by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I recently read an interesting novel—I won’t say which one, since I’d be spoiling the ending. The most important character in the book was killed in an ending I didn’t see coming. The death was a bit of a plot twist in itself because of what it said about a separate character in the story.
After finishing, I was curious to see what other readers had thought about the book. I braved Goodreads—a site I hate as a writer, but sometimes enjoy as a reader—and found several discussions about the novel. And…to my surprise, most readers slammed the ending.
The readers said they thought the death served as a “cop-out ending”. One reader commented that the ending “felt like a cheap shot.” I hadn’t felt that way at all. In fact, it seemed like a very thoughtful ending to me…and a surprising one.
Around the time that I read the book, I got an email from my editor at Penguin about the outline I’d submitted to her for the next mystery in the series. She liked the outline in general, but had several reservations about the second victim in the story. She wanted to make sure that the second victim’s death wasn’t gratuitous. From a mystery standpoint, she also wanted to ensure that the sleuth wasn’t relying on the second murder to solve the case…that the second murder helped, instead, put the other pieces of the puzzle together.
Back in January, I wrote a post about why we might choose not to kill a character. I mentioned that some characters have a certain star quality about them—something that resonates with readers. And readers can get very protective of their favorite characters. Now I was trying to justify killing a character to my editor.
My fix was to go back to the outline and change things up a little. I added more clues and red herrings to the first murder and then changed the victim’s personality a bit. In this version, she was a more complex and possibly irritating person…someone I didn’t think readers would really miss much. And I changed the clue that the second murder provided the sleuth. This time, the clue just helped the sleuth make sense of the other clues instead of allowing her solve the case immediately. And my editor signed on.
Here are my thoughts about when readers might accept character death easier:
When the death is vital to the plot and isn’t acting as a placeholder because we weren’t sure what other direction for the book to take.
When the death acts as a catalyst in some way for other characters’/our protagonist’s behavior. The death resonates and provides real impact.
If this was a viable direction for the story to take. If it doesn’t seem like a lazy approach.
Other questions I considered:
Does the placement of the death play a role? I think it does. It seemed like many readers of the book I’d read objected to the character’s death because it occurred at the end of the book.
Might genre make a difference in terms of reader acceptance of a character death? Again—I think so. In mysteries, we can usually get away with deaths…but what if we murdered a sidekick? Or the detective’s wife or child? Would readers be as accepting of a death of a main character in a more upbeat romance, for instance?
As a reader, how accepting are you of character deaths? Are there circumstances where you accept it easier than others? As a writer, have you killed off main characters in any of your books?
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I don’t like it when main characters are killed off. Or love interests. Everyone else is fair game!
Julie–I usually don’t like main characters being killed. Love interests being killed are okay, as long as it’s handled well. But I really don’t like the death of children in a book…just very disturbing to me. I try not to choose those to read.
Hi Elizabeth – I’ve never considered any of this .. I’m sure there are stories where I haven’t been happy with the ending, but not considered why – then I’m a reader, who reads and doesn’t write. Very interesting .. and now I’d love to know the book!
Cheers Hilary
Hilary–It’s a good book! If you shoot me an email, I’ll give you the title. :)
Just recently I read “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie. The book is much darker than the movie, and the ending is handled differently — and I had heard that, so I put off reading it. However, on reading it, I found that the darkness was not hard to take. In fact, it was well handled and absolutely suitable.
And I also realized that the movie had not “cheated” by lightening it up — the book was simply a very different kind of story than the movie could be. It took us deeper inside the psyche of the characters, made the puzzle matter less than the human story. And ironically, by getting us even closer to the characters, the story was freer to go darker. It gave us a chance to see how those darker plot turns must go. To accept them.
A movie, on the other hand, would have had a harder time with that darker more intimate side, so they emphasized the puzzle and scares… and had to make some different plot choices as a result.
