# Are You a Cruel Writer?



## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 22, 2016)

I'd like to ask everyone: are you a cruel writer? And just how cruel are you? 

By that, I mean how do you treat your characters? Are you the kind of writer for whom it's heartbreaking to have to hurt your characters? Or do you glory in piling on the pain, going on killing sprees, making your characters suffer? Do you hurt when your characters hurt and cry all the way through your death scenes or do you pump your fists in the air with glee when you've thought of a horribly cruel, emotionally traumatizing plot twist? 

Some writers hate killing people off. Some recognize the necessity. And some, well...NO ONE is safe in the world of some. Some writers can't stand hurting their characters. Some, on the other hand, seem to love it. 

How do you decide whether to kill a character? Do you believe in happy endings for your characters? (Do you believe in them in real life?) Are you the sort to scar and handicap and mutilate (mentally or physically), or do your MC's generally escape permanent damage?  Would you kill the love interest, the main character, the main character's dog, etc...is anyone safe from your reaper's scythe?  

All good questions...so, where do you fall, on a scale of rainbows and puppies to Game of Thrones...


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## SaltyDog (Aug 22, 2016)

Lol, for me if the plot calls for a character to die, it's goodbye.  Like my thread I just posted, I'm trying to see if I can save that character.  But if I can't, they die.  I recognize the necessity, but that doesn't mean I don't want to do it, I have favorite characters, and I'd like to see them live happy lives.  Hard to do when writing Fantasy and in the middle of a war.

No one can escape my scythe.  I have a distant thought of killing my MC's love interest, but I don't want to do it.  But If there is a good situation that calls for it, I'll do it.

I think I fall very close to Game of Thrones.


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## Ireth (Aug 22, 2016)

Between puppies/rainbows and Game of Thrones, I'm definitely somewhere in the middle. Whether I gleefully plot mayhem and pain or bring out the kleenex as I prep a character for death depends entirely on my mood (and sometimes I can do both at the same time).

A few of the non-antagonists I have killed have been resurrected by magic (99% of these are vampires who came back as humans), while others are dead for good. I have also spared some whom I'd originally slated for death, whether because it was more fitting for someone else to die in their stead, or because they did something unexpected to prove their goodness or bravery and change my mind to let them change fully from villain to hero. (One character has both lived to find redemption and died as a villain in two converging continuities.)

There are certain characters in my mind who are off-limits as far as death goes, while non-lethal suffering is par for the course. I have maimed several characters, usually robbing them of an eye (or both) or a hand. Some regain their lost appendages by magic, while another gets a magical substitute that works almost as well; others have mundane replacements that serve only to fill the space.

One character among my "unkillables" went through an incident in his early adulthood that didn't even leave him injured, but still had a scarring effect on his psyche. The incident itself made him mistrustful, even bigoted, against the people-group who caused the incident; the aftermath, which involved a two-month stint in a psych ward, left him with PTSD and possible chronic anxiety, which often plays off his mistrust as well. Thankfully his mistrust does lessen throughout the story, and he eventually forgives one of the three who caused the incident in the first place. (The second died after the incident, and the third is nowhere to be found, even if she wants forgiveness.)

I generally refrain from killing close families/friends or love interests. If I do, then it's always for a plot purpose, most often to start off a story. One character was killed on page two of her book, and her disembodied spirit became stuck in the head of her twin brother due to a magical accident; finding a way to set her free is the whole basis of the plot. Another was killed to establish the antagonists of the novel, and so his best friend's grief (and subsequent near-murderous freakout against an innocent third party who had tried and failed to ave the friend) could show his current personality and mindset, laying the foundation for character development and redemption. Yet another was betrayed and murdered by his best friend, who had lusted after his wife (and a hitch in the plot resulted in said wife being killed as well).

I don't think I've ever killed someone's pet. Probably because very few of my characters actually have pets at all.


