In one of my stories, two of the six main characters die and I really hate myself for it. They're two of my absolute favourites but it's really necessary for completing character arcs and progressing the story…doesn't stop me from having 'everyone lives' headcanons
Here I've created a safe space for everyone to be sad over character deaths. Share your cruel choices as a writer and we can all suffer together
In one of my stories, two of the six main characters die and I really hate myself for it. They're two of my absolute favourites but it's really necessary for completing character arcs and progressing the story…doesn't stop me from having 'everyone lives' headcanons
Here I've created a safe space for everyone to be sad over character deaths. Share your cruel choices as a writer and we can all suffer together
As for my character, her story is kinda complicated coz she's trusting her best friends more than her dad, the only family left to her. In order to push the point of the story which is the father-daughter relationship, i need to kill her 3 best friends (which have been living together with her for 7 years) including her love interest so they can focus fixing their relationship as a family. But in the end when they finally have that bond i decided to kill her as well because i'm a heartless author lmao
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I feel that. I have an old story where I killed one of my favorite characters, and I cried while writing his death scene.
I also think I may need to kill one of my favorite boys from my current work to add to some character arcs and raise the stakes of the story, and let's just say I'm not very happy about it.
I got really emotional for a while when I killed the gf of a protag. Messed me up for a bit.
I feel you Bec. My sympathies.
I also think I may need to kill one of my favorite boys from my current work to add to some character arcs and raise the stakes of the story, and let's just say I'm not very happy about it.
Yeah, I'm kinda in a similar situation. I've recently decided to kill off two of my characters . I've nearly cried while writing near death scenes (not because my writing is that good, but probably because I'm just really attached to my characters and was listening to a sad song) so I'm probably going to be a mess when I have to kill off these characters.
I don't really want to do it, but I feel like it lowers the stakes if the villains don't kill anyone. At least one of the characters gets killed off by a family member, so I feel like that kind of shows that the villains aren't messing around. Like, if they'll kill their own family members, then they'll kill just about anyone. Plus, one death will raise the stakes for one character, and the other will just create all kinds of internal conflict for another. I stand by my decision, but I'm not exactly looking forward to it.
Yes, the worst part is knowing that it's the only way or really important. It's easier to read about it because you didn't have to make the actual decision.
I remember for one of my characters in a different story I kept tossing around the idea of her dying, living in imprisonment forever or getting redeemed and living for a long time. Also, there was a possible ending where she gets trapped in the folds of time for eternity. But I don't feel sorry for her she's an awful person. I did…but I suppose to ease my suffering I just made her so irredeemable that I didn't care anymore.
But honestly the thing that makes a death sadder is the reaction of their loved ones. And our attachment to that character. That's why it broke my heart to kill my baby coz i've grown a lot to her
At a younger age, I resented the thought of offing my characters. Now I do it with ease knowing the impact will stir up new motives, or bring about change in various characters.
I don't have a ton of deaths but I try to have 1 in every story (besides the one about high schoolers because that one is heavy enough already)
One of the saddest deaths for me is a character in a fae story I'm working on. The character (who we'll call C) dies after being caught by the villain and executed in an attempt to break his enemy, and it works. Then when one of her surviving friends gains an ability to talk to and see ghosts, she sees her and breaks down crying about not being able to save her when she wanted to.
I- I feel like a terrible person because I have to kill off most of my characters at the end of my second book so the third and most important book can happen. And the few who don't die (besides the main protag) end up either fully paralyzed, stuck on a thumb drive, or turned into dolls. The ones who get turned into dolls can't be turned back but they're aware of everything and can still feel pain, and one of them is going to be tortured by the main villain in front of the main protag…
All the time. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, am I right my dude?
It depends, but yeah.
Yeah, but still. Basically, only the main protag and her sister truly survive, and everyone else is legally dead. All twenty-something.
wow…that's um…
wow.
I love my protagonist too much to kill her off, but her best friend has to die and it just makes me really sad.
Oh that sucks. Why?
yeah. The only reason book three happens is because my main protag is trying to find a way to get them back, which leads her to where I need her to go…
Quietly sobbing in corner
I have to kill my protag's bff because he has to sacrifice himself to save everyone…and long story short his death saves the world so I'd call it pretty necessary. Still sad tho :C
Legit.
2LEGIT2QUIT
Does anyone kill their protagonist? In one of my stories I do. It's meant to be a really dark story so when the protag can't escape her past even when she pretty much kills everyone from it she goes on a suicide mission and dies, leaving the new relationships she's formed behind. She was stuck in the past and could never truly recover. I think if she was more open to her new, present friends things could have been better but hey, she helped end the war.
I don't think I'd kill my protagonist, but there are some books that definitely do. cough cough allegiant
It doesn't fit in the thing I'm currently working on, but in another WIP that's sort of on hiatus, I had planned to kill one of the four main characters, which I say all had roughly equal role as the protagonist. There's a time and place for it of course.
Yeah, if it helps propel/conclude the plotline, killing a protagonist is fine, the only problem that I've had with killing a protagonist is my friend killed the main character in her story, but it was written in the first person, and as you can assume, it was a fricking weird ending…