Some of you may be familiar with this meme:



Pictured there are JK Rowling, George RR Martin and Steven Moffat. What do these three writers have in common? They have a tendency to kill off beloved characters, much to the irritation, dismay and fury of their readers/watchers. Who amongst us DID NOT seethe in anger when Ned Stark's head was forcibly removed from his body? You're a jerk, George RR Martin! Who DIDN'T sob when Sirius breathed his last, or when Dumbledore succumbed to Snape's curse, or when Snape himself was killed by Voldemort? Thanks, JK Rowling, you just broke my heart into a million tiny pieces ~ AGAIN! As for Moffat, I will admit, his reputation as a killer of characters pales in comparison to Martin and Rowling, so that meme is somewhat misleading, but I will say he does have a penchant for creating characters the audience quickly bonds with, before he does away with them. And Amy and Rory? Don't even ask. He didn't kill them, per se, but he made us view their headstones. Not. Cool. Moffat. Not. Cool. (But kinda perfect...)

That there, is me reacting as a reader or viewer.

As a writer, however, I have a completely different take because, in fact, I am a big fan of killing off characters. Yep, I said it. Happy endings aren't always my thing, neither are they always realistic. Sometimes, you need to blow up the universe you've created ~ a reset, of sorts ~ and I do believe it can be an effective strategy to deliver a well timed jolt to your reading audience. In my first published short story, my two main characters both bit the dust, and my second published short story was a fictionalized account of the day my grandmother died. So death can ... work out well, shall we say.

But here are some things to consider before you go mowing down all of your characters:

1. Context: Context is everything. Does the death make sense and will it advance the story? If you're killing off a character merely for the sake of killing them off (maybe because you don't know what to do with them, or you're sick of writing them, etc.) or for the shock value, what good does that do? What purpose does that serve? If you're going for the shock, you stand to lose more readers than you might gain ~ readers know a cheap trick when they see it.

2. The Shocking Death: Conversely, the shocking death can be a mechanism that propels your story into new, uncharted territory. But a death like this takes some thought, planning and delicate handling, especially if it's a character that your audience has empathy for. If you just throw it at them, you risk the chance of losing them. But, if you draw them into it, into the reasoning behind it, make them a part of it and emotionally invested in it, they will follow you onward. In other words, don't insult their intelligence, either intellectually or emotionally.

3. Use the Death Tool Sparingly: As much as I am NOT adverse to killing off characters, there is such a thing as overkill. If every story, every chapter involves a trip to the morgue, or the specter of a dead body somewhere in the scene, you might be in trouble, and you risk turning your work into a cliché, thereby losing the interest of your readers as they roll their eyes at you for killing off yet another character.

No writer wants that.

As common as death is ~ people die everyday ~ within the microcosm of your written work, it should be uncommon, or treated with the respect it deserves, and that respect extends to how it affects/alters/molds your characters. It should not be treated as a cavalier or cheap plot point that you simply jump over in order to get to the next phase of your story.

All of that being said ...