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## Demesnedenoir (Aug 22, 2016)

Valar morghulis... with the occasional puppy whimper of sadness when the scene is real good, heh heh. But no character with solid time spent developing them dies without a reason. I think I had three POV characters die in 125k words... One good, one bad... and one debatable. Killing the love interest's mentor/father figure... okay, some argue she is the Protag not the love interest... was painful and poignant for me, so hopefully it comes across for readers.


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## Garren Jacobsen (Aug 22, 2016)

I often have to remind my characters to not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. 

I am pretty cold when I need to kill a character. I take no joy in it, but I don't cry. I don't get attached. I'm a cold hearted SoB when it comes to my writing. I try to put my character's through their own personal wringers, but that's all to benefit the story and the reader. Sometimes my characters look up from the page and this scene plays out:






Instead of Gotham though I am my character's reckoning.


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## Ireth (Aug 22, 2016)

Ireth said:


> A few of the non-antagonists I have killed have been resurrected by magic (99% of these are vampires who came back as humans), while others are dead for good. I have also spared some whom I'd originally slated for death, whether because it was more fitting for someone else to die in their stead, or because they did something unexpected to prove their goodness or bravery and change my mind to let them change fully from villain to hero. (One character has both lived to find redemption and died as a villain in two converging continuities.).



Correction here since I can't edit the post: Meant to say *diverging* in the last sentence, not converging. ^^;


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## Gurkhal (Aug 23, 2016)

I'll happily kill characters if it serves the plot but I know that I have a flaw of having a bleeding heart when it comes to killing main characters because I've invested so much time in them. But its a flaw I hope to correct.


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## AElisabet (Aug 23, 2016)

I'm hard on my characters, but more emotionally and mentally.  There isn't much physical violence in my WIP (except in tale and memory) until the end.  But I put my characters in emotionally brutal situations and I do enjoy thinking about how I can turn those up to eleven.

At the end of part 1 a bunch of major characters (including both MCs) are murdered, though not really creatively.  I have no imagination for the actual means of violence and little interest in it.  Swords and daggers are enough for me.  My focus is more on the cruelty of the emotions, reasons, and consequences for the violence rather than how it happens.  

I feel sad about the characters I kill off, but I feel just as sad, if not more so, for the characters who are left behind to deal with the consequences.  The hardest are the characters who go from decent or even good over to the dark side as a result of who gets killed and why.

Two of the characters who are killed - the MCs - are brought back, but they are so estranged from the ones the love and supernaturally changed from who they were that I don't think its a cop out.  They eventually get a bittersweet ending in part 2.


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## Steerpike (Aug 23, 2016)

Killing a character off _just _to serve the plot is potentially problematic if the author doesn't think things through. I recently read a book that I quite liked, but one of the characters I was fond off died stupidly. Throughout the book, she's resourceful, self-sufficient, street smart, and so on. At the point where she dies, she does something so stupid that as she's doing it I'm thinking "You idiot, you're going to get killed." That's not good. The impression I was left with was that the author wanted to kill this character to serve the story (and more specifically, a desire for an emotional impact at the end of the story) but did it in such a way that it seemed completely contrived.


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## Peat (Aug 23, 2016)

So far the books I've written have not called for much death. That is possibly a subconscious bias on my part. I know I'm a bit bored of some of the big body counts and grimness out there.


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## Nimue (Aug 23, 2016)

I make my characters suffer emotionally and physically in pretty much everything I write, but I place a lot of weight on healing and comfort as well.  I have no desire to kill off any of my main characters, though I could imagine a plot and character where I might.  A good ending is something that doesn't always happen in life, but can be beautifully arrived at in fantasy fiction. I value that.

None of my favorite books kill off their main characters.  I don't believe they're missing any depth or emotional height because of that.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 23, 2016)

Yes and no. I like a good build up so when someone gets killed it's satisfying or a little heart wrenching.


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## caters (Aug 23, 2016)

If a character dies in my story here are my choices from best to worse:

1) Old Age
2) Disease
3) Cryo(not really a death, just inactivation)
4) Heat
5) Thirst
6) Starvation
7) Murder
8) Suicide

So as you can see, I prefer mild deaths, ones that would happen anyway such as death from disease.

