Thinking about making a power hungry aeducan, romancing Alistair, and then having him executed at the landsmeet when it’s clear marrying him and becoming queen of ferelden is off the table. But that would require the two worst things in life: choosing the mean dialogue option and making Alistair sad :(
Working on more non-kink writing for publication tonight and I needed to take a break from writing so I could TALK about writing with y’all young and aspiring whipper schnappers.
Today, I wanna talk about a tricky subject to get right that you can very easily bungle; killing your characters.
I’m not talking the no-names or one-off characters that aren’t meant to be fleshed out so much as they are to service a moment or emphasize the danger of a certain situation. I’m talking the characters you buckled down and put the time and effort into really fleshing out. Developing them, growing them, deciding on their motivations, personalities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. These are characters we, the reader, have come to know, and you, the writer, are trying to dictate what is the fitting end for this character?
There’s a reason people get so pissed off when certain characters are killed. Yeah, you have the knee-jerk reaction of characters you really like biting the bullet. But all too often, one of the primary reasons it rubs people the wrong way is because it often feels cheap. Sometimes, a characters death feels sudden, rushed, completely out of left field, or designed specifically to “keep us on our toes,” more than anything else.
I’m going to say right now, for the characters that matter, do not EVER just kill them off for the sake of being shocking. Often times, even in spontaneous ends for characters, like “Cabin in the Woods”’ glorious bike death or the end of “The Departed,” shocking as the deaths may be, it is the natural conclusion for those characters. We got all we were going to get or NEEDED to get from these characters. This felt like the perfect ending to their journeys, be them grueling and hopeless or just downright hilarious and idiotic.
Can it work for the sake of tragedy? Characters who you get to know, having good, truly happy lives together, cut short when tragedy strikes or if someone kills the people in question? Sure, that can work, but again, it also needs to feel like this is what it’s all building up towards.
Respect your creations. Evaluate the road leading up to that point, and then ask yourself if this death services the character or is just there for the sake of motivation for ANOTHER character? Because if it’s the latter, it’s not really for the characters benefit. What’s more is, it cheapens the character in question, basically sacrificing them for someone else’s growth. That should happen as a BYPRODUCT, not as the central drive for the death scene.
Think about the “mentor death” trope, for a moment. The mentor dying isn’t sad or impactful anymore because it’s always what’s expected. It’s the obligatory checkmark, like the “third act low point,” and that ends up feeling really lazy. If you’re expecting it, then why are you going to care when it happens, or care how it affects the protagonist?
If you wanna actually give it weight, then it isn’t about dragging it on, it’s about actually fleshing out the mentor character. Giving them an arc, a real sense of development. Let your audiences get to know the character and, above all else, LIKE AND UNDERSTAND the character. Make them care. And then, ask yourself, is killing this character off truly the natural conclusion to their journey? And if so, is it in service to the character? Is it the absolute best note for the character to go out on? Does any other alternative just feel wrong to you?
In HISS, without spoiling anything, I know exactly which of my OC’s will survive, and which ones won’t. To the best of my knowledge, that list isn’t changing, despite me completely rewriting the first few chapters from scratch. And with each one, the reason they die is because they NEED to die. They all need to die because I can’t imagine a scenario where they live. I can’t imagine scenarios where the natural conclusion their arcs is just carrying on like Loomis did after he freakin’ EXPLODED in Halloween 2. XD
One character I was REALLY on the fence about ultimately came down to a few simple questions; does their story have the potential to truly continue in a way that wouldn’t just be lingering? And given all they endure, don’t they deserve something resembling happiness? I’m not simply serving them at the alter of the plot. Everything I do in my writing is in service of the characters, because it’s characters that will drive the readers to keep reading, and a plot that will build intrigue.
It will always be case-by-case. So evaluate each characters journey, and decide for yourself what you think they deserve in the end, and what the readers deserve for following that journey as a payoff.
Soooo yeah, hope any of y’all out there find this helpful, and if you have any questions, I’m happy to answer in the asks! :)
Im actually face palming, I downloaded the last four episodes of ST4 on my phone before I left for the lake so I could watch them without wifi since i wouldn't have any, or so I thought until I look and see I actually downloaded the last 4 episodes of SEASON 3 😭😭😭🥲🥲🥲
