dying, and that purpose should relate in some way to why they have to die. Either their purpose in the story sets off a chain of events that ultimately leads to their death, they sacrifice their safety or their life in relation to the plot, or they are a logical casualty of the plot. For example:

• Six gladiators, including the MC, are stuck in an arena to fight to the death. One of the gladiators, the MC’s best friend, is sickly and weak going into the fight, so a seventh gladiator volunteers to take his place. Unfortunately, the MC happens to be in love with the seventh gladiator, and now they’ll have to fight to the death. Eventually they are the last two standing. Barring any conveniently placed poison berries, one of them will have to die, but we’ll have to find meaning in the death. There are several possibilities. One is that the seventh gladiator returns the MC’s affection, and he jumped on the opportunity to volunteer so he could make sure his love survives the fight. Then, when they are the last two standing, he sacrifices himself so that his love/the MC is the winner. Alternatively, it could be that the seventh gladiator was in love with the sickly best friend gladiator, and maybe he was jealous of the MC because he’s best friends with the guy he’s in love with. He volunteers to take the place of his poor sickly love. Then, when he and the MC are the last two standing, he finds he can’t kill the MC, knowing this is his love’s best friend. So he sacrifices himself. In any case, the seventh gladiator isn’t dying for the sheer heck of it. There was a purpose to his existence as well as his death.
• A young medieval courtier rises in the king’s favor, and eventually he falls in love with her and marries her. She becomes a powerful and much beloved queen. She builds schools, has books printed, promotes reason and learning–and as a result, the people get smarter and start to realize that their king is not great. As the king begins to realize what is happening, the queen falls from grace. Meanwhile, the king has rapidly lost favor with his people and there is a rebellion brewing under his nose. The king banishes his wife to a dank, chilly castle where she becomes very ill and dies. The entire kingdom is heartbroken at the news of her death, but for the rebels, it is the last straw. Eventually they rally behind the king’s younger brother who would be a much more suitable king, and the bad king dies in battle. In this case, the queen is the architect of not only her husband’s downfall, but her own. Her death isn’t random. It makes sense within the context of the plot, and also it serves the purpose of motivating her people, which ultimately leads to the death of her inadvertent (or maybe not so much?) killer, and brings better times to the kingdom.

Now, some people may disagree with the notion that a character’s death has to have a purpose and/or meaning. In real life, death is often random and meaningless. However, if your goal is to satisfy your reader and keep them coming back to your stories, it’s better not to have random character deaths. Can you get away with it? Sure. Will it piss people off? You’d better believe it! Do some best-selling novels get away with random/meaningless character deaths? All the time! As with all writing “rules” and guidelines, you have to figure out when to follow them and when to break them. Sometimes a character’s death is meaningless and random, but it just works somehow, and you can’t explain why. If that’s the case, just go for it. Unless you have that strong gut instinct, though, it’s best to make sure the death has a purpose and meaning. 🙂