Suicide is my least preferred one and in fact I never write a story with Suicide. I might mention Suicide but that is different.

Cannibalism is a form of suicide so I never write a story about cannibalist humans.

For example, in the first chapter of Life on Kepler Bb, I mention a death. A very emotional one. It is the death of Robin's parents. They both died of disease(Robin's species can't die of old age). I mention that 5 year old Robin has a lot of emotional pain and when he gets physical pain from an accidental lizard bite, the pain increases by a lot. I mention that he passes out from pain.

But you see here, even the part where the death is mentioned is mild compared to those dark stories. Mainly because the death itself is mild and emotional pain is the only side effect.

So that is just to reinforce that I prefer mild deaths. Murder and Suicide are completely unnecessary deaths, especially purposeful ones.

Thirst and Starvation are also unnecessary but they are natural so those are milder.

Same goes for heat except that this is even milder due to some people adapting to the heat and others not so.

The cryo is very mild and is often purposeful(Keeping humans from aging after x generations). However because it is rare, it is a 3 instead of a 0. This isn't really a death but it is kind of like one.

The old age and disease happen to almost everyone so those are extremely mild deaths with only emotional pain as a side effect.


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## Reaver (Aug 23, 2016)

caters said:


> Cannibalism is a form of suicide so I never write a story about cannibalist humans.



 Say what? You mean as in people eating themselves to death?


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## Steerpike (Aug 23, 2016)

Reaver said:


> Say what? You mean as in people eating themselves to death?



You would have to eat fast.


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## SaltyDog (Aug 23, 2016)

I am not.  I see it, when I kill off a main or side character as showing that the book is real, there is danger, and people can die.  

A while back, while reading a very entertaining book, I encountered the same problem that happened to Steerpike, a favorite character died, for something that could of been avoided, but the author killed the character anyway, just to make a point, that I the reader, already knew.  I was pretty mad, but continued reading and bought the next book in the series.  Lol, I then read as the author went about killing more characters of value, even going so far as to blind one of my favorite character, by giving him a slash with a sword to the eyes.  I never learned did I?

At a side note, I don't have planned any "Returning from the dead"  stuff, if the character really does die.  No magic revivals for them. However I do have some characters with a few murky death scenes, old enemies, lost allies, that I do have in future them returning, since they never were actually killed.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 23, 2016)

Reaver said:


> Say what? You mean as in people eating themselves to death?



You win a thanks and 1500 internets for the Princess Bride reference.


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## Reaver (Aug 23, 2016)

Steerpike said:


> You would have to eat fast.



Couldn't do it. I don't even like biting my fingernails.


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## Reaver (Aug 23, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> You win a thanks and 1500 internets for the Princess Bride reference.



Thanks back! One of the all time greats and in my top 20 faves of all time.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 23, 2016)

Some good points are being brought up about unnecessary death/shock value deaths/etc. 

I have read plenty of books that kill characters off or have horrible things happen for shock value, to make the story grittier, etc, and i've hated that. Dark and gritty is trendy right now. Cynicism and pessimism is in. Happy endings and heroes are out. I think GRRM has made being a cruel writer glamorous.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 23, 2016)

Reaver said:


> Thanks back! One of the all time greats and in my top 20 faves of all time.



There are very few things that will incite me to violence. Saying the Princess Bride is stupid happens to be one of them.


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## SaltyDog (Aug 23, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Some good points are being brought up about unnecessary death/shock value deaths/etc.
> 
> I have read plenty of books that kill characters off or have horrible things happen for shock value, to make the story grittier, etc, and i've hated that. Dark and gritty is trendy right now. Cynicism and pessimism is in. Happy endings and heroes are out. I think GRRM has made being a cruel writer glamorous.



I guess so.  But like I said isn't it needed to have that gritty feeling to the story?  Maybe not if your writing about party for the king, but what about a war?  I would think so.