As for my own work — sometimes I have a hard time writing Mick and Casey mysteries because I’ve come up with a light murder plot. Even though the series is light and often comical, I know that Mick take death seriously. Even if my audience would accept the death of a no-good scoundrel without a blink, I sometimes feel that my characters do not approve.
Camille–That’s my favorite book by Christie. I enjoyed the movie, too (that’s the black and white one, right? I don’t remember another). But you’re right–the book and movie are very different. They’re both enjoyable, but in different ways. Sort of like the book and movie version of “The Shining.” I enjoyed both, but they were nothing at all alike…apples and oranges.
The book was darker…eerily darker. But I loved getting deeper into the characters’ heads. The movie couldn’t do that, of course.
I think readers would respect Mick’s attitude about death, though, and that’s what’s important.
I have to say, I’m a big fan of killing off characters, maybe even to the detriment of the story in some eyes.
Greg–If readers expect it, it’s not such a bad thing. Look at “Game of Thrones.” :)
You know I killed off a main character in one of my books. Hated doing it, but it was important to the story and propelling it forward. It was also a pivotal moment for my other main character and moving him forward. It made a lot of readers cry (I feel bad about that) but no one was mad that the character died. I guess I did it right then.
Alex–You handled it really well. And with that kind of handling, even if readers are sorry the character died, they understand and accept it.
Elizabeth – I think you highlighted something vital here. A character’s death needs to fall out naturally from the plot. And I’ve found that as a reader, I don’t like character deaths that seem too contrived or are just there to fill in a plot hole. I think the most important thing is that the death make sense.
Margot–So true. If it doesn’t make sense for the story, then the readers will definitely find it contrived or lazy writing.
Boy is this a topic on my mind! In my current wip the main character dies. I tried to change it but it wouldn’t be changed. She has to. I think I will have a hard time selling the book but nonetheless . It isn’t a mystery and in the two mysteries I’ve written there are some sad deaths but gratuitous? I don’t think so. People do die and I guess if the sort of book it is tells the reader up front that this is a dependable happy ending, like a romance, well okay. Otherwise people need to be prepared for tragedy as well as passion and humour.
Jan–That’s what I think. Death is a part of life, after all, so doesn’t it just add a note of realism to the story?
I have always admired the technique in _For Whom the Bell Tolls_.
We know at the end of the book that death is most probably for the protagonist. He’s a burden to the little unit of partisans. He can’t go with them – even his lover.
Hemingway allows us to see that his dying act might mean something. He’s not just dead on the page but set-up as a “one more thing to do” sort of fellow even though there is little hope for him.
It’s a nice technique where the main is going to die, the reader knows it, but the action happens off the page and Hemingway makes the medicine taste better by wrapping it in a layer of emotional necessity for a character whose emotions are so tightly controlled through more of the novel.
Worth a try: off page demise.
Jack–Excellent point. Hemingway was such a master. I like the off-stage murders. Maybe this could be one that even the sleuth doesn’t discover…but is told about second-hand. That would also add a bit of distance.
Interesting discussion. I recently read a best-seller from an author I like a lot, and he killed off a character–one of the POV protagonists, in fact, and readers screamed. I don’t think they stopped reading him, but it was fun to watch the tweets, etc., when people posted they were reading it, and others tweeted back — Wait till you get to chapter 25. He also broke the rules by not apprehending the killer at the end.
If you have to kill a character, and it makes sense, then I say it’s OK. Just don’t kill a pet.
Terry–Wow, he really broke the rules! My editors wouldn’t be happy if I let the killer get away at the end…I don’t think there’s a chance in Hades that I could get that to float.
Oh, killing pets and children? Definitely a touchy area and one to turn off plenty of readers.
Elizabeth–
“As a writer, have you killed off any main characters?”
