Killing a main character?

[nwillmott8897]

I've been content on offing my main character for a long time, and it always seemed like the best thing to do, you know? End the first book with a bang and kill off the main character, end the book as their life ends... And then I read this: How to Kill Your Main Character And my entire outlook on the whole situation changed...

Although I'm still pretty sure I want to kill the character, I worry that the implications weigh too heavily on the story... And I'm thinking of so many more ways I could take my story. I thought I'd take advantage of you guys, go through the points made in the article one-by-one in regards to my story and then ask you for your advise on what you think I should do, because I'm really quite unsure at the moment!

Point One - Make sure it's the only choice your character has left.
Well, this is the first point and we've already reached a speed-bump! I want my main character to die in battle... He's always been cocky and too sure of himself and I think his death would be a really great way of hammering home to the others that that really isn't the right way to go... But do I need to kill him to make that point? Can't I simply just chop off a limb or two? Or put the MC in a coma?

Point Two - Make sure you have more than one main character.
This one is easily overcome. I've always wanted to write it from more than one POV, so having more than one MC really isn't an issue... I was always going to just carry on the next book, just simply without the viewpoint of Niklaus (MC).

Point Three - Choose your tense and POV wisely.
Again, easily overcome... Present tense and multiple POV's.

Point Four - Make sure it has the appropriate emotional impact.
Oh it certainly will have an impact! Although I'm planning to have Book Two set a month after the dramatic end of Book One, the remaining protagonists will still be reeling... The new MC most of all. It even has an impact on the 'antagonist' when we see from her point of view. (I say antagonist in inverted commas simply because I'm having a shocking twist as the end of Book Two that she isn't the bad guy after all! Rather cliche I know, but it really is a lot better played out than I'm making it sound).

Point Five - Make sure it isn't the last book in the series.
Nope! First book out of a series of three, actually.

Point Six - Make sure the remaining characters remember the MC.
Oh they certainly will... They even get to see him again for a ?final? (I'm unsure of whether I might bring him back at the end of Book Three) time near the end of Book Two when they visit Aether (An in between world, in between Earth and Heaven, where the souls of the good reside in their own personal 'heavens').

Point Seven - Make sure there's a message within the plot that coincides with the death.
This would simply be that you should never be too sure of yourself... Always be sure you know you can win instead of risking it all on a possibility, like he did... Is that a good enough message though?

Point Eight - Always remember the art of rebirth.
This is something I've been playing around with... Because of the unique powers of my MC, the other protagonists were always going to resurrect him only to find out that all they could do was transfer his Grace (the angelic part of him) into another person. But should I use this as a way to revive him completely, but in another body?

And that really sums up the main points of the article with regards to my issue...
Sorry about the length, I know it's a pretty long one!

So, do you think it would be wise to kill off my MC? Although I'm ending Book One with his death regardless, should I have a way to bring him back instead of leaving him dead? Any feedback, advise, etc. at all would be great right now! Thanks!!!

 

[Steerpike]

Hmmmm.

Let's take a look at those points:

Points 1 and 2: Bollocks. It doesn't have to be the only choice left, and you don't need to revise your vision of your story to reflect the person who made that statement. Nor does there need to be another main character prior to the death of the first one. The new main character can be elevated to that position after the death of the first one.

Point 3: If by "wisely" the author means "use any POV and tense you damn well please" then I agree.

Point 4: Sure, OK. I'll go along with that. Not a requirement, but as a general guideline I like it.

Point 5: Bollocks again. It might be the last or only book.

Point 6: It's natural that they would, I suppose. I don't think you have to belabor the point, and if there is some reason they don't, you might get an emotional twist out of it.

Point 7: Bollocks.

Point 8: Rebirth can work. Don't go wild with it or you cheapen death and dramatically lower the stakes in your story.

 

[buyjupiter]

I'm with Steerpike on a lot of his thoughts. Most of the "advice" is bollocks as I can usually think of good examples of books that have not used that advice and were quite successful. (Most of them might have been written by George RR Martin...but it's been done and well.)

Point 1 & 8 are where I really want to offer up some comments.