Has anyone tried having a gritty theme, while still having a happy ending?  I'm shooting for that, but we'll see how it turns out.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 23, 2016)

SaltyDog said:


> I guess so.  But like I said isn't it needed to have that gritty feeling to the story?  Maybe not if your writing about party for the king, but what about a war?  I would think so.
> 
> Has anyone tried having a gritty theme, while still having a happy ending?  I'm shooting for that, but we'll see how it turns out.



It's possible to set a gritty tone for the story without cheap, unnecessary killing and violence. Death, is, yes, often necessary to a gritty tone...but I think there's a right and a wrong way to do it. 

Recently, i read a book (which i've quit now) that tried to maintain the gritty atmosphere by constantly mentioning and discussing rape. It was handled in a very flippant and tasteless manner. All the females were constantly threatened with rape, evil characters were shown to be evil by making rape threats. It was distasteful and handled badly, and there would have been much better ways to give that atmosphere. The worst part was i didn't even feel scared for the female characters or angry at the evil characters--it didn't improve my investment in the story or the characters. It was just gross and annoying. 

A whole other discussion could be devoted to this. I might start one.


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## SaltyDog (Aug 23, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> It's possible to set a gritty tone for the story without cheap, unnecessary killing and violence. Death, is, yes, often necessary to a gritty tone...but I think there's a right and a wrong way to do it.
> 
> Recently, i read a book (which i've quit now) that tried to maintain the gritty atmosphere by constantly mentioning and discussing rape. It was handled in a very flippant and tasteless manner. All the females were constantly threatened with rape, evil characters were shown to be evil by making rape threats. It was distasteful and handled badly, and there would have been much better ways to give that atmosphere. The worst part was i didn't even feel scared for the female characters or angry at the evil characters--it didn't improve my investment in the story or the characters. It was just gross and annoying.
> 
> A whole other discussion could be devoted to this. I might start one.



I read a book where an invading tribe of savages attacked a powerful empire, and so a war started.  It was very dark, for it had the savages, as a way to pray to their god and show worship, basically mutilate and torture any civilians or soldiers that were unlucky enough to be captured.  It's a very gloomy book, and it mentions nothing of rape.  (Not yet at least.)  I'm seriously having a hard time seeing a happy ending come out of it, more like a justified batman ending. lol.  

Anyway that could be a good discussion.  You'd probably get a lot of interest and posts.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 23, 2016)

I should answer this question myself, haha. Forgot that part. 

I think the answer would be yes, I am cruel. I don't regret killing and hurting my characters. I love to think up cruel new plot twists. My body count is not extremely, but still fairly, high. I think i'm crueler in what i do to them when alive than in who i kill, though. 

There's plenty of torture, physical and psychological. One of my MCs' love interest commits suicide. My characters lose limbs, eyes, and get scarred physically and mentally. My female MC gets some scarring on her face toward the end (though she has never cared about her appearance). Mental scars are even more prominent--characters with PTSD, characters broken by grief and loss, characters struggling with body image after being mutilated. Characters losing purpose and searching for a reason to live. My world is scary and brutal. Nature is a formidable enemy. Disease, parasites, animals, all kinds of injuries. Stitches and surgeries without any anesthesia or even alcohol.  

When characters die, it's not always fair or meaningful. I like to make deaths traumatically painful. Make it count, right? Sometimes the way to do that is to kill them so suddenly you can't even see it coming and you have to look back and reread the passage to see that it really happened. Don't even give them a chance to gasp out a few last words. Just gone in a sentence. In other times the way to do it is to make the reader anticipate it. The thing I hate, though, is that moment when you realize a character will die coming too soon. I say make the readers hope, keep the life hanging in the balance, then tear it away. Typically, deaths in stories are dignified, coming at the end of a fulfilled character arc, and everyone can see them coming. I say take away their dignity. Don't let them die with grace, because death is ugly. I say cut them off before their time. I say have them leave behind family and friends who love them. I say don't spare them because they don't deserve it. 

