I hope this isn't too general. I wanted to ask for advice on making it unclear which characters will survive to the end. The first arc of the story involves a lot of characters, more than 12, but only a few of them will continue on to the next arc, and only a couple will survive till the end. I can give more details if necessary.
What I'm doing, Presently:
I'm not having them die off one by one sequentially, like happens in many horror movies so you expect one or two survivors. Instead, I have a cluster of character deaths during the most dangerous point in the story arc.
I feel like there are some tricks and methods you can use for this. For example, if you swap to a character's perspective long before the scene where they die, it gives the audience the impression they will survive. I feel there is more you can do, like giving the character a motivation, a goal, and interesting traits which seem like they'll be important later in the story. If someone is the expert chess player, you feel that'll become important later, then you don't expect the sniper to take them out. If a character likes another character, you expect a romance to play out. In other words, giving the characters value to the story, then killing them despite that.
What I'd like to ask, is about a method I can use as a rule of thumb, to get me started in the right direction, so I can begin to think about it more dynamically.
Thanks.
Answer
What I'd like to ask, is about a method I can use as a rule of thumb, to get me started in the right direction, so I can begin to think about it more dynamically.
As soon as you develop a rule of thumb method of grooming your characters for execution, your readers will see through it instantly. Give them some credit.
The unexpected death must be unexpected, whether the character you are about to kill is a likable goofball, annoying whiner, or a treacherous coward, and the only way to ensure the desired effect is through developing each one of them as if they are going to survive, and that survival is believable. How many stories have a really bad guy, who was doing really bad things all his really bad life, and who gets magically transformed by some emotionally charged event and sacrifices his life for the sake of others, he now cares deeply about? Guess what--from the very moment of his transformation it is clear as day that he is not going to survive, because he is already wanted dead of alive in all states of the Trans-Galactic Republic, and there is no possibility of happy ending for him, no matter how much he is transformed by the unconditional love of the scaled green puppy he saved.
Maybe this will help--not as a method, but just a technique--keep an alternative storyline in your head where your living on borrowed time character survives (I wrote that and then saw your comment where you mention this yourself, so you know what I am talking about). It does not have to be detailed and developed, only roughly sketched, but it should be acceptably realistic. Even the transformed bad guy, already sentenced to death, might find a dusty magic carpet in some corner, which can take him away from the imminent prosecution into a non-extradition paradise on the edge of the world.
If you are employing multiple POVs, make sure that your walking dead have an equal time under a spotlight with the few lucky ones who you decided to keep alive.
If it is a team heist story, make sure that all of the team members are equally important for the success of the plan...
And so on...
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