8 Tips for Killing Off Characters (Writing Advice)

Killing off a character can impact your readers forever--but only if you do it right. Spoilers for Season 1 of Game of Thrones.

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[PaulKMF]

So, avoid reactions like,
"Oh my god, they killed Kenny!"
"You bastards!"

[Dhips.]

I don't like when the reader/watcher get's a bunch of info about a character, who had very little to do till now, all the sudden is the focus. When this happens I right away think to myself "oh yeah you're dead. You're already dead." It's right next to "2 days before retirement" in a cop drama and "I can't wait to see my girl." in a war drama.

[jacevicki]

Your #6 comment made me think of Jane in Breaking Bad. Her death clouded over Jesse for the rest of the series. The guilt of it ate at Walt until he confessed to Jesse. The grief made her dad mess up at work and caused the airplane crash. Her death affected the story going forward in many ways. And the amazing thing is you know in a lesser writer's hands her death is just going to be "Jesse sad, look at how evil Walter is getting." Instead it is flushed out, her death touched everyone who knew her significantly, and touched others indirectly as well.

[TheZoltan-]

Meanwhile, in comics-world: A character dies, means he/she went on an extended holiday.

[sabershenanigans]

I think my favourite character death is Count Dooku, in the novelisation of Revenge of the Sith. In the movie, he just gets outfought, betrayed and murdered - but in the novelisation there's so much more to it: we see his own idea of what was supposed to happen, leading up to his death. The entire fight is told from his perspective, making Anakin and Obi-Wan the antagonists for two-and-a-bit chapters and showing just how dark a threat Anakin poses to those he fights - and exactly how Palpatine manipulates EVERYONE - including and especially his own inner circle.

It's tragic, it's poignant, it fits the theme of the story, and it hits astonishingly hard considering most people who read it will have already seen the movie and know exactly what's coming.

[SequentiallyCompact]

I think in T2, the T-800's 'death' was probably one of the most impactful on screen deaths of all time.

[inkwyvern]

Another way of dealing with this is separating the emotions brought forth from death from death itself. Characters don't always have to die to be dead. They can turn coat. They can lose themselves or get lost along the way. Permanency in separation is as good as burying someone. This way it doesn't feel as cheap when characters return to the protagonists side instead of miraculously getting revived

[me-myself-i]

Edit: Someone mentioned I should've put a spoiler warning at the top, and they're probably right.
There will be spoilers later in this comment.
About some of these:
Peter Parker's death in Into the Spiderverse was at the beginning, and be was supposed to be a mentor character to Miles but then died before he really got to teach Miles anything, which forced Miles to search for a new mentor. This was an integral part of Miles' character development.

Then, later on, spoiler alert:







Uncle Aaron dies. This is shortly after we discover he's the Prowler. We have grown to care about Aaron throughout the movie, so the reveal is surprising. We see the good in him because of everything that's happened previously. Then, when Miles reveals his face, Uncle Aaron realises what he's doing is wrong. These are real people he's killing. He decides to quit working as the Prowler. This is the start of a redemption arc.
KingPin puts a stop to that.
Both deaths were important to the plot, but Aaron's death was much more impactful.
Also, Aaron's death was more surprising, since we expect a role-model to die in a Spiderman origin story. Peter's death serves that role. But we only later realise that Uncle Aaron was so much more of a role-model than Peter.

[drumitch]

Oberyn Martell's death in Game of Thrones elicited the single most visceral emotional reaction from me that I've ever had in regards to a fictional character's death. I was furious. And it's not because it was bad or out of place, but as a viewer/reader, I really wanted him to get his revenge, but it was written very well with his personality in mind. He was blinded by his emotions (which allowed readers and viewers to empathize with him), which caused him to make a fatal mistake, and then he died a (seemingly) meaningless death to one of the most despicable people in Westeros.

As much as I hated seeing him die that way, I think the story became so much more compelling with that death.

