Killing off a character.

[Androxine Vortex]

I absolutely hate it when I read something and can tell that certain characters were just there to die. It makes their existence and deaths have almost no significance and it makes the author look lazy.I also can't stand it when people are dying left and right. I can understand it if it is a violent novel but it gets old and the dying looses it's "effect"

I don't believe that the main good characters have to die either. Sometimes I'll be reading and a character randomly does and I am like, "wait what?" You know what I mean; when a character dies and there was no real reason for them to? I can't stand that.

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I take Joss Whedon's view of character death: Give a well-liked character a traumatic story arc, and then just when things are getting back to normal, kill them off. (See: Tara, Wash.)

[Tasha]

I don't believe that the main good characters have to die either. Sometimes I'll be reading and a character randomly does and I am like, "wait what?" You know what I mean; when a character dies and there was no real reason for them to? I can't stand that.

If that was aimed at me killing off one of my MC's believe me it was no easy feat letting such a character go. The character is my favourite. It just naturally happened and felt needed which made the story all that much better and believable in a sense.

[Feo Takahari]

I take Joss Whedon's view of character death: Give a well-liked character a traumatic story arc, and then just when things are getting back to normal, kill them off. (See: Tara, Wash.)

Since I haven't read your work, I can't comment on exactly how you approach this, but I'm not fond of how Whedon uses character death (or at least how he used it before I gave up watching his work.)

[Lecture]You could make a lot of categories for deaths, but two of the most satisfying are the tragic (a term I know) and the triumphant (a term I'm making up because I don't know the formal one.) In the tragic death, a character is brought low because of his or her flaws. In the triumphant death, a character passes on as the price of their success in a worthy goal. These terms can easily be muddled (what do you call it if a cowardly character eventually becomes brave enough to sacrifice himself for the group?), but both imply death as a fitting conclusion to an arc.

In what I watched of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, none of the heroes died tragically, and few died triumphantly. Rather, their deaths seem to be because Whedon didn't have any more plots for them, and he decided they were expendable. Now, this could still work in a series with an overarching goal, but in Buffy, it was obvious from the start that the world could never be permanently saved, and any interest the viewers could take in the series was rooted in the character development. If a character's death is not a result of his or her development, then death renders all of that development moot, and since there was no goal for the characters to die triumphantly for, death rapidly became meaningless. (This could also work in a story about futility and purposelessness, like All Quiet on the Western Front, but let's face it--a show about a teenage girl tossing off snarky one-liners while killing big ugly monsters can't be justified in terms of high art. Alternately, we could talk about the use of character death to move the arcs of other characters, but the only time I can remember that happening was with Willow and Tara--even Jenny Calendar was forgotten after just a few episodes.)[/Lecture]

Again, I haven't read your writing, and you may well approach character death better than Whedon, but I don't think he's a good reference point to use--he basically utilizes the smaller-scale equivalent of "The dog wasn't that shaggy."

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Again, I haven't read your writing, and you may well approach character death better than Whedon, but I don't think he's a good reference point to use--he basically utilizes the smaller-scale equivalent of "The dog wasn't that shaggy."

I don't have a problem with other forms of character death (triumphant/tragic as you describe), it's just that I've seen that so many times that other mechanisms are refreshing. It's also part of why I like A Song of Ice and Fire; GRRM kills off characters because that's what would logically happen, rather than because the character has Achieved A Story Point. Ned dies neither tragically nor heroically; in fact he wasn't even supposed to die, except Joffrey's a twit. The Red Wedding happens because of a certain person's impulsive decision, but it still could have been avoided.

Which isn't to say that I don't appreciate a good tragic/triumphant death, I just don't think there's any requirement that important characters always die in one of those two ways. Anya dies (in the Buffy finale) semi-triumphantly and semi-tragically; she's fighting to defend the world, but she's not any good at it (she has no special powers). Jenny Calendar dies in the Joss way (and man, was that traumatic). Actually, I think Joss's approach to death is similar to GRRM's in some cases; Jenny Calendar died in a way that would fit perfectly into a GRRM story.

[Feo Takahari]

Like I said, the "what would logically happen" sort of death fits really well with stories like All Quiet on the Western Front, so if you're writing that sort of story, it makes sense. I guess it fits with Joss Whedon's style if Whedon is much, much more serious than I give him credit for. (I always took Buffy as inherently ridiculous, but that might be a mistake on my part.)

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Like I said, the "what would logically happen" sort of death fits really well with stories like All Quiet on the Western Front, so if you're writing that sort of story, it makes sense. I guess it fits with Joss Whedon's style if Whedon is much, much more serious than I give him credit for. (I always took Buffy as inherently ridiculous, but that might be a mistake on my part.)

