How to Write an Effective Character Death
Most of us have a character death or two that we can point to as having effected us as readers, whether or not we can identify why exactly that particular death struck us so powerfully. In this post, I’m analyzing some of the character deaths that I’ve found most impactful–both as a reader/viewer, and from the storytelling perspective as an author.
Note: Due to the nature of the topic, this post does include spoilers for Warehouse 13, Arcane, and The Maze Runner trilogy.
The Crux of the Matter: Character Deaths Should Have an Impact
You probably already know this–on an instinctual level as a reader if not from an authorial perspective–but character deaths must have an impact on the story in order to feel meaningful to the reader. There must be some sort of impact on the story and/or the characters left behind, or else the death feels like a cheap trick used for shock value.
I would say that The Death Cure falls into this shock-value trap when Newt dies (along with a few others, but Newt’s death stands out the most). Newt’s death has little long-term impact on Thomas, despite their close friendship throughout the series (and the circumstances of Newt’s death), and feels like it has very little bearing on the remainder of the story, either. While it did impact me as a reader because I cared about Newt as a character (more on that point in a moment), it also made me incredibly mad at James Dashner because it felt like it was solely included to shock and dismay the reader, not because it added any meaningful benefit to the story being told. Death matters, it’s a tragic thing, and throwing it in for shock value cheapens its potency.
On the other side of the coin, some character deaths have a purpose to the story but little emotional impact for the reader (and/or the characters around the deceased). While these are forgivable because they do have meaning, and sometimes they are necessary, these can still be overdone and inadvertently cheapen the idea of death in your story. You don’t want to do that, either, so use these sparingly and (at least as a general rule) only for minor characters/”extras.” (It also is possible to use some of the tips in this post on a toned-down scale to make sure these “minor” deaths don’t feel cheap.)
When a primary or secondary character dies, it should matter–to the story, to the characters around them, and to the reader. That level of impact is what I hope this post will help you achieve.
Connect Your Reader to the Character
This is the most critical element of making a character death meaningful to your reader. If they don’t care about the character, they won’t care (much) when that character dies. There is no one guaranteed way to ensure that your reader connects with your character, because that will depend on your reader’s specific personality and preferences, but there are obviously still ways to increase the connection between your character and readers!
The most obvious step is to ensure that your character is well-rounded, thoroughly fleshed out, and feels realistic to the reader, with an authentic voice (ideally one that your reader can relate to on some level). Your reader should be able to understand and empathize with your character’s goals and motivations, and perhaps have some idea of their backstory (especially if you bring this back around to play some role in the context of their death).
Another element that can be a huge point of connection between the character and the reader is the relationships your character has with those around them. Even if your character is drastically different from your reader in personality, lifestyle, etc., an older sister character will still be relatable to your older-sister readers because of her relationship with her younger sibling(s). The same applies to all sorts of relationships; your reader will connect with familiar connections just as much as (if not more so than) they will connect with familiar traits.
Show the Effect of the Character’s Death on Other Characters
Up to this point, we’ve discussed what a character death needs to be and how it needs to be set up. From here on out, we’ll get into what elements need to surround the character death itself in order to lend it the impact it needs.
This is probably the most effective element toward making a character death impactful to your readers, because just as your reader will connect with the character who has died, they will have also connected with the surrounding characters, and they will feel the impact of the deceased character’s death with (and through) the characters left behind.
There are two character deaths in the latter seasons of Warehouse 13, and I think that this is the core reason why one of them hits me harder than the other. With one, the viewer is shown the immediate reaction of all of the surrounding characters. (This death gets me every time I watch the show.) With the other, the character reactions are delayed and–for most of the characters–shorter-lived. While both character deaths are well-done, and I’m sure that part of the disparity is also my personal level of investment in each of the deceased characters rather than the writing, I think that the immediacy and depth of the character reactions surrounding the first death mentioned add to the impact.