And yes, they don't always deserve it. Nothing is fair, really. My characters are young and shouldn't have to go through the suffering they do, but they survive it anyway. 

But. Something i should tell you: I'm a sensitive person. Very sensitive. Extremely so. You wouldn't know it from what i wrote above, but i hate stories full of darkness with no hope or relief. In my own writing I like to balance to darkness with humor, love, comfort and hope. Sparse, perhaps, but it's there. My stories are dark, but it's my belief that you need the darkness to show the light. I would be doing the world's suffering a disservice by shying away from the darkness. 

So. I have moments of safety and light. There's love, there's hope. There is pain but there is comfort. There is death but there is new life. There are small joys and moments of beauty to remind my characters that it's still worth it. 

A happy ending? I honestly don't know yet. I'm not that far in the story. I won't promise a happily ever after, of course. Instead i would like to end with no promise of a happily ever after, but hope for a better future, and the knowledge that whatever happens, they can survive it. Yes, life does suck, it's horrible, it hurts like hell, but that's not all there is.


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## SaltyDog (Aug 23, 2016)

My book's theme takes place in war.  A civil war in fact, between the races of the continent.  It's extremely bloody hard and tough, and unlike most books out there, at the starting point of my novel, the good guys are losing.  And they keep losing.

Each race of has a leader, six for the good guys, five for the bad.  At the moment, only two members of my original six of the good guys still live.  My main character is a king, Human.  To show how brutal this war is, I had his family killed by the bad guys.  One brother was murdered by assassins, one brother in law was tortured to death, and his sister was captured by the bad guys, never to be seen again.  Oh, and his other brother is a traitor and a general on the other side.

I had a death happen that was totally unexpected, no one saw it coming.  One of my original leaders was captured, and brought to within the neutral zone of a city sieged by the bad guys.  He was brought up to the walls, where the defenders could see, but not act.  They executed him right there, in plain sight.  I have it where at any moment, anyone could die, so be prepared for the worst.

My MC didn't want to be king, but no one was left alive in his family, so he had to take the throne at a young age, commanding a war in which his parents had fought in, grandparents and their parents.  He had to decide who died and who lived, and that takes a toll.

I let humor balance the darkness, and the friendship between the soldiers, which I really delve into as the story progress.  I love jokes and witty comments, so I let some of my characters share my opinions and readiness for a joke.

When I describe a scene, say the woods, I'll describe a slug that is lazily crawling on a rotten branch, before I move on to the corpse next to the slug.  I try not to cloud it with too much darkness, but what is war?  Suffering and pain, evil and loss, and so I try to put that in to my writing.

I'd like a happy ending, where the war ends and the continent returns to peace, but that could never happen, as things play out.

Anyway good discussion, a little dark.  (I probably helped too much with that.)  Very interesting.

And if it gets too dark, I say look up a joke.


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## Reaver (Aug 23, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> There are very few things that will incite me to violence. Saying the Princess Bride is stupid happens to be one of them.



Same here. That's when I unleash my R.O.U.S. on them.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 23, 2016)

Reaver said:


> Same here. That's when I unleash my R.O.U.S. on them.



But I don't think they exist...


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## Peat (Aug 23, 2016)

Even with books set in a war, there is a huge range of possible tones. Sure, it can't be balloons and picnics, but you can have fairly light-hearted adventure fiction, or you can have heart of darkness stuff with death, rape, betrayal, maiming and everything everywhere. And lots of space in between.

On killing and cruelty to characters - 

I have to say, Martin is who I had in mind, largely because I have put SoIaF down. Halfway through the last one, I twigged Jon was going to get his, turned to the back, saw I was right and put the book down *BUT*

I probably wouldn't have done that if the other non-Tyrion characters were amusing me. They weren't. My reaction wasn't solely to a diet of death.

Comparatively though, Guy Gavriel Kay and David Gemmell have wrote some wonderful books that would be far less, imo, without a character death. Gemmell in particular has racked up some huge body counts as well, but never while feeling boring.


