A Writers Guide to Writing: Death of Characters and My Opinion on It

Welcome to another Writers opinion article.

Today we'll be talking about the Death of Characters and my opinion on the subject.

Everyone love those memorable characters in a story, the shaggy sidekick, the unlikely ally, the love interest with an attitude, the villain that isn't really a bad guy, The evil overlord bent on world conquest, and all the other characters that appear in a story.

As a writer, you grow attached to your characters, you grow to feel like that have a place in that world you've created, and then that terrible moment comes, when you have to say 'good-bye' to them, forever

In this Hub, I'll be going over my thoughts on the Death of created characters, so enjoy and I hope you gain some valuable insight into your own writing as you read.

So sometimes in writing you have that character that's one of the "good Guys" that is always on the side of right, always trying to be a hero, always trying to do something to help everyone.

Depending on the Genre you're writing, something can happen in your work that forces this character into a Life or Death situation; A dragon attacks, he is out numbered by Space Pirates, while trying to track down a serial killer he gets caught by the killer, any number of things can go wrong for this character, and in a perfect world, the character would be rescued by your main hero before something terrible happens to them.

However, this can also be an excellent plot point if handled properly, the Dragon kills this character moments before the hero arrives, and this leads the Hero and his friends to hunt down this Dragon to get revenge.

But now, that character, the entity you poured your creativity, your heart and soul into, is gone forever unless you write some complicated 'Resurrection' plot device into your writing.

As a writer I have often struggled with this myself, I often have to ask if the death serves a greater purpose or if the story needs to be told in that way. Many times while playing games or watching TV shows, people die and I ask myself "what was the purpose of that?"

As the author, it is your job to figure out, and explain, just what the purpose was.

Lets take a moment to touch on the Bad Guys, they aren't your main villain, but they cause their fair share of trouble and havoc.

Often times they attempt to lead the characters astray, or get in the way of the mission at hand, sometimes to help the Villain, sometimes for their own personal gain.
They are memorable, they add to the plot, but then they die, defeated by the Hero, one of the Good Guys, or even by a strange twist of fate.

Maybe the character dies as a way of redeeming themselves after making a bunch of bad decisions, and through this death, the Hero and the rest of the Good Guys find out that they weren't so bad after all.

I'm not saying that every Bad Guy has to die, in fact in some cases you can take a Bad Guy, and through encounters with the Hero, sees the light and becomes a good guy, or maybe he doesn't so much see the light as he does change sides and becomes more of an Anti-Hero, he isn't a Good Guy, but he isn't one of the Bad Guys anymore.

Killing off the Bad Guys is also another struggle for me as a writer, but I'm often reminded that it is often times a necessary thing to have happen in an attempt to advance the plot of the story.
You may not like to do it, but it isn't always avoidable.

By now you've notices that there are Good Guys and Bad Guys, but I also mention the Hero and Villain.
That is because of the way I write and should not be taken as a concrete writing style at all, but for me, there is a Hero who is the main character of the story and there is a Villain, who is the main antagonist of the story, and sometimes there can be multiple Villains, like an Evil Organization.

In a lot of my writing, we don't meet our Villain as early as our Hero.
This section is about what to do if you decide to kill the 'Hero' of your story, and the struggle I've faced in this.

Your Hero is there, he is facing one of the Bad Guys or a Villain and ends up dying in the fight.
Now what?
Well, this is part of the struggle, because now you've killed the main character, where do you go from here?

In my opinion, there are several simple and complex directions you can go.

One way to take the story is to have everyone else get revenge on the Villain or Bad Guy as the climax of your story.
Another is create a complex side story where the hero can be resurrected with a mystic relic or through time travel. (just try to explain that in a way that doesn't include multiverse theory)
The ever popular dream sequence

But what if, right from the beginning, that was what you WANTED to have happen?
What if the only way to save the world, catch the serial Killer, defeat the dragon, win the war, was for your Hero to make the ultimate sacrifice?
What if the Hero isn't really the MAIN Hero, and their death allows ANOTHER Hero to take their place?
This is all part of the struggle of writing characters that die.

My struggle has always been about killing my main characters, any of the Heroes in my work, because each has a personality, a life of their own, and because of that, I find that killing them takes a piece of the story with them.

They want to Destroy or Rule the World
They seek a weapon that could destroy the World
They are a murderous serial killer that has claimed hundreds of lives
They want to amass a fortune in stolen goods as leader of Space Pirates

This is your Villain, the one that is the source of all the bad that happens in your work, the one who the Hero has chased, hunted and even fought.
Now we come to the end, and we decide, does the Villain die?

For some reason, this has always been easy for me, the end comes and we confront the villain, then at the end, unless important to the plot of another work, the villain dies at the end, a good time is had by all and we celebrate the defeat of this Enemy of all things.
But it might not be as easy as that all the time.
In many of my works, the Villain is a "recurring Villain" and is always influencing events in the story, in other works, the death of the Villain doesn't mean that it is the end of the story, because maybe this Villain had a group of followers that carry on their work afterwards.

The death of the villain might come easy because that is how you created them, you made this villain to be the "final Boss" in a way.

Like with the Hero, you could also tie this into the plot of our characters, maybe the Villain dying unleashed a worse villain upon the world.
Maybe when the Villain died, there was a power vacuum left in his organization that is now being fought over.

No matter what your character is classified as, Good-Guy, Bad-Guy, Anti-Hero, Hero, Villain...
Killing a character you have poured your heart and soul into can be difficult at best.
But always remember that no matter what, it is sometimes necessary to do in order to advance the plot.

Remember that you are the creator of your own world and you are the master of the destinies of all your characters, be they the good or the bad.
You shape your world and the characters in it.