1: Coma--is soap-opera the feeling you're going for? Because if not... To be honest, I'd rather have a death than just about anything else you can think of as substitute. Dream-state? Cheapens the narrative, totally annihilates the stakes. Really bad physical damage? Unless you're going to spend a lot of time dealing with psychological after-effects, I don't think it's worth going there.

My point is, if you've set up the narrative for somebody to die and then chicken out of it at the last second...I will notice. It can affect my enjoyment of a story. I'm not speaking for anyone else here, of course.

8: I've been playing around with transformation/rebirth quite a bit lately. It can be done and well, but see above...set it up effectively so it doesn't come across as chickening out of doing what you really wanted to do.

From personal experience, I've killed off quite a few of my MCs in various projects. It's getting to be a thing for me to do it. Most of the time it was story necessary, but there has been the occasional "ok you're annoying as heck and you're going to die because you aren't really story necessary at this point." I may have a couple of "cheap" deaths in stories, but overall, I think killing off the MCs I've killed has led to essential emotional growth for the rest of my cast...as well as adding some additional stakes to the overall piece. (i.e. don't let the MC's death be in vain, we have to stop Professor Demonica. Or whatever.)

Honestly, if it feels authentic to you to kill the guy off--kill him off. Don't worry about whether or not readers will like it or hate it...or whatever it is you're worried about. Readers will always find something to hate that others love and vice versa.

 

[kayd_mon]

As with much writing advice, those points are useful only as far as they cause the reader to be entertained. The previous posts are great, but I must say that I consider point 8 to be terrible advice. While there have been stories in which characters have been resurrected and they remain good, one of the easiest ways to make a reader feel cheated is to resurrect characters. It's often a cheap way to coax emotion out of your readers for a moment, and ultimately lose nothing. Character dead? Who cares, if they're bound to return. Resurrect one, and you cause the reader to think, "No use being bummed, they can come back like that other guy." Super hero comic books and Star Trek are great examples of poor character deaths, because they always come back.

 

[Asura Levi]

That just made me think, what would be the general feeling of a story that 'ends' with the death of the main character, in this case, it would be present tense first person POV, so, the last lines is the MC dying.

Will that upset that much people? Has it been done before?

 

[Gryphos]

So long as the story has a proper conclusion and closure, I'd be totally fine with a story ending with the MC's death.

 

[kayd_mon]

The main character dying in a series is great, because as the series carries on, you actually worry for the characters. IMO, the best thing about ASOIAF is that you really don't know who will survive and who won't. There's real suspense and tension. That's my problem with resurrecting characters, you virtually erase that suspense.

As for a first-person MC death, I have seen one before, but honestly I don't remember where. I don't even remember if it was a pubished story or not. Of course you will upset some readers, but any significant death in a story will do that. What matters is the overall effect - is the story still entertaining? Does the death feel natural (rather than a forced attempt at eliciting emotion from the readers)? Do you know where to go afterward, and are the readers ready to follow (if it's a series). I would want to be able to answer yes to all of those.

 

[Motley]

I agree more with the commenters here than with the original points. I'm especially bewildered by point #5. What's wrong with killing a main character in the last book of a series? It would seem like a reason for the story to end.

 

[wordwalker]

The theory is that by killing the character with the series, the reader has to give up both at the same time, and that may be more than they're willing to swallow all at once. In contrast, doing it partway through lets the reader see the effects of the death-- and best of all, like kayd_mon said, all that happens with supercharged suspense.

Dying at the end is still the most thematically clean answer, and could be the most powerful. It's just the hardest for readers to accept, and for writers to set up so the story feels as if it finished properly rather than getting snuffed out. Of course it's been done often in the past (Tale of Two Cities-- well, most non-comedy stories were once expected to be "tragedies") and even recently (Braveheart), but it's still rarely risked in something like a series of books.

 

[STBURNS]

I usually dislike the "Writer's Darling" syndrome. You know where the story goes against the character's nature and no matter what, the main character always escape's death. I think your views on killing your character are right on point. In the military, leaders are moved around quite a bit. So when this happens, the supporting cast must either rise and take their place, become indifferent, or mourn their absence. If done right, your main character's death can spawn several strong leaders or be a cautionary tale to the foolish. I think most people would not mind a death if it served the bigger picture.