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## Steerpike (Aug 23, 2016)

Peat said:


> Comparatively though, Guy Gavriel Kay and David Gemmell have wrote some wonderful books that would be far less, imo, without a character death. Gemmell in particular has racked up some huge body counts as well, but never while feeling boring.



Yes. And with those two, the deaths tend to be momentous. I don't want to comment on specific deaths, or give spoilers, but they tend to be highly significant as opposed to some works I've read recently where death comes about as a result of the fact that the world is dangerous and deaths happen, sometimes meaningless deaths.


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## Xitra_Blud (Aug 23, 2016)

I will, admit, I have cried from some of my character's death scenes, but on a scale of 1-10 of how cruel I am, I'd definitely say I'm a 10.


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## Chessie (Aug 23, 2016)

My WIP features a sister poisoning her brother. Does that count? :insertevillaughhere


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## Malik (Aug 23, 2016)

I have a minor character sentenced to die by scaphism. We don't see it, but it gets explained to him.


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## Demesnedenoir (Aug 23, 2016)

And stabbed equals dead? Good ol' John Snow, there's no way he would die, too much going on with his parentage. I'm an Arya fan, so I'm still good, LOL. You go, girl! And I can't stop reading now, gotta see where and how the books and HBO deviate, it's a fascinating classroom on story-telling.

The thing is, lots of people hated the Red Wedding, but it was so damned obvious... idiot get what idiot deserve in Rob's case. LOL. Medieval marriage politics is no place for love. In most cases, the deaths were horribly logical.



Peat said:


> Even with books set in a war, there is a huge range of possible tones. Sure, it can't be balloons and picnics, but you can have fairly light-hearted adventure fiction, or you can have heart of darkness stuff with death, rape, betrayal, maiming and everything everywhere. And lots of space in between.
> 
> On killing and cruelty to characters -
> 
> ...


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## skip.knox (Aug 23, 2016)

>It's possible to set a gritty tone for the story without cheap, unnecessary killing and violence.
I think the converse is true as well. It's possible to have characters die without necessarily writing a grimdark type story. Some deaths can be done elegantly, movingly, even comically. It all lies in the hands of the author.

But I don't get too emotional. Oddly, I have, to a degree, with animals. I have a young girl who appears a few times in my novel, and I gave her a Roman war dog (they are both orphans, of a sort). Very early in developing her plot line I arbitrarily decided there's no way I'm killing this dog. It felt cruel.

OTOH, there's another place where I slaughter a whole mess of animals--basically all the four-footeds who would travel with an army. The sacrifice is necessary in the plot, and I try to handle the scene with some sensitivity. I don't show the actual slaughter. But it did make me feel ... uneasy? Unsure? I know I revisited the scene a few times to make sure I really did feel it was needed.

OTOOH, I have a couple of tertiary characters who keep dying and not dying during rewrites. They just aren't important enough to kill, and not important to leave alive either. They may wind up being written out entirely. Authorial limbo.

For me, all must bow to the great god Story. Characters may live or die, but always in service of Story.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 23, 2016)

Malik said:


> I have a minor character sentenced to die by scaphism. We don't see it, but it gets explained to him.



Was I the only one who googled that and now needs mind bleach?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 23, 2016)

skip.knox said:


> >It's possible to set a gritty tone for the story without cheap, unnecessary killing and violence.
> I think the converse is true as well. It's possible to have characters die without necessarily writing a grimdark type story. Some deaths can be done elegantly, movingly, even comically. It all lies in the hands of the author.
> 
> But I don't get too emotional. Oddly, I have, to a degree, with animals. I have a young girl who appears a few times in my novel, and I gave her a Roman war dog (they are both orphans, of a sort). Very early in developing her plot line I arbitrarily decided there's no way I'm killing this dog. It felt cruel.
> ...



I feel far more sympathetic toward animal characters than human characters, lol. I can't stand reading about animal cruelty, especially when no one questions it. 

A comical death? Um...how would one pull that off? But overall I agree.


