To Kill a Character - The Defining Moment

Sometimes the defining moment in a story can be the death of a single character. It can make or break a book. People, who don't know any better, may perhaps create a whole slew of paper thin characters so their story won't be harmed by killing a few. In my opinion this is perhaps what is wrong with many "scary movies." Killing a character should hurt the story. It should also help the story. And it should affect the reader on several different levels. So when should we kill our characters, and why?

Killing characters can go a long way in setting a mood for your story, whether it is a screenplay, a novel, or whatever. What type of story are you trying to tell? You can kill a character at the end of a book. Make it climactic. Often to do this, it is good to involve other characters in the deed. The setting and location of such an event is usually predetermined by a writer to be a very important time and place. You can kill a character in the middle of a book. Make it unexpected, and shocking. If a reader has invested their time into half of the book already, make certain their time is well spent. Make this a moment they will care about, and never forget. A character killed in the middle of a story should usually be important, as the story is already half finished. The death of unimportant characters in mid story, for no particularly important reason as far as storytelling is concerned, is pretty useless more often than not.

Two examples I'll use to illustrate my points are authors Robert Jordan, and George RR Martin. They seem to be exact opposites in regards to killing characters. Robert Jordan is responsible for the much acclaimed Wheel of Time series. It's a very in-depth coming of age story set in a seventeenth century type fantasy world. Of course it wouldn't be fantasy if the world weren't about to end. It also wouldn't be fantasy if a young hero weren't foretold to be the messianic savior of everything. Robert Jordan has created a jumbled cast of characters that readers can literally loose themselves in. During the course of eleven already finished volumes, that can weigh in anywhere from 700 to over 1000 pages, Robert Jordan has killed many antagonist characters. Over that time only one truly important protagonist character seems to have died.

The problem is, Jordan has resurrected a good number of his antagonist characters, even though there was a healthy number of spares in his closet. What we now have is a series that is winding down to the final book, and an army of good guys, and bad guys, running around. Some have died and come back; others have escaped certain death so many times they have been completely squeezed dry of interest. That can be the danger of continuing a series for so long. How can you keep a story interesting for eleven books without killing important cast members? The answer is simple. Don't prolong a story longer than it is meant to continue...

On the other side of the coin is George RR Martin. When I was introduced to his series, A Song of Fire and Ice, I was as impressed with it as with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. (I was very impressed with the first Wheel of Time book, Eye of the World.) George RR Martin also does fantasy, but his characters seemed a little more personal. It wasn't a story about one person's journey to save the world. It wasn't even a story about one person, so much as it was a story about a whole kingdom of people. Martin selected about 10 characters to focus on with his first book. There were other characters that showed up frequently, but they were often relegated to the background.

Some of them would end up dying somewhere along the way, others would survive. They were all, almost always, very enjoyable characters. As readers you feel sorry for them, but the story went on just fine. Then unexpectedly, and I mean totally unexpectedly, Martin would kill one of his top ten... It is impossible to see this coming when it happens, even when foreshadowing is riddled throughout the story. Martin's timing, and methodical way with the English language can almost deliver thriller level moments that make readers fear to turn the page.

When he kills someone really important, that readers have invested emotional interest in, it's almost like finding out that someone stole your identity, and cleared out your bank account. Much of the time these characters have a mission or some motivation, and all of a sudden they're gone, and there is no one to finish the job. But that's life. That is as realistic as death. How many people get to finish life having accomplished everything they set out to do?

Martin's story is not about heroes, but more about real life. Like Jordan, Martin's writing is not perfect. The Song of Fire and Ice series now spans four books, and he still has plenty of characters to tell a good story with. Unfortunately, though Martin is good at killing the cast, he often is guilty of introducing too many new characters for each book. Often times they seem to take on roles that are every bit as important as those among the original cast who have somehow survived thus far.

I consider this a major point to bring out, because it essentially leads to bad writing. At this point in the story, Martin should be winding down the plot, but it is hard to point out what these four books are really all about when you put them together. Martin's books have all hovered around about the 1000 page mark. That is plenty of pages to give his story a definite direction. He seems to have concentrated so much on killing characters; he's forgotten to show any conflict that will provide much needed direction to his main plot. A Song of Fire and Ice now seems to be a story about a kingdom of people with small problems that never get solved because they are all dying and being replaced by new characters that will probably die before accomplishing anything.

This isn't helping Martin's story very much.

Now you see why I say the decision to kill characters can make or break a story. Killing a character can be surprising; it can make readers fear to turn the page. The timing needs to be right, the character you decide to kill needs to be the right one. In storytelling it is probably best if you kill a character that has little else to offer the continuing story, just don't go out and advertise that this character has nothing left to offer.

In the end, George RR Martin, and Robert Jordan used their best judgment, and did succeed in setting a mood for their respective stories. Both are well respected writers, who have gained immense popularity. In fact I'm very envious. But that doesn't mean they have always made the best decisions for their story. Deciding to kill, or not kill a character is often taken too lightly, in my estimation. Up and coming writers should be well aware of the importance of killing characters before starting and ending a project.