Killing people - Page 2

James_Wilde · 07-19-2011, 06:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Do I look like a girl?

Hard to tell with that avatar. The name gives a hint, but names can be misleading. :P

And you don't have to be a girl to write happy endings. I managed it and my nickname on one list was Conan the destroyer.

kennyc · 07-19-2011, 07:01 AM

From what I've heard, George R. R. Martin has no issue with it....

JeremyR · 07-20-2011, 05:53 AM

This has always been a problem with me.

I've been trying to write a number of Lovecraft pastiches. But I just don't like killing people off, at least once I've made them somebody.

mr ploppy · 07-20-2011, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

Hard to tell with that avatar. The name gives a hint, but names can be misleading. :P

And you don't have to be a girl to write happy endings. I managed it and my nickname on one list was Conan the destroyer.

I'm just messing. My daughter's my first reader and she's always going on at me to make them happy, get a job, find a girlfriend, etc.

James_Wilde · 07-20-2011, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I'm just messing. My daughter's my first reader and she's always going on at me to make them happy, get a job, find a girlfriend, etc.

There you are, you see, there's a market for happy endings.

Vandy · 07-20-2011, 12:50 PM

It depends upon whether or not they deserve a killing...

melaniejaxn · 07-20-2011, 01:00 PM

It depends on the genre. I write mysteries, so people sometimes die. Horror-- no problem. Send 'em for s dirt nap. It's expected.

However, I have a series with a dog in it who is very old, but everyone loves the dog, so that is one canine who will never die no matter who else gets it :-).

It's tougher in romance, or in a series where a character is known and beloved. Two books I wrote dealt with the death of a spouse and they were horrible experiences because I had to go to a place of pain, to remember real loss. To this day I get heart-wrenching email from people who have lost loved ones, so I guess it evoked the right response. But I will never lightly take on such a story again and I haven't tried for sequels.

Speaking as a reader, I ditched two series (and their authors) because the authors killed off favorite characters. They violated my trust. The deaths felt capricious to me and that added to the anger at the abrupt change in dircetion of the series. I think there was a need for a new love interest and instead of having a heroine divorce, the authors offed the husbands (who were way more interesting than the leads). Knowning how pissed off I was when it happened-- a decade and hundreds of dollars for hardbacks invested in something that suddenly felt futile-- it would stay my hand until I considered every other way of making something work. If you've made a pact with your readers. you don't violate it without a good reason.

But killing characters can sometimes work even in a series. I think that both James Bond and Quiller were men in a death spiral and everyone who reads them knows there won't be a happy ending. I'd rather leave it implied than actually read about their deaths, but I think the increasingly suicidal behavior was appropriate in those stories. And self-inflicted by adrenaline junkies. They were not innocents having evil come down around them. That makes a difference for me.

anamardoll · 07-27-2011, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xanthe

What do you folks think about authors who become seemingly incapable of killing off any of the "regular" characters who appear in a series, when situations occur where the character should have met his or her natural or unnatural demise? When the characters become so real in the author's mind that he/she just cannot eliminate them, even though the story arc suffers? How can you recover a series that is stagnating because of something like that, without a wholesale slaughter that would alienate the core readership?

Xanth. Just... Xanth.

I mark the point that the series went downhill when all the older characters starting coming back from retirement with youth potions so that they could frolic and cavort again under Anthony's all-seeing eye.

OneandonlyDoc · 07-27-2011, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Does anyone feel a bit guilty about killing the people who live in their heads? Do you ever use your god-powers to rewrite their destiny as a result?

Without a doubt, yes--I also have a tendency to get a little weepy about offing some characters, like a few others have noted. I'm like that as a reader as well as a writer, though.

bthrowsnaill · 07-31-2011, 10:33 AM

In genres that are typically violent (mystery, horror, fantasy, paranormal), I think character deaths are expected--and often required. In non-violent genres, deaths tend to be more shocking, and probably need to be handled with greater care.
I think it's important for an author to understand which characters readers are connecting with. I know I've been surprised by some of the feedback I've gotten from readers in that regard. If the author doesn't know that his minor character is beloved by readers, an unexpected backlash might be quite unpleasant!

mr ploppy · 07-31-2011, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bthrowsnaill

If the author doesn't know that his minor character is beloved by readers, an unexpected backlash might be quite unpleasant!

I know what you mean. A book I read recently had a couple of animal lib crusties who were my favourite characters. When I asked if he had any plans for a spinoff with those characters he said he only put them in for light relief. So they were probably lucky to survive.

jaxx6166 · 08-01-2011, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G J Lau

Sometimes killing off a character is the happy ending.

LOL!

I almost felt guilty about writing off a character in one of my books. But, then I realized that I never liked him anyway.

Actually..yeah. In my rewrites to one story I just killed two minor characters, one of which I would have loved to see more of and I felt his dynamic really never got to be explored.

But, what's done is done.

So yeah. I felt bad for Ryu.

Poor guy got killed twice in one book

J. Strnad · 08-02-2011, 11:06 AM

Yeah, I rewrote the ending to Risen when I made the ebook and spared a character who'd died in the pb. It's kinda hard to get a "happy ending" out of this story, but the new ending is "somewhat less dismal."