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## SaltyDog (Aug 23, 2016)

For me, all must bow to the great god Story. Characters may live or die, but always in service of Story.[/QUOTE]

I think that just about sums up this whole discussion.


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## Malik (Aug 23, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Was I the only one who googled that and now needs mind bleach?



The beautiful part, IMO, is that I never use the term scaphism. They don't have the word for it; it's just what they do. So they tell him how it's going to go down. It gets a little dark. 

If I did it right, you feel for the guy when they're dragging him away, even though he's a schmuck.


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## TheKillerBs (Aug 23, 2016)

I have no problem with killing characters. Generally, if I think I can get away with it, I'll kill someone off with no further thoughts. What I don't do is torture, psychological trauma, etc. I might maim on occasion, but even then I'll think long and hard about it.

And killing the dogs is a big no-no. Or the owls.


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## Demesnedenoir (Aug 23, 2016)

Well, I believe in Seattle at one point, a fund raiser for dogs raised more money than for the homeless... it's an interesting phenom but it's all over the place. I do recall getting real irritated Martin kept killing off dire wolves, Rob Stark? Meh. He had it coming, in a sense for being a fool. The wolf! Damn it!

In the Outlaw Josey Wales... they shot his gol darned dog! That's it, man! Done! I'm going to war. Oh sure, they killed his family too, but the dog was the last straw, heh heh.

Personally, animal cruelty hasn't had a pay off for any story i've written. But it can be extremely effective emotionally, so... if it ever comes up, I'll do it.

And rape is another, I don't touch sex scenes (they bore me to read or write), let alone rape, unless it's going to be interrupted... typically with blood. There is one very specific rape/ritual sacrifice scene I might write, but odds on the witness will look away, but it will paint the god the sacrifice is for well. 



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I feel far more sympathetic toward animal characters than human characters, lol. I can't stand reading about animal cruelty, especially when no one questions it.
> 
> A comical death? Um...how would one pull that off? But overall I agree.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 24, 2016)

Demesnedenoir said:


> And rape is another, I don't touch sex scenes (they bore me to read or write), let alone rape, unless it's going to be interrupted... typically with blood. There is one very specific rape/ritual sacrifice scene I might write, but odds on the witness will look away, but it will paint the god the sacrifice is for well.



Most sex scenes are awkward at best, cringe worthy at worst. GRRM is one example of someone who writes pretty darn awful sex scenes.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 24, 2016)

TheKillerBs said:


> I have no problem with killing characters. Generally, if I think I can get away with it, I'll kill someone off with no further thoughts. What I don't do is torture, psychological trauma, etc. I might maim on occasion, but even then I'll think long and hard about it.
> 
> And killing the dogs is a big no-no. Or the owls.



Was that a reference to Harry Potter?


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## KC Trae Becker (Aug 24, 2016)

I don't like reading or writing characters dying, but in most stories it needs to happen to at least some characters, given all the violence and struggle. So I play the indifferent grim reaper, cut the strings of their lives and fates. But I try to make it meaningful.
Whimsical deaths that leave the reader frustrated are pointless to me and reason for throwing books across the room, or throwing them out, or at least giving them away. 

I probably don't need to chime in on the Game of Thrones busting, but I stopped at book 3. Though my son continued on and encouraged me to also. I didn't look back. I don't need the frustration. Life's too short and reading time too precious to waste on writers who don't respect their characters or readers.


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## Chessie (Aug 24, 2016)

Miskatonic said:


> Most sex scenes are awkward at best, cringe worthy at worst. GRRM is one example of someone who writes pretty darn awful sex scenes.


Lol true dat. Sensual over sexual any day.


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## caters (Aug 24, 2016)

I hate sexual scenes. I gloss over them or even don't mention them at all. But even in the most romantic of scenes, I don't show that 2 people are having sex.


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## skip.knox (Aug 24, 2016)

>And killing the dogs is a big no-no. Or the owls. 

Even when the owls are not what they seem?


