Sunday, March 31, 2019

fiction - Killing off a character: deciding if, when and how


Killing off a character is a serious issue. Secondary characters or even extras can pass away without too much negative response from the readers but main characters are a whole different matter.



It saddens readers but sometimes it's unavoidable... But how do we know that? I've searched around and the advice can be summarized as follows:



  1. Kill the character if it helps/affects the plot or is important for it;

  2. The character did something that would grant his death (e.g. he was a bad guy in the past)


Are these good motivations and are there other reasons a write should consider killing a character? I thought it'd be important to go more in depth and analyze this issue because certainly we don't want writers to kill characters "just because that's what happens in other novels/movies, so I have to do it".




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