Most stories out there include some sort of situation that tests characters in the book, and many stories also contain character deaths that play a major role in the overall way the story functions. Other stories, however, slightly miss the mark when it comes to character deaths, and it feels more like the deaths are placed in the story for shock value rather than plot importance or impact. In order to make the idea of character deaths feel meaningful, you need to consider a number of factors that affect the reader’s experience in order to actually enhance your story.
Why Do Stories Include Character Deaths?
Before we really get into the “how” to write character deaths, let’s talk about why stories even include character deaths in the first place. For the most part, many movies, books, video games and other forms of storytelling tools include some level of character death in them because it is ultimately impactful. The emotional impact that a well-done character death can have on the overall story is very high. A reader will likely feel more connected if there is an emotional response to the story.
Character deaths often also serve as tools for developing a plot and can serve as important turning points in the overall story. The death of a character can easily move a story forward and force characters to come to terms with new changes, differing goals, and more.
Character development is also a big deal in relation to character deaths. If a character in a story dies, then this can cause another character to need to change and thus that character experiences a pivotal turning point that forces them to develop in the story.
Character deaths are also often included in stories where there are high-stakes and there is a focus on realism and delivering a punch of realism to the reader. Character deaths only make sense in an environment where there are very high stakes, such as in my series, The Fallen Age Saga, where the stakes are pretty much 24/7 up there.
Finally, character deaths are included in many stories because they can help add onto the theme or at least reinforce the theme of your story. Maybe you’re exploring the horrors of war or you’re exploring the idea of mortality and humanity. Whatever the reasons may be, including character deaths is a great way to showcase these themes.
How to Make Character Deaths Meaningful
Establishing the Character’s Importance
In order to make a character’s death mean something in the story, the character must actually be important to the story, otherwise, it’ll just be there for something like shock value or to showcase what’s happening around the characters, but it’s not really that meaningful in the long run.
You want to ensure that your character is actually well-developed and memorable so that when the death happens, it actually means something to the characters. You want to take some time to establish the character’s backstory, motivations, arc, and personality. You want to show this character as essentially being something real and practically tangible so that when the character is set to die, the readers genuinely feel like there was some sort of loss involved.
Next, if you want to show the character death as being meaningful, you should ensure that there are relationships established throughout the story so that when the character dies, there are other characters that are impacted by the loss and therefore it impacts the reader more.
You also want to ensure that the character has a purpose for existing in the story and that the character’s purpose isn’t to literally just die. They needed to have played an important role in the story in order for the death to actually mean something to the readers.
Timing the Moment
The timing of a character’s death is an extremely important thing that you need to consider because where the event occurs will impact the plot of the story. The first part of this is to consider the character’s arc in the story. A character arc is basically how a character changes over the course of the story from Point A to Point B/the end. The character arc can end at whatever point you want it to end at, but I recommend picking a part in the story where it will actually mean something and deliver the biggest punch to the reader.
You also want to build up some sort of anticipation before the character’s death in order to increase the overall emotional impact. Things like foreshadowing, suspense, dramatic irony, etc… can all help you lead up to the character’s death properly.
You also want to ensure that it doesn’t feel predictable or that the reader can’t just anticipate it from the first page (unless there’s a narrative reason). You want to make it feel like it’s something that can happen suddenly and you want it to feel like it’s a genuinely emotional moment for the reader to experience.
Focus on your pacing and don’t just rush into something like this and have it feel like your reader is getting no emotional payoff from this sort of an event.
How to Write the Death Scene
The first thing we want to consider when writing a character death is the idea of show, don’t tell. I personally don’t always agree with this advice and I think that it’s not always necessary, but show, don’t tell is still a great way to let readers interpret and come to conclusions themselves. A well-crafted death scene where you are actually using vivid descriptions and details is much more impactful than just telling the reader that a character is now dead.
You want to also focus on the emotional reactions to the character’s death by the people around that particular character. You don’t want to make it feel melodramatic or forced. Instead, because of the relationships you’ve established over the course of the story, the reaction should feel natural and realistic.
You also want to craft the setting/scene around the death. Try to think about what’s going on around the characters in that particular moment. If this is a battle scene and your character dies during this scene, then you want to increase the severity and stakes of that scene by focusing on what is also happening around the characters at that exact moment.
What Happens After
The death scene itself is important, but what comes after and how it impacts the story overall is also very important. You want to show things like the other characters’ reactions, their grief, and the ways that they are coping or avoiding thinking about the situation.
You also want to throw subtle mentions of the void that the character’s death has left behind. Maybe some characters will remember certain things the dead character did or funny quirks they had and it’ll be a moment of remembrance. That is a good way to give the character life even after death.
You want to also try and avoid returning to the status quo after the death because returning to the status quo will basically feel like nothing happened and thus the death is basically just meaningless.
You want to show the change in the story and the way death actually impacted things from an overall sense. You also want to reflect on the meaning of that character’s death and how it potentially conveys a theme in your story.
What Not to Do!
One of the biggest issues with character deaths in books is when authors just kill characters that are major in the story for nothing more than shock value. That is, in my opinion, a bit cheap for a story because if the character wasn’t just written to die on the next page and you spent time developing them only to kill off the character for no apparent reason, then it’s just not well-written.
Furthermore, overdoing the number of main character deaths is probably not the best idea either. It’ll make readers lose the idea of the emotional impact if so many main characters die. Now, if it makes sense for the story and it’s written like that on purpose (the characters are in war), then I suppose you could make a case for this.
You also don’t want to ignore the emotional aftermath of the character’s death and just brush over it as if nothing happened. You want to at least show that there were some changes made to the story.
Conclusion
The idea of writing character deaths can be a really great thing to include in a story and increase the emotional impact on the plot and characters. However, if written poorly or done for nothing more than shock value, then it might not actually help enhance your story and in fact, could hinder it instead. You want to ensure that something like a character death is made to impact the readers, enhance the plot, add to the story, and connect the reader more instead of pushing them away.
Before you head on out, be sure to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter so you can get updates on all my latest books, WIPs, and posts!