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Characters in a novel are complex, dynamic people with their own agendas. Some are more aggressive in their pursuit of their aims, adopting a no-matter-what strategy as long as they get what they want whereas others are more thoughtful of the methods they use. However, there comes a time where one of them will pay the ultimate price, whether it be unexpected or not and this article will feature on what killing off a character means.
Killing off a character means that person no longer plays a role in the story going forward. Whatever plot lines he was involved in will either proceed without him or end immediately upon his death. This can change the overall story in significant ways, both for the characters still alive and for your readers.
Not every character you, the writer, introduce will make it to the end of the novel. Some will simply vanish without a trace and others will meet an untimely demise. There are quite few things to take in consideration when determining whether to kill off a character or not.
After you’ve made the decision to end the life of one of your characters, it’s imperative that you do it in a way that doesn’t harm the story going forward. There are a number of ways to go about it that helps it. Killing off a character gives you a great opportunity to make his death memorable and have lasting repercussions throughout the remainder of the story.
There are things to avoid in regard when killing off a character. You don’t want his death to ultimately wind up weakening your story. Things like killing him off just for the sake of it are best avoided since they only serve to hurt your story.
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It doesn’t matter if your book is fifty or five hundred pages, most likely at least one of your characters will perish. The death of a character leaves a lasting scar on the others and enables writers to explore how they handle it. Each character will grieve based on the relationship he had with the deceased.
One important thing to keep in mind when writing out a character is that his death will drastically affect whatever plot lines he was in at the time of his death, regardless if he was a major or minor character. That means you’ll have to make adjustments to them and decide to what extent how his death will affect them. Some will end with him and others will continue on without him.
A character’s death impacts the story in several ways, depending on what type of role he played. For minor ones, it won’t affect it significantly but it can have some ripple effects. If he was a major character or involved in several key storylines, his demise will have a profound effect, bringing them to a screeching halt for a bit. The others will need to mourn him before they continue on without him.
When deciding whether to kill off a character, you have to think about when you want to have it happen. There’s no set rules on which part of the story you can have it take place. You just have to establish a logical chain of events that naturally leads to his death while keeping your audience on their toes. Making it too obvious will lessen its shock value.
Part of bringing a character’s life to an end is deciding how you want it to happen. There’s no shortage of options, from cold-blooded murder to falling off a cliff. Just be mindful to have it feel out of place for him. For example, if your character is a great hiker, you can have a rockslide come on suddenly while he’s sleeping and catch him by surprise instead of having him fall overboard in the middle of the ocean.
Sometimes it can be tough deciding whether to kill a character off or not. Writers form an attachment to their characters, making it a struggle to make that fateful choice. However, there will be times where the story will be best served by killing that character off.
In terms of killing off a character, the number one thing you want to do is have his death contribute to the plot in a meaningful way. It can be the direct result of an argument or a drawn-out battle or something else. His death and the sequence of events leading up to it will reverberate throughout the rest of the story as the other characters wrestle with what they could have done to save him.
The best character deaths are those who the audience’s formed a connection with. They’ve spent time getting to know and understand them and they either want to see them win or lose. Killing a character they’ve grown attached to will take them by surprise and while they might consider not reading any further, they’ll want to see what happens afterward, thereby keeping them invested in your tale.
One reason why you would want to do kill off a character is that he’s reached the end of his usefulness in regard to the plot. Every character in the story has an arc and some are longer than others. You don’t want to have a whole bunch of characters standing around and not helping move the story forward. If he’s come to the end of his arc and you can’t think of what else you can have him do, it might be time to kill him off. You can use his death to advance the plot.
Have it be true to the character. Each character brings something unique to the story and should you choose to take him out, how he dies needs to tie in to who he is at heart. For example, if the villain’s committed a litany of crimes all in the name of achieving his goals, it’s fitting that he would perish at the hands of someone who he wronged.
An essential element of killing off a character is the lead-up to when it happens. While you want to keep your readers in suspense as to what’s about to transpire, you nevertheless want to set the stage for it. This means you need to start building up the tension which will make your audience more anxious about what’s coming. Foreshadowing is a great technique to accomplish this as you can allude to the coming death at an earlier point in the tale.
Just as there are things you want to do after you’ve decided to kill off a character, there are things you need to avoid. Using one or more of them will invariably dampen your audience’s enthusiasm and hurt your story overall.
The first thing to not do is to kill off a character just for the sake of it. Your characters are your creations and they each have a role to play. Doing this just to create shock value doesn’t advance the plot at all. It also makes your readers more hesitant to form an attachment to your characters for they might believe they’ll be killed off at any time.
Another thing to avoid is that ending the life of one of your characters doesn’t move the story forward. Each scene needs to move the plot and those scenes where a character meets an untimely fate must do the same. Killing off a character is an important moment in terms of the story and the characters. Doing so in a way that doesn’t advance the plot does the dead character, the story, and the others a huge disservice.
One of the worst things of doing this is relying on it too much. Your characters are your most important resource in the story and drastically whittling down the number only means that the rest must do more work to carry the plot forward. Also, using it too much lessens its effectiveness over time which leads to your readers becoming desensitized.
While you want to focus on the chain of events leading up to and then the death itself, don’t neglect the aftermath. If executed correctly, the aftermath of a character’s death can be even more powerful than his death since you get to explore what he meant to the others. You also get to show how it impacts the plot since it’ll change it in unexpected ways or it opens up a whole new plot line.
Killing off a character is a decision you cannot take lightly. It is a permanent decision that will alter the story and affect the other characters. Thus, it’s important that you do so in a way that respects the character and actively contributes to the plot.
There are a number of reasons why you would want to do this. Maybe he’s no longer relevant to the plot or you want to explore the aftermath. The most important thing is to ensure that his death advances the plot and in a meaningful way.
In terms of killing off a character, there are some things to do to make sure that his death helps the plot and not hurt it. The number one thing to do is to tie it into the plot, thus becoming a key plot point in the overall tale. Another thing is to build tension in the lead-up to the death scene to generate anxiety and suspense for your readers as they have no idea what’s poised to take place.
There are things to avoid when killing off a character. First and foremost, don’t do it just for the sake of it. Secondly, don’t kill off a character and not have it move the story forward. These things only wind up hurting your story and makes it less likely your readers will want to come back.
Killing off a character is a huge moment for the plot. That means you’ll have to do a fair deal of planning to make it work. You want to do it justice and have his death cause ripple effects throughout the rest of the story while keeping your audience’s interest.
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