NationStates Jolt Archive

(To me, the answer is obvious, but then, I want to see what other people think.)

Do you think it hurts when an author kills a character off in something they have written? Do you think they feel like it is a murder, or a suicide? Do you think they feel as though they have betrayed their fans? Do they cry?

I consider myself to be a writer. I remember once writing a story which, in all honesty, wasn't very good, and then losing it completely-no hard copy, nothing. I had put so much of myself in this story, that when I lost it, I felt as though a part of myself had died. I was in a constant state of depression for a month, and it still hurts to think about it. I have never killed a character in anything I have written before, but if I did, I think I would have difficulty coping.

So, my answer is yes, I do think it hurts for an author to kill a character, in a book, movie, TV show, or whatever.


What do you think?

Do you think it hurts when an author kills a character off in something they have written? Do you think they feel like it is a murder, or a suicide? Do you think they feel as though they have betrayed their fans? Do they cry?


I'm a writer so...

It hurts like a bitch if you like the character, but I don't see myself crying.

In the end, I know they are just fictional characters. I've heard some stories from fellow writers where their characters are actually telling them how to write the story.

Some people are just plain nuts.

I've written a few stories where I kill off characters. It's fun. ((Yes, I am that sort of sadistic bastard. :D))

It depends on the character- or rather, on how much of yourself or of the people you know and love was invested into making this character up, and how much work was spent on writing him. Writing the ending of my story- where it suddenly turns out that the main character was dead all along and his love is by definition an impossibility- hurt a great deal. Hell, it still hurts when I re-read it.

I occasionally write, and some of my stories build up quite impressive bodycounts without any mental after-effects. However, this is probably because I'm slaughtering faceless drones rather than my main characters.

I heard J.K Rowling was pretty upset when she killed off Sirius in Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix.

It depends. If no body likes the character, it's easy. but if he's like the greatest thing to come to literature, it really hurts. I've written a few books, didnt publish them, just let my friends read them, it was a series, and i killed one of the coolest characters (necessity, if i hadn't, a thing cooler than that guy could've never happened) in the book. My friends got PISSED at me.

I heard J.K Rowling was pretty upset when she killed off Sirius in Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix.

SIRIUS IS NOT DEAD! THEY NEVER SHOWED HIS BODY! ALL THAT HAPPENED WAS THAT HIS ARM FELL THROUGH THE CURTAIN! THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE ENOUGH FOR HIM TO BE DEAD! SIRIUS WAS TOO COOL OF A CHARACTER TO KILL! I KNOW HE WILL COME BACK IN THE 7TH BOOK! I KNOW HE WILL!

I heard J.K Rowling was pretty upset when she killed off Sirius in Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix.
She nigh-on cried in the interview with Jeremy Paxman back when the book came out.

EDIT: SIRIUS IS NOT DEAD! THEY NEVER SHOWED HIS BODY! ALL THAT HAPPENED WAS THAT HIS ARM FELL THROUGH THE CURTAIN! THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE ENOUGH FOR HIM TO BE DEAD! SIRIUS WAS TOO COOL OF A CHARACTER TO KILL! I KNOW HE WILL COME BACK IN THE 7TH BOOK! I KNOW HE WILL!
Just let it go, dude. Let it go.

The death of a key character is one of the most powerful things a novel can have. To say it 'hurts' is an understatement, if the writing is powerful enough to care about. But it should be in no way taboo. A writer's story is their own, and if that story calls for a gory, gruesome end to your 'omfg FAVE CHAR!', then more power to him.

I actually prefer writing that contains mortal, flawed characters. I dislike reading things that have the amazing twist of fate that saves the hero at the last minute EVERY FUCKING TIME. Wheel of Time readers beware. Robert Jordan is guilty of this in the extreme. Disgusting.

Try reading George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire'. This guy has no reservations about wasting a few your favorite characters. A dozen or so a book. :) It's my favorite series of all time, and well worth the twenty bucks it would take to buy them. Incest, murder, betrayal, politics. Fucking awesome.

SIRIUS IS NOT DEAD! THEY NEVER SHOWED HIS BODY! ALL THAT HAPPENED WAS THAT HIS ARM FELL THROUGH THE CURTAIN! THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE ENOUGH FOR HIM TO BE DEAD! SIRIUS WAS TOO COOL OF A CHARACTER TO KILL! I KNOW HE WILL COME BACK IN THE 7TH BOOK! I KNOW HE WILL!
Sirius' spirt might make an appearance, but I doubt he will be back in the flesh. In any case, you might want to lower your voice a bit. The shouting is hurting my delicate ears.

I've written many stories, most of them having to do with the nation I play on NS. Emmitia is far older than when I signed up on NS, by the way. I've had to kill off many characters, and it's hurt for me to kill off some of them. Not all of them, but some. I may need psyciatric help, and if I spelled that wrong, I need it all the more, but when I create characters that I really become attached to, they're almost like children.

Well, this is probably based around the whole Harry Potter thing, which I'm not that concerned with. I do recall, however, reading in the liner notes from the Neil Young and Crazy Horse album "Greendale", how upset they were when one of the characters in the album's story died. Of course you can be upset when something you've created is gone, but Authors also have the benefit of control over it, to a degree. If a character died, but after something heroic or a full life, can it really bring too much sadness?

