Or, how do your characters die? Do you know before you start writing? And, does it matter?
And, tangentially related, can clickbait provoke a thoughtful discussion?
The original question was posted in a group called Bad Writing Advice, and I’ve since lost the post, but I think it was worded thus: “An author must know how each character’s life ends, no matter how far they live past the last page of the story, before starting to write.”
Very clickbait-y. Engagement farming at its, uh, finest.
But with a little nuance- and moving the discussion to another venue, because you guys and gals are a better audience than anonymous and possibly AI-generated crowds on Facebook- the original statement can become a useful discussion.
Anyone who takes the above clickbait literally is on the very far end of the plotters vs. pantsers bell curve, and probably hasn’t completed very many stories because he’s still working out all the characters and worldbuilding. Anyone who takes it literally in the opposite direction of, no, you don’t need to know anything about your characters before you start- is a pantser of the highest order, and probably hasn’t completed very many stories because he’s still working out how to add a skeleton to the pile of mush that could become a story someday.
As with so many aspects of writing, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and varies from person to person. Story to story, even, in my experience; some tales require a lot of world-and character building up front, and some are more dynamic (which is a nice way of saying they meander all over the dang place).
I usually know from the beginning whether the villain is going to die, because that informs the type of story I’m writing. Cozy mysteries usually include a murder, so someone dies, and the villain needs to come to a sticky ending (which usually but doesn’t always include dying) to make the story satisfying. On the other hand, I can’t- shouldn’t, anyway- go around writing nice, sweet regency romances in which the rival love interest is unceremoniously kicked in the head by a horse, murdered by a highwayman, or dies of TB, no matter how realistic it’d be for that time and place. That’s not the point of the story. Gavril the mercenary always defeats the villain in the end, because his tales are light, fun fantasy. And of course there are some antagonists that aren’t characters, merely the weather or time, which can’t be defeated, only survived. On the plus side, no need to think of an ending for those antagonists.
The ‘die or not?’ question gets murky for me when I’m dealing with non-villains. I don’t usually kill my protagonists, but minor characters, good and bad) are fair game. I knew from the beginning that certain minor and semi-important characters in The Garia Cycle were going to die, because their sons and daughters popped up as title-holders and rulers in chronologically-later-but-earlier-written stories, most of which are still on my hard drive for the moment.
There’s a character in the time travel story that probably should die, to complete the triad of dead villains, but she’s going through a redemption arc, which makes her death a tossup. Redemption Equals Death is a recognized trope, but so is the opposite. I genuinely don’t know what to do with her, which, according to Bad Writing Advice, means I shouldn’t be writing about her at all.
I’ve never been very good at following the rules of writing. Thank goodness, if they’re all like that.
What about you? Which of your characters were doomed from the beginning? Did it alter your perception of them, or how you wrote them? Which characters surprised you?- either by dying, or by their insistence of living no matter what you threw at them?
Mad Genius Club 
9 responses to “The Writer, in the Office, with a Keyboard”
Oh, I had two very central, relatable and well-loved characters die in mid-book or at the end of another book – and it was planned from the very beginning that they were doomed. My alpha readers asked wistfully if the first couldn’t be reprieved, and I had to sadly tell them “no” – because the whole remaining plot threads were was centered on his family surviving and coming to deal with the loss.
The second central character was also doomed from the start – since I had mentioned early on that he had died of TB, leaving his widow to raise four sons. When I had gotten about three-quarters into the book narrating the widow’s eventful life, I realized that I was NOT looking forward to writing the awful details describing someone dying from TB in the early 19th century. Sudden stroke of inspiration – having him die off-stage, as it were, with a REALLY GOOD REASON for being away from his family, which strengthened the basic plot, and gave me a notion for another book entirely.
I’ve created characters to die. I’ve knocked off characters to dispose of them, or as a plot device (preferably both).
OTOH, I’ve been blind-sided by the realization that a character’s rescue only meant he died in freedom shortly thereafter, which I realized only after writing 90% of the story.
Had one. I was trying to figure out how, exactly, they were going to put things back together if they failed, because they kind of blew up everything in the process. Then I realized, they had no plan of coming back, at all, if they lost.
From the character’s perspective, it made a horrific kind of sense. The simplest way to keep a secret is to take it to your grave. And if they weren’t the strongest, they did not need to be there anymore.
That character was pretty dark, underneath the skin…
I’ve already figured out how far too many of my cast are going to die.
Most of them…they will die well.
One will not die at all.
I’ve killed the occasional secondary character even when they are appealing but unlucky/flawed.
My main problem with the choice is a local domestic one: my first reader (husband) always protests that I have “killed Robin!” or words to that effect, and I have to hear about it for months.
This cut right to the quick. In my current WIP I have always known that X would die, and how, and who was going to make it happen. Then it turned out as I wrote him, that X was a very charming character, and though he still had to die I had to find a way to make it acceptable because I simply can’t write grim murder mysteries. Maybe I should have just flushed the whole story away…
Only once did I know how a main character was going to die, and when, but only because he was based on a historical figure. So it happened off stage, in a sort-of epilogue showing that he’d achieved his goal, but outside forces undid part of his work. Which readers already knew, because the series started later in time, with the son of the MC’s friend as one of the main characters.
Otherwise? I’ve sorted out how they die later in the series. In two cases I decided not to write the story, because I wanted the plot arc to end on a “happily ever after as far as anyone knows.” Or as German fairy-tales put it, “Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie nach Heute.” And if they’re not dead, they’re living still.
I know exactly when, how, and where each of the characters in my books are going to die. And I have to get it right every time. That is because I am writing history. Even the ones that survive that book, I generally check on because . . . well, I am curious how they turned out.
Assuming there are records. . .
There are many famous people for whom that’s unknown.