[LunrFox]

I recently played a video game that dealt with death and revival a lot.

If a character died in the story, they were reborn, but they would not remember anything from their past life, and would be like a completely new person.

[TurquoiseStar]

George R.R. Martin has said Gandalf's resurrection shaped his philosophy in killing characters no matter how matter now important they are. He set that tone from the first book with Ned Stark.

Game of Thrones effectively abandoned this philosophy when Arya was stabbed repeatedly by the Waif, jumped in the dirty water and was immediately fine ("merely a flesh wound", to quote Monty Python). From then on, the fan favorite characters suddenly all developed plot armor thicker than dragon scales.

[norskibox]

The tip about a promising future reminds me of Narancia from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. As they were close to finding the villain, he was talking with one of the other characters about how he was excited to try going to school again to get his life in shape and wanting to eat a nice pizza. I remember watching it and feeling so distraught that he never got to accomplish that.

[Rudolph]

I love how Watership down creates the sense of tention after killing off a character almost right after their adventure stars to make it feel like anyone could die at any moment

[SamuelMcAlpin-ftuu]

I’ve always loved in Star Wars Rebels when, after Kanan gives his life to save Hera and the other rebels in the final season, the next episode is basically entirely devoted to their grief. Sabine and Zeb lash out at the Empire, Ezra finds himself rudderless once again without his Master’s guidance, and Hera is utterly destroyed by feeling responsible for the death of the man she loves. They all ultimately find their own ways to shake off the funk by the end of the episode, but it was great to see that explored in a way I feel too few shows do nowadays.

[Alpharelic]

The "future promise" one reminds me if Axel from The Walking Dead. I liked how with him, he had been a prisoner who was only just pitiful enough to talk Rick out of killing him, and afterwards his relationship with the group began to get better as he had a funny vibe to him. And then, while he's lamenting to Carol about his past in a way that puts it behind him, he gets shot through the head - no warning, no realisation that it's over, just gets one shot. That gave me a lot of shock

[userdata]

The most disappointing death I’ve seen in a story would probably have to be Avdol’s death from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure part 3. The first time he “died” it had a big impact on Polnarref, allowing him to grow further as a character, and than later we find out that he didn’t actually die which was suprising and actually pretty cool to see, but than when they killed him for real later on it just wasn’t as impactful in my opinion.

[lindildeev]

Another tip, more likely to be found in romantic stories, inspired by the promise a future tip: the no future character. It's that character who already knows he or she will die soon but his/her lover and close ones still hope that won't happen. The reader roots for them, believes that the character will make it but the inevitable fate comes crushing all our hopes.

[DarkTider]

#4 id say this is a double-edged sword.
The good old "2 weeks until retirement" cliché comes to mind. By this point a promising future has conditioned the audience to expect the character to die, and it often feels trite and unimaginative to kill them in this method. Or even worse, it might even worsen your story and cheapen the death of it leaves a story arc incomplete or feels too sudden, especially if it means characters don't buy the death.
The death of John snow in game of Thrones was the worst offender here, his death was handled so badly it was obvious he wasn't gone for good the moment he hits the ground, because there was too much unfinished business going on for anyone to buy that he was actually dead. It feels like a very "gotcha" tip, and one I feel is a pretty bad tip nowadays when bright future makes readers expect death is coming.

[dorrin]

The "mentor death" segment made me think of The Kingsman.

You're going through the movie thinking the mentor will probably die, somehow. But then the young hero gets killed, and it REALLY throws you for a loop. Especially with _how_ it happens.

[lillydevil]

Most disappointed 'death' was actually a 'Oh, he's alive again, haha' moment

Long story short: Guy who MC has a crush on puts himself into a 'He's definitely not getting out alive situation' to buy MC and friends time to get away. But then he is illogically alive and waiting for MC in the epilogue. It's like, 'Sure, these feelings of grief don't matter now, huh?' moment and seemed stupid af