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## TheKillerBs (Aug 24, 2016)

Yes, DOTA, that was a Harry Potter reference.


skip.knox said:


> >And killing the dogs is a big no-no. Or the owls.
> 
> Even when the owls are not what they seem?


I don't know where you're going with this.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 25, 2016)

skip.knox said:


> >And killing the dogs is a big no-no. Or the owls.
> 
> Even when the owls are not what they seem?



Twin Peaks. Look out for Bob and his death bag!


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## Holoman (Aug 25, 2016)

I try my best to give the impression I am all George RR Martin and will kill anyone off, but the truth is most characters that I kill off have a death sentence from the moment I create them and I don't kill off main characters. I am a sucker for the happy ending and create characters specifically to kill off. Never touch my most beloved ones.

That said, many probably wish they were dead with the stuff I put them through 

I'll have to disagree with others on sex scenes though, I like to read them. But I don't like them in anything other than romance (erotica?) novels. That said, I do like me a good romance novel with some intimate scenes.

I'd never write one though. It would feel lame and my mum would read it...


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 26, 2016)

My one writer friend (she's self-published too) is the sweetest, kindest person imaginable in real life...but in writing she's an outright serial killer. She killed her protagonist's parents, THEN she killed their adoptive parents. She seems to really like inflicting harm upon her characters...


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## Sola Haze (Sep 20, 2016)

In my opinion, there is a time in every writers life when they must ask themselves: "Am I a sadist?" Most of the time the answer is no. But, if you become a writer, especially for Fantasy, or Sci-Fi, you are doomed to start reading and writing some pretty dark and graphic things. And LIKE it.
I for one, enjoy writing torture. No, that doesn't mean I love hurting my characters, or that I'm sick in the head. That just means the concept of physical and emotional pain in literature is interesting to me. I've accepted that I'll have to write these eventually.
I believe in happy endings, and all that, but I make it a twisting and dark path full of evil and cruelty. I once cut off my OC's arm. And I killed the love interest, or plan to, of the protagonist in the third book of a sci-fi series I'm writing.
I'm not a sadist. I'm just creative.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Sep 20, 2016)

Sola Haze said:


> In my opinion, there is a time in every writers life when they must ask themselves: "Am I a sadist?" Most of the time the answer is no. But, if you become a writer, especially for Fantasy, or Sci-Fi, you are doomed to start reading and writing some pretty dark and graphic things. And LIKE it.
> I for one, enjoy writing torture. No, that doesn't mean I love hurting my characters, or that I'm sick in the head. That just means the concept of physical and emotional pain in literature is interesting to me. I've accepted that I'll have to write these eventually.
> I believe in happy endings, and all that, but I make it a twisting and dark path full of evil and cruelty. I once cut off my OC's arm. And I killed the love interest, or plan to, of the protagonist in the third book of a sci-fi series I'm writing.
> I'm not a sadist. I'm just creative.



I've asked myself that before...

My stuff has always been dark. I write torture, I write death, I write pain, I write loss, I write fear. I put my characters through hell. And you'd think I would think it a necessary evil but no, it's just the story...And i do enjoy putting my characters through hell.


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## Netardapope (Sep 20, 2016)

I think that writers can get pretty insane when they realize they are quite literally a deity with relation to their novel. And on occasion, I fall amongst these ranks. Sometimes a little suffering ought to spice up the tale, wouldn't you agree?

Sent from my SM-G386T using Tapatalk


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## Malik (Sep 20, 2016)

Okay, if you thought the scaphism was bad, you should see what I just came up with in the sequel. 

Holy crap. I have outdone myself.


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## evolution_rex (Sep 21, 2016)

I'd like to think I can be a cruel writer, I just haven't gotten the chance to take advantage of it yet. I've written a lot of short stories that end with the death of someone, often children. But I haven't killed any of my characters in which a reader can read along with for long enough to get an emotional attachment to them. I think that's just my inexperience though.

But I will say that I love writing violence. Part of that is making it unexpected and not overused, but I love writing it. I suppose it's because I really want to freak the reader out.


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