 

[Helen]

Any feedback, advise, etc. at all would be great right now! Thanks!!!

It's common to kill a main character at the end of a story. Absolutely nothing wrong with it. Fits in lots of ways.

Killing the MC midway is different. Because, for example, the MC will play a role in executing theme. So if you do it, you're not just killing the character, you're messing with all sorts of things, like execution of theme.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I wanted to raise a couple other points, not to be contrary, but because it sounds like you aren't far into the writing at least.

One... I'd be very cautious of present tense. One reason, is that I've read quite a lot of it, in a critique group, in showcase, in private critiques. Many people dislike present tense and I have to admit I'm one of them. One reason for this is that unless it's executed very well, it comes across as pretentious. Really. It can turn a reader off in a few pages, so if this project was a short story, I'd say go for it, but maybe consider a safer past tense in a three-book series.

The other reson I mention present tense is that recently I began looking for short story markets... and several (about 20%) specifically mentioned they will not accept submissions written in present tense. So... just consider it carefully, your reasons for the choice, and how confident you feel in the execution.

Okay, now into death. I have a story in which I kill a character's best friend. It wasn't the only choice, but it was an important one. Basically the MC asks this person to do some things, and they eventually get her best friend killed. It's their dynamic I've built up throughout the story, and i think it needs to end in a crushing blow, where his devotion and her selfishness, end in the unthinkable, his demise. Only problem was... I was afraid to write the scene. I didn't have any first-hand experience with death ad I didn't think I could properly portray the death itself or the sorrow and reaction of the MC properly. But then, last February, my dog died and I literally held my best friend as he passed. I remember every second of holding his head, stroking his neck and shoulder, and waiting for his heart to stop. It was very different than I imagined, and I was really (after being sad a few days) grateful for the experience. It immediately gave me the information I needed to write the scene.

Now, I've written a lot of scene I've done absolutely no research on... but the ones people respond best to, are the ones where I can offer something they didn't expect, an impression or detail that immediately made the scene authentic. I'd carefully consider those small details, because even if your reader hates you for killing the caracter (worst-case scenario), they will appreciate the time you took and the work you did to properly show an impactful death.

Hope that helps.

 

[kayd_mon]

I will second the comment about present tense. While I have read and loved books written in present tense, I love those stories in spite of the tense, not because of it.

 

[Nagash]

Lose the rules about the requirements for a possible MC's death scenario. The only necessity, is you feeling it's the right thing to do. I for one, killed off one of my MC's towards the end of my first book, in order to add tragedy and fatalism within the series. It had to come off as an unfair death, and a surprising one too. Imo, the whole point of killing a character is to generate a strong feeling upon reading, may it be grief, hate, etc. Besides, many strongly martial characters orbit around the will of self-sacrifice, making death an ideal end to their earthly journey (or beginning).

Killing off some of my toughest and strongly religious warrior MCs felt right, given how it made their life all the more meaningful, and worthy to be sung by their friends and brothers. Death made it possible to built an ode to their memory.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Another side of this which is interesting is fan reaction to character death. There was a popular series that wrapped up in 2013, which I won't name because of possible spoilers, and the author ended the series by killing off the MC. The fan base went completely insane. Not grieving for the character insane, but, as described in articles about the phenomenon, as if the author had broken into their homes and stolen their things. They were enraged, and they vented their rage all over the internet. This set off a fascinating discussion about at which point does the character cease belonging to the author and belong to the fandom? The basic conclusion the writers seemed to draw was that the characters remain the property of the writers - but judging from other instances of backlash from the deaths of popular characters on TV and in fiction in recent months, the fans sure don't seem to agree.

 

[wordwalker]

Another side of this which is interesting is fan reaction to character death. There was a popular series that wrapped up in 2013, which I won't name because of possible spoilers, and the author ended the series by killing off the MC. The fan base went completely insane.

Probably why the OP has Point 5: don't do it at the end of the series.

 

[WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade]

do it ironically! Have the character defeat the dark lord or whatever, then die of falling off a cliff, or choking on a fly!