In my only commercially published novel, The Dating Service, the story is told from multiple points of view. I made what turned out to be a huge mistake when I killed off the best character in the story–a very bad man. But he was a very engaging bad man, and once I did him in (in a hale of bullets from police, in the Detroit Public Library), I had cut myself off from bringing him back for more stories (imagine the writer now banging his head on the desk). Recently, I began to wonder whether he might have fathered a son, providing him with the right kind of genes… Nah, he’s gone. But I did learn my lesson, and I applied it in The Anything Goes Girl.
Correction: no one dies in a hale of anything. Make that a hail of bullets.
Barry–Although it would be cool if they could! There have been hale and hearty people who have had booming voices that have startled me into next week before… :)
Barry–A book that I’m enjoying now. :)
Yes, that’s the thing…might we want this character back in the future? And bringing a character back from the dead only works for soap operas.
Speaking of soap operas, not only do people return from the dead, but there’s something called, SORAS, or soap opera rapidly aging syndrome. This syndrome enables characters who were infants or pre-adolescents just a short time ago to return to the screen as young adults. When soap innovators learn how this syndrome can be reversed, the whole daytime TV world (not to mention real life) should be greatly improved.
Barry–I didn’t realize the syndrome had an official name! :) I was never a soap watcher, but my grandmother *loved* them and that’s how I’ve got my knowledge of them (and have written soaps into my Myrtle Clover books). She did express some frustration when a toddler rapidly morphed into a teen (and the parents stayed the same age).
I’m usually pretty accepting of character deaths. Sometimes I wish writers would be LESS fearful of killing off main characters, especially on TV shows where the characters are continuously put in danger. It’s hard for it to truly be suspenseful week after week when you just know the main characters will survive.
The only time a character death really threw me was in a book where someone’s spouse died near the end. There had been absolutely no foreshadowing of this death, and the death changed the tone of the story so dramatically that I kept wondering if the surviving spouse was going to “wake up” in a few pages and declare it all a bad dream. It just plain didn’t work for me.
Megan–And you have to wonder why on earth the writer did that. Just for shock value? I’d think you’d have to have plenty of foreshadowing leading up to something like that.
Life does not ask permission. Death certainly does not. If the death flows naturally out of the nature of the story and of the killer, it makes sense. That said — I hate it when a favorite character is killed. I feel readers pay their hard-earned money to be entertained. They can get depressed for free!
In my END OF DAYS, I brought all my major characters from other books in to fight the end of existence. One by one they fell as the others fought on until only one remained.
But I had the sequel to set things right. That is the great thing about writing fantasy. :-)
Roland–Fantasy can break the rules all the time! A terrific benefit.
I love that kind of thing…where the characters from other books band together to fight evil. Sort of reminds me of “SuperFriends” when I was a kid. :) That was the last Saturday morning cartoon my mother would let me watch until I was kicked out into the backyard to play.
Your topic sent me to Goodreads to look at reviews of a book I read recently that ended in a main character death. I’m not sure if it was the same book, but I ALSO thought it was a poignant ending–appreciated it as apt, and reviewers seem really mad about it. I think some people are just big babies. The book I refer to is YA, which may make people less tolerant.
My serial I’ve killed a lot of people, though I am very hesitant on PoV characters. I’ve killed millions, in fact, but only half a dozen that had names and lines in the book… I usually do it when it is needed to make one of my MCs make a decision of some sort…
Hart–Mine was a legal drama, but I can imagine that kind of reader anger would definitely happen in YA, too. Although I think of numerous deaths in popular YA….but still.
I kill sooo many people in my mysteries, but no one gets close to the victims. Wouldn’t dream of killing off a main character. I think the readers might come after me.
We should never take death lightly especially if it’s a character. Killing a main-ish character who is loved and/or good needs some deep thinking. I don’t like it when that happens in a book I’m reading and would feel resentful.
Teresa–So true—there needs to be strong justification for character deaths. Otherwise, readers can and do feel cheated.
I made the first death in my books a very popular State Senator. This way there is a sense that its not just your average gratuitous killing.
I think its important to make each killing as different as possible. Now two murders should be the same.
