Would it be okay to kill of a lot of my characters in the story I'm writing?

[Tzipora]

I want to go a bit George R.R Martin and the Walking Dead here. Meaning a lot of death. I mean, death happens all the time, right? I don't want to be like Twilight where almost everyone lives, or any other book where everyone goes through dangerous situations and all live.

So, I want to kill off two of the six main protagonists, all but two of the antagonists, and about half of the minor ones. I'm trying to make the characters so real that some of their deaths come as a shock. But I am trying not to use death as the main shocker, because I want some characters to lose limbs, go through serious mindf*** to the point of no return to sanity, and being raped or mutilated. Yet, death is so terribly final that I want to use it on a lot of the characters in my story.

No character is going to come out at the end like how they were in the very beginning of the story. I must make the story as gritty and real as possible. Should I kill off basically half the characters that you develop complex emotional relationships with? Or no?

Am I crazy?

 

[tiffany]

Don't kill of too many characters. While I agree that not everyone should live as this is often unbelievable the same can be said for killing off to many. Try to be reasonable and use the deaths to your advantage like in Harry Potter, Dumbledore's death was important and necessary and added real development to te story yet I don't think J.K.Rowling really needed to kill off Dobby, Hedwig, Fred, Lupin, Tonks, colin, Ted TOnks and various others. While of course a lot had to die I felt she almost went overboard and killed for the sake of killing but you might disagree.

Also if you are going to kill off that many character's then it is going to take a lot of skill to make them all surprises. But you should def kill of some, but maybe not quite half

 

[Kidda]

You dont want it to be a massacre of main characters because then it becomes very predictable
thus boring. You want to keep the unexpected build-up to the death, then show how in a way the rest of the characters die/change completely on the result of their death.
You can kill of the characters that you've built an emotional attatchment with as long as there's someone else to fill their place, otherwise it will get VERY uninteresting in a page or two.

 

[cathrl69]

I think you've missed that what you need is a compelling plot and characters who people care about.

If your compelling plot has character death in it, sure, go for it. But you can't make a plot compelling just by throwing gore at it.

" I mean, death happens all the time, right?"

Yes, but the average lifespan is what, 75? Maybe it's younger in your universe. But you would need to ask yourself how plausible it is for the average lifespan of your characters to be far shorter than the average lifespan of the population.

"No character is going to come out at the end like how they were in the very beginning of the story. I must make the story as gritty and real as possible."

And in real life, most people _don't_ get killed young, maimed, raped or whatever. You don't make your story more shocking by having unpleasant things happen every couple of pages. You make it less shocking. A shock is something that your reader _isn't_ expecting.

 

[EveyJe]

I'm glad you brought up George R.R. Martin because here's my two cents on his stories: they try far too hard to be dark. Now, I'm a *huge* fan of dark stories. But what makes great dark stories is there being a contrast of lightness, hope, and humor to make that horror stand out and be all the more shocking and devastating. With Martin's works the rape, torture, and character death is on an endless stream. It's not surprising or affecting when a major character of his is put through some serious s**t because that's just another chapter or episode. You become numb to it and you also don't let yourself so much as hope or get too attached to anyone.

There's also the fact that, at a certain point, it starts becoming just as unrealistic as the gleaming white knight fairy tales it's trying to subvert. Make the whole world either too noble & good or too desolate & evil and it feels that much more like a story. Our's is one where most people are pretty good, if unremarkable, and an extreme minority qualify as true villains or saints.

So just be careful here. I highly recommend that you watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer if you haven't already, just to get a taste of a story that succeeds in balancing the entire emotional spectrum. Buffy was able to be hilarious, horrifying, sweet, and devastatingly sad often in the span of single episodes. It killed off a lot of major characters in it's run and each death was a complete blow. People actually joke about how often and how brutally Joss (Whedon, the creator) killed off characters or had generally heartbreaking moments, but you can also find endless Youtube videos of its greatest funny and most romantic moments. I think that's key in truly putting your audience on an emotional roller coaster - they have to have all these great, light, wonderful bonding moments with the characters in order to fully care and be impacted by bad things happening to them.

In short: Kill and maim all you like. But be sure that you're building really great, full-bodied stories around that, and that you don't make pride in your violence your advertisement for why your story's special and worthwhile. Readers like me aren't impressed by the body count fad that's infecting fiction and eating out the potential for real emotional storytelling.

 

[Zeee]

Honestly some of the best work or characters die early lol. In an anime where you dont expect anyone to die let alone someone important actually dies early on your like and your remember it.

If your whole novel is dark then go for it. Nothing wrong with people dying in books.

 

[EveyJe]

I'm glad you brought up George R.R. Martin because here's my two cents on his stories: they try far too hard to be dark. Now, I'm a *huge* fan of dark stories. But what makes great dark stories is there being a contrast of lightness, hope, and humor to make that horror stand out and be all the more shocking and devastating. With Martin's works the rape, torture, and character death is on an endless stream. It's not surprising or affecting when a major character of his is put through some serious s**t because that's just another chapter or episode. You become numb to it and you also don't let yourself so much as hope or get too attached to anyone.

There's also the fact that, at a certain point, it starts becoming just as unrealistic as the gleaming white knight fairy tales it's trying to subvert. Make the whole world either too noble & good or too desolate & evil and it feels that much more like a story. Our's is one where most people are pretty good, if unremarkable, and an extreme minority qualify as true villains or saints.

So just be careful here. I highly recommend that you watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer if you haven't already, just to get a taste of a story that succeeds in balancing the entire emotional spectrum. Buffy was able to be hilarious, horrifying, sweet, and devastatingly sad often in the span of single episodes. It killed off a lot of major characters in it's run and each death was a complete blow. People actually joke about how often and how brutally Joss (Whedon, the creator) killed off characters or had generally heartbreaking moments, but you can also find endless Youtube videos of its greatest funny and most romantic moments. I think that's key in truly putting your audience on an emotional roller coaster - they have to have all these great, light, wonderful bonding moments with the characters in order to fully care and be impacted by bad things happening to them.

In short: Kill and maim all you like. But be sure that you're building really great, full-bodied stories around that, and that you don't make pride in your violence your advertisement for why your story's special and worthwhile. Readers like me aren't impressed by the body count fad that's infecting fiction and eating out the potential for real emotional storytelling.