Character Death

 (image from cartoonbrew.com)

Especially in fantasy, character death is quite a common occurrence. Whether it's to further the plot, set up the story, motivate your characters, or whatever else you can come up with, here are a few guidelines I've gathered over the years that have helped me.

Don't kill off characters purely for shock value! I used to do this a lot when I first started writing, and it seems to be a fairly common problem amongst beginners especially. When writing a character death, it's important to consider the impact the loss will have on the story and the other characters. Will it make them want revenge? Will it cause them to lose hope? Will it make the team more vulnerable, or the villains more confident? This is all up to you, but make sure that they don't die in vain! (unless that's the goal, of course)

"Underdeveloped characters? Kill them off!" Don't do this! If you have a character who you know from the beginning is going to be someone you're killing off, be sure that they're well-developed up until that point. If you want your audience to care that this character is gone, you have to give them a reason to. Don't kill off a character just because you're bored of writing them - if you're bored with them, re-write their personality! Re-write their backstory! Change something to make you want to keep writing them - or, at least, to make their death matter to you. If their death matters to you, there's a higher change it will matter to the readers, too.

When it comes to writing the death scene itself, the atmosphere of your story plays the biggest role. There's no "right" or "wrong" way to do it, as long as it makes sense within the realm of the story. Is their death surprising, or was it foreshadowed from the start? What is it exactly that kills them, and what element of the story dies along with them? Once you've figured these things out, your character can surely rest in peace.