WRITING HELP. TIPS

⋆ character deaths

o. writing help!
( HOW TO WRITE: CHARACTER DEATHS! )

' to help you make
your character's
death more meaningful '

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there are infinite ways to write a good death scene, and just as many ways to write a bad one. in general, death scenes that effect the reader are composed of these two things:

1. READER'S ATTACHMENT TO THE CHARACTER WHO DIES

this is pretty obvious. the more attached a reader is to a character they're going to lose, the more that loss will hurt them. killing off likable, relatable, and interesting characters will always create more impactful death scenes.

but no matter how interesting and fleshed out a character is, you'll usually get some readers who don't grow attached to them for reasons of personal preference – real characters act like real people, and real readers have real people they don't get along with. so just killing off a lovable character isn't always enough, and sometimes we need to kill characters who we don't have a chance to actually introduce to the reader properly. in these cases we focus more on...

2. READER'S ATTACHMENT TO CHARACTERS WHO CARE ABOUT THE CHARACTER DYING

the character who dies is gone, but the characters who loved them are still around to suffer. a reader who's attached to one of these characters and can feel their pain and sorrow, shame and guilt, anger and bitterness, will mourn for the dead alongside the grieving character.

✩̣̣̣̣̣ͯ  OTHER NOTABLE FACTORS:

EMOTIONAL RESPONSE. the emotional response from the pov character can have a huge effect on the reader.

what do they feel when they realize what's happened to the dead or dying character? are they angry, or distressed, or in shock? how does this effect their thought patterns, their physical feelings, and their actions?

SHOCK. killing off characters just for the shock factor is lame and uncalled for – but that doesn't mean the characters who need to be killed off can't have shocking deaths.

GORE. blood and guts aren't necessary to create an emotional death scene, but in the right genres they can draw a new level of feeling from the reader: gut wrenching horror. (just make sure your readers know going into the book that gore is going to be included, so no one gets hurt!)

DESCRIPTION. painful, visceral death scenes can be created by focusing on things other than blood and guts. describing the emotion and the moment leading up to the death, or the way the character's body falls – graceful or twisted – and their expression as they die – crying, startled, content – can draw out deep emotions from the reader.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. mess around with your dying character's point of development to produce different strong reactions in readers. a character who dies because they grew into a better person and sacrificed themselves will make readers weep but still have a strong spark of understanding and happiness, where as killing a character just as they were about to have their choice to grow, brutally taking away that glimmer of hope, will make readers miserable and angry.

and the most angst-educing factor: FOLLOW UP. deaths that have lasting effects, either on the plot or the characters emotional states, will effect the reader more and longer. funerals, breakdowns, misdirected emotions, anger, guilt. the plot and story should continue, ever forward and more tense, but that doesn't mean the death is just forgotten one chapter later.

a note.

ugh finals are this week
and i'm not going to be
able to be active on wp
as much boo. wishing
everyone who has finals
coming up or this week
with luck, you got this !!

i hope this helped tyty !!