Stephen–I definitely agree…although it starts getting tough after a while to keep them fresh and different. :)
Hi Elizabeth! You make some great points and bring up interesting questions. I’m a developmental editor and I was helping an author with a tricky manuscript that had to do with these topics. The love interest dies 3/4 of the way through, but I thought readers might accept it because it triggers the protagonist into a hard decision (and she grows from the experience). But at the end the villain overtakes her and changes her into a demon–almost unrecognizable from the character readers have gotten to know. I wasn’t sure if they would react to it favorably until the author and I found a way to turn it into a setback instead of a failure. Being mindful of readers’ expectations within a genre can be an interesting balancing act! :)
Interesting… Umm, I don’t mind I guess. I even enjoy the shock factor of a main character dying midway through, especially if they’re not sympathetic characters.
I have have left an ending open to interpretation on one of my short stories – they might believe it was a dream, that the woman died, that she lived another day, that she was caught by a tribe of zombies and became one, for example – but that little experiment didn’t go down at all well. :) And on an upcoming story, I know one very well liked main character is going down in an awful way and folks won’t like that either, but that is how the stories unfold in my head. She has to go!
For me, as long as the death is understandable, plausible, inevitable, then it doesn’t matter. But then, as well as other genre, I do love horror, where death figures quite a lot. X
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Shah–You know, I do too…I think I’m just looking for something unexpected in a story and I enjoy it when I’m able to be surprised.
I like open endings, too. Especially, as you mentioned, in a short story. Your story sounds like fun!
Horror and mysteries have a lot in common. :)
I can’t think of an instance when I’ve been turned off by a character’s death, because I trust the author to justify it in some way.
As an author, I have found myself so invested in a character, however minor, that I have teared up as I write the death scenes.
Gay–I’ve always kept an emotional distance from my books’ victims, but since I have two in every book…it’s much healthier for me!
Elizabeth, I especially appreciate this particular topic right now since I’ve just finished the first draft of my first novel. I like how you shared with us the process you went through to justify a second death. I had not planned ahead to have one of my main characters die near the end of the book; but it seemed a natural result considering the intense personality of the character. But this got me thinking, and I went and asked my husband and daughter what they thought of the death. My daughter said she was glad, and my husband only said that the character should have suffered more (screams or moans etc.). He was happy about the death too. I just hope that after I’ve polished up the novel an agent will be glad too.
Blessings ~ Wendy ❀
Wendy–It sounds like your husband and daughter are excellent beta readers! Glad you passed it by them and they thought it worked so well. I have a feeling an agent will feel the same.
I actually think its brave for an author to kill off a character. As a writer myself, I know how easy it is to become attached to our characters even the ones we should hate so when I see an author kill a character I often find myself wondering more about how the author felt after killing the character.
Maribeth–I wonder that, too. Especially if it was a main or major supporting character. I think it would be tough, for sure.
I’ve killed the second vp character off in my story. I give clues throughout that she’s headed that way and really her character teeters between good and evil most of the book and is redeemed by her death.
Traci–Now *that’s* pretty cool!
Television shows now have a no one is safe attitude that can hurt them. A few months ago a show killed off a character that was considered the heart and soul of the story. She was also thought to be the main moral compass on the show by many viewers. After the character’s death there was such a huge void that you could tell something or more accurately someone was missing. The show lost about six million viewers. This show first started losing viewers when this character became marginalized the season prior.
I went to see a movie that was adapted from a book. The movie was good but lacked tension. I couldn’t help but think it was a bad move to kill some many characters early on. The characters who were killed could have added that much needed tension to the story.
You have to ask yourself are these characters important to the story? Will their deaths take the story and other characters forward or backward? Do my readers/viewers need these characters to enjoy my story? Are the readers/viewers looking for an escape or reality? Will this hurt or help?
Melody–I think you’ve raised some very important questions for writers to ask. None of us can afford to lose tons of readers because they get disgusted by a lead character’s death (which happens when readers don’t see a reason for it or if it removes the story’s heart).