SIRIUS IS NOT DEAD! THEY NEVER SHOWED HIS BODY! ALL THAT HAPPENED WAS THAT HIS ARM FELL THROUGH THE CURTAIN! THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE ENOUGH FOR HIM TO BE DEAD! SIRIUS WAS TOO COOL OF A CHARACTER TO KILL! I KNOW HE WILL COME BACK IN THE 7TH BOOK! I KNOW HE WILL!

Dude, he's dead. Simple.

Sometimes, a little, but its good in a way. If I'm sad, I write sadder.

I dislike reading things that have the amazing twist of fate that saves the hero at the last minute EVERY FUCKING TIME.

That's quite true, i've read alot of books like that. For example, in quite alot of the Forgotten Realms Series by R.A. Salvatore, Drizzt Do'Urden continnualy gets into seemingly in escapable situations. But then something happens and he gets out alive. I mean, I don't want Drizzt to die, but seriously! No one can have that many coincidences that save them!

Well, this is probably based around the whole Harry Potter thing, which I'm not that concerned with. I do recall, however, reading in the liner notes from the Neil Young and Crazy Horse album "Greendale", how upset they were when one of the characters in the album's story died. Of course you can be upset when something you've created is gone, but Authors also have the benefit of control over it, to a degree. If a character died, but after something heroic or a full life, can it really bring too much sadness?
It was inspired by the Harry Potter death. (Somehow Rowling always manages to inspire me! :fluffle: ) I am determined to love J.K. no matter what, so I am trying to see it from her view. I am kind of hoping that she is upset. I didn't care much when it came to the death of the characters at the end of the last 2 books, but this one mattered to me.

This may not count for much, but once upon a time, I wrote a Teknoman fanfiction called "Teknoman the Fanfic" in which I kind of did my own interpretation of the Americanized anime. It wasn't kosher Teknoman, but I didn't care.

One of the villains' names was Wisk. He just had a spark, you know? He was such a cool character. Not really well-developed. He just sort of...wrote himself. Had little quirks. A certain style.

It still hurts a little. Not much. But I wish I could bring him back.

(of course, I won't. Who do you think I am, Marvel comics?)

I'm not exactly an author, in that I haven't written down any stories, even though I have them in my head. I've killed off plently of characters, even ones with extensive backstories. Hell, I even killed off my favorite character. But it never hurt me. I give credit to clinical depression.

I write a bit. Right now I'm building up a character and he is going to die. I know and it hurts a lot.

If you see a book called Who Laughs Last? published by the Black Library in a bookstore in a year or so, it's mine.

Most of my characters I can kick out without a second thought. It's just the really important ones that I've become attached to.

Severus Augustus for example, founder of the Emmitian Empire. He had an absolutely massive backstory and had been with me for nigh two years before I had him killed in a final stand when the First Imperial Capital fell.

Maybe I'm just strange?

My characters tend to be the exact damned opposite of those guys that get saved miraculously every single time. I guess they just have terrible luck. Assassinations, disease, war, murder, famine..killed off many a good character. :D

It should hurt for the author to kill off a character. Or else, your reader wouldn't be hurt when you kill him/her off. To become hurt when a character dies, however, you need to first make yourself and your reader like the character.

On the other hand, you must make yourself and readers glad when the villains die.

Writing fiction is such a hard task. I'm going to spend the entire summer on my piece. :D

It should hurt for the author to kill off a character. Or else, your reader wouldn't be hurt when you kill him/her off. To become hurt when a character dies, however, you need to first make yourself and your reader like the character.

Understandable. So if you want it to hurt when the outcast narrator—the "good guy"—sacrifices himself to save his friends by battling his adversary the sinister villain who wears the finger bones of those he kills, you have to make people like him. Perhaps, by opening the story with his narration, which interrupts the flow of the plot throughout the rest of the tale, thus displaying him as a sympathetic character.

That was the one time I was kind of sad to have to kill off a character, but only because he was one of a couple. :p

On the other hand, you must make yourself and readers glad when the villains die.In one story I wrote, the principal villain is the emperor of an expansionist nation who takes everyone's children and raises them as soldiers from a very young age; all adult males are drafted, and those who choose not to come are given the option of forced labor for him during the planting season, so their farms fall into ruin; and if people speak out against him, their homes are raided at night and their families stolen to his castle. Everyone ought to be fairly happy when he dies. ;)

It will depend on the character but when they are close and you've worked on them for so long but what hurts the worst is when you poured so much of yourself into the charater only to have them die in some way that you tried so hard not to let it happen. I write alot but recently when I finished the piece that will kill off several characters that I loved to use it hurt like hell.

It can certainly hurt a little to kill off a character. After all, in a way every character you write is a piece of you.

I'm not sure about the "betraying your fans" part, though - maybe I'm just lucky in that the only things I've had published are poetry and non-fiction, so I don't have any fiction fans to betray! :)

Douglas Adams killed them all in one fell swoop, and didn't seem to sad about it.

Douglas Adams killed them all in one fell swoop, and didn't seem to sad about it.

Well, yes. But he did say that he was in a bad mood that year. :p