Generally the people who die in my comics stories richly deserve it.

briel · 08-10-2011, 09:08 PM

Always remember Alfred Hitchcock talking about offing Janet Leigh so shortly into the movie adaptation of Robert Bloch's novel, Psycho, intentionally leaving moviegoers shocked and wondering about what the remainder of the movie could possibly be. Don't think the orig. author, or esp. Hitchcock, felt bad about it.

Eisengoth · 08-11-2011, 06:15 AM

I've found that when reading other peoples' books, the death of a character that I really like can either make me misty-eyed or frustrated, depending on how the death takes place.

When writing my own stuff, I don't tend to get misty-eyed when a character dies... unless I'm specifically trying to provoke that reaction, which I have done in the past (won a story contest by writing tragedy once).

I know I'm doing it right if I get chills. That means the character is dying correctly, for the story, and there's nothing wrong with that.

07-20-2011, 12:50 PM	#21
Vandy ...always be humble. Posts: 116 Karma: 505917 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Fort Myers, FL USA Device: iPhone 5s, iPod Touch 3rd Gen, Kindle 3 WiFi, Kindle Fire	Killing... It depends upon whether or not they deserve a killing...

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07-19-2011, 07:01 AM	#17
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,904 Karma: 119230421 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	From what I've heard, George R. R. Martin has no issue with it....

07-20-2011, 05:53 AM	#18
JeremyR Guru Posts: 973 Karma: 2458402 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: St. Louis Device: Kindle Keyboard, Nook HD+	This has always been a problem with me. I've been trying to write a number of Lovecraft pastiches. But I just don't like killing people off, at least once I've made them somebody.

07-20-2011, 01:00 PM	#22
melaniejaxn Enthusiast Posts: 48 Karma: 10308 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sierra foothills of California Device: Kindle	It depends on the genre. I write mysteries, so people sometimes die. Horror-- no problem. Send 'em for s dirt nap. It's expected. However, I have a series with a dog in it who is very old, but everyone loves the dog, so that is one canine who will never die no matter who else gets it :-). It's tougher in romance, or in a series where a character is known and beloved. Two books I wrote dealt with the death of a spouse and they were horrible experiences because I had to go to a place of pain, to remember real loss. To this day I get heart-wrenching email from people who have lost loved ones, so I guess it evoked the right response. But I will never lightly take on such a story again and I haven't tried for sequels. Speaking as a reader, I ditched two series (and their authors) because the authors killed off favorite characters. They violated my trust. The deaths felt capricious to me and that added to the anger at the abrupt change in dircetion of the series. I think there was a need for a new love interest and instead of having a heroine divorce, the authors offed the husbands (who were way more interesting than the leads). Knowning how pissed off I was when it happened-- a decade and hundreds of dollars for hardbacks invested in something that suddenly felt futile-- it would stay my hand until I considered every other way of making something work. If you've made a pact with your readers. you don't violate it without a good reason. But killing characters can sometimes work even in a series. I think that both James Bond and Quiller were men in a death spiral and everyone who reads them knows there won't be a happy ending. I'd rather leave it implied than actually read about their deaths, but I think the increasingly suicidal behavior was appropriate in those stories. And self-inflicted by adrenaline junkies. They were not innocents having evil come down around them. That makes a difference for me.

07-31-2011, 10:33 AM	#25
bthrowsnaill Dreamer Posts: 112 Karma: 501282 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Philadelphia, PA Device: kindle	In genres that are typically violent (mystery, horror, fantasy, paranormal), I think character deaths are expected--and often required. In non-violent genres, deaths tend to be more shocking, and probably need to be handled with greater care. I think it's important for an author to understand which characters readers are connecting with. I know I've been surprised by some of the feedback I've gotten from readers in that regard. If the author doesn't know that his minor character is beloved by readers, an unexpected backlash might be quite unpleasant!

08-02-2011, 11:06 AM	#28
J. Strnad Guru Posts: 915 Karma: 3537194 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kobo, Kindle 3, Paperwhite	Yeah, I rewrote the ending to Risen when I made the ebook and spared a character who'd died in the pb. It's kinda hard to get a "happy ending" out of this story, but the new ending is "somewhat less dismal." Generally the people who die in my comics stories richly deserve it.

08-10-2011, 09:08 PM	#29
briel Member: Cary Briel Posts: 6 Karma: 40000 Join Date: Aug 2011 Device: kindle	Always remember Alfred Hitchcock talking about offing Janet Leigh so shortly into the movie adaptation of Robert Bloch's novel, Psycho, intentionally leaving moviegoers shocked and wondering about what the remainder of the movie could possibly be. Don't think the orig. author, or esp. Hitchcock, felt bad about it.

08-11-2011, 06:15 AM	#30
Eisengoth Independent Author Posts: 47 Karma: 36836 Join Date: Aug 2011 Device: Sony PRS-505	I've found that when reading other peoples' books, the death of a character that I really like can either make me misty-eyed or frustrated, depending on how the death takes place. When writing my own stuff, I don't tend to get misty-eyed when a character dies... unless I'm specifically trying to provoke that reaction, which I have done in the past (won a story contest by writing tragedy once). I know I'm doing it right if I get chills. That means the character is dying correctly, for the story, and there's nothing wrong with that.

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