Interesting question. Joss's work deals with serious issues in a typically lighthearted way, but there are plenty of dark, serious moments. The whole idea behind Buffy was to subvert the "brainless blonde fleeing from monsters" trope found in horror. She's a brainless blonde who is more powerful than the monsters; they flee from her.

The show, at least in its first three seasons, was a pretty straightforward metaphor for the monstrous things we face in high school. Pairing that with really sharp writing and good performances was what made it such a beloved show. It of course has the limitations of its format: Can't kill off characters all the time, needs to be fairly episodic (but with some serialized drama -- moreso in later seasons), limited by the S&P of being on network TV, and so on. But it gave us great characters and a lot of really good drama. The window dressing was kind of silly (vampires! demons! high school!) but the stories were not.

[Chilari]

Indeed; the musical episode in season 6 was one of the silliest episodes, but it dealt with some pretty serious issues, like trust and people doing what they think is best for a loved one when actually it isn't.

[topazfire]

What purposes does a characters death serve in your story?
Do you ever create a character with the thought that you will kill him off?
Have you ever made a character likable only so that his death would have an impact on the reader?

Since death is a natural part of life (unless your characters are immortal and that is another issue), the death of certain characters, for me, lends to the realism of the story. There is a curse in my story that causes a certain group of people to die (one at a time, so the society is only seeing the pattern many years later) and the death of these people creates a fear, as well as many superstitions to ward off the curse. Death plays a very prominent role in the story, but death from the curse is treated very differently from death in battle, or death in old age and accidents.

Due to the curse, I have had to create characters with the purpose of killing them off. I have other characters (one who dies in battle) that I created as an awesome big brother kind of character and then realized later that he would die and his death would have a big impact on the main character.

Since I am still in the first draft of the story, I have not thought about making characters (of any kind) for the reader. I am writing it for myself (and a couple of friends) right now. The most important thing for me right now is the relationship between the characters and how the death of one would impact the others.

[Alva]

Have you ever made a character likable only so that his death would have an impact on the reader?

No. I don't try to have an impact on the reader. Rather, I make the events have an impact on the characters and hope the reader relates to what the characters are going through. It's similar but done in a roundabout way. Trying to make a character likeable just to make his end tragic or poignant isn't my style. I need it to be more organic and genuine. Besides, I'd need to make a new character because I don't change their personalities on a whim.

Well said.

that's what would logically happen
[...]rather than because the character has Achieved A Story Point.

And I also agree.

Of course pure incidents do happen - even in fiction! - but in many stories character deaths take place because of some "human" reasoning or motivations. In other words, the characters are making choices and these choices affect their (or somebody else's) life. For example somebody might wish for their death (or they themselves do) or then they could realize that in certain situation only through their death they can they achieve something truly meaningful for them. To save someone's life, for instance.

The choices they make are likely to be affected by imperfect reasoning (emotions often times cause such thing), but the outcomes of their action should at least appear logical.

What comes to tragic or heroic "special" deaths as plot devices, I'm not personally a fan of those in my own writing. Many of my characters have died due to natural reasons: old age, illness or by an accident. If there is a tragic tone to be found, it is mostly in these cases caused by the people they leave behind, not added there mechanically only to create tension. No one’s (life and) death should be regarded as unimportant, and even the loss of a complete foreigner should awake some kinds of feelings in another sentient being.

Different thing is what kinds of feelings death raises.
Even inside my written work I hope to achieve the sense that different persons may have extremely different perspectives towards death and dying. When one person considers dying as a scary or even unfair curse of life, another person may view nearly all kinds of death being simply part of the natural cycle of life. Unpleasant, even saddening... but inevitable.

[Lecture]You could make a lot of categories for deaths, but two of the most satisfying are the tragic (a term I know) and the triumphant (a term I'm making up because I don't know the formal one.) In the tragic death, a character is brought low because of his or her flaws. In the triumphant death, a character passes on as the price of their success in a worthy goal. These terms can easily be muddled (what do you call it if a cowardly character eventually becomes brave enough to sacrifice himself for the group?), but both imply death as a fitting conclusion to an arc.

Hm. I personally think that the type of tragedy "character [being] brought low because of his or her flaws" is far from the only type of tragedy there is. Losing a parent or both in a sudden car accident is usually considered tragic, for instance. I'm meaning that at times the character flaws have nothing to do with the birth of tragedy.

Instead, deep emotions like tragedy and sadness could be left for the reader's "own responsibility". An alert reader who has spent time to learn to know the character, and who has been given enough information on the character's motivations and previous incidents in life to understand the character, also should be able to detect a tragedy on their own. For instance the reader might instantly realize that due to the unexpected car crash, the character has now forever lost their change to fulfill a longtime dream of theirs (or something).

In comparision to the Aristotelian tragedy and its study of harmony, unsatisfactory tragedy can be made truly unsatisfactory. And striking.