Obviously, not all character deaths lend themselves to immediate reactions from other characters, and you shouldn’t try to shoehorn them in where they don’t fit! But giving depth to those reactions as early as is reasonable will help add to the impact of the character’s death on your reader. Funerals can be a convenient means of revealing character reactions to a death, but they can also be overused, so consider whether a funeral is the best way to do this (or adds to the story in some other way) or whether a more “casual” scenario might work better and offer greater impact to your reader. Funerals have the weakness of providing some closure to the reader and characters, which can resolve the emotions surrounding a character’s death (for the detached reader, at least; maybe not the invested characters), which can decrease the impact of a character death when used too early.
Different characters will have different reactions to a character’s death–due to differing personalities, different relationships with the deceased, etc. All of them can add to the impact of your character’s death–including those that clash with one another. If one character has a very emotional response to a character death while another acts cold (whether due to genuine callousness or in order to hide their own grief), this can highlight and draw out even more of a response from that emotional character to emphasize the impact the deceased character had on those around them.
Showing a variety of reactions to a character’s death can also communicate a lot about the surviving characters to your reader, deepening the reader’s connection with those characters as the story moves along after them.
Prevent the Deceased Character from Achieving Their Goal
While not a critical point, a character death that prevents a character from accomplishing their goal or fulfilling their perceived role can have added impact as it leaves your reader with a lack of closure that can add to the wrongness of the character’s death.
I believe this clear sense of failure is another reason that the one Warehouse 13 death has more impact to me than the other; while both characters fail in their immediate goals at the time of their deaths, one goal has been established for longer and is more clearly cut short by the character’s death.
There are two ways to move on from this point, and either can add to the emotional impact and storytelling strength of a character death. One is for the dying character to pass the baton–either with their dying words (as is especially common with mentor characters, in particular) or in a will/letter found afterward (whether they expected to die–which can add its own sense of impact–or whether they planned to pass along the goal/role more personally but died before they had the chance). The other is to leave the goal/role hanging, in which case the surviving characters will need to determine how to pick up that goal/role on their own or adjust their plans to work without that goal/role fulfilled.
Consider whether your character’s death has a greater impact on your story before or after the deceased character has accomplished their goal/fulfilled their role–and, if a lack of closure is the better fit, what sort of internal and external conflicts may result as that gap demands to be filled or bypassed.
Use the Character Death to Fulfill a Goal
On the flip side, you can use a character death to fulfill a character’s goal/role–especially if that goal/role involves protecting other characters. While this offers some sense of closure, which I’ve talked about weakening emotional impact in some cases, it does so in such a way that the closure almost feels wrong in and of itself because the character had to die to accomplish that closure. It makes closure cost.
You can influence the degree of closure vs. lack thereof depending on whether or not the other characters expected the deceased character to accomplish their goal/role this way, as well; a character death that accomplishes the character’s goal/fulfills their role in a way that they expected but the other characters didn’t can still be shown as a shock and “wrong” way for the goal to have been accomplished, through the characters who weren’t expecting it and can’t accept that this was how the goal was reached.
In some cases–again, especially in which the deceased character’s goal/role was to protect others–a character’s death can simultaneously fulfill their goal/role and leave it incomplete/vacant. Early in Arcane, for example, Vander plays a fatherly role to the main sister characters; when he dies, he does so protecting them–fulfilling his role–but he also leaves them (and the larger group he’s responsible for) without a protector and must pass that role on to the older sister he died protecting.
A Word on Resurrection & Fake Character Deaths
The majority of the time, fake character deaths are unnecessary and resurrections cheapen death. However, this is not always true. Fake deaths, in particular, can be done well when the story calls for it. Often, fake deaths work best when they take advantage of the reader’s skepticism (“show me a body or he’s not actually dead”), offering enough evidence to make the reader wonder and ensure the ultimate reveal isn’t completely predictable, but leaving enough doubt that they don’t feel like the rug was ripped out from under them–and the character’s grave–when the character turns out to not actually be dead.
Fake deaths and resurrections are both best used sparingly, but this is especially true of resurrections. Resurrection, overdone, cheapens death more than anything else. When no one stays dead, death loses all weight and meaning–and all of its impact, as a result. The DC comic shows on the CW were especially guilty of this, which was part of why I stopped watching them (among other reasons). That said, a once-in-a-blue-moon resurrection with clear purpose can be done well.
In order to pull off a resurrection that your readers can get behind, make sure that it makes sense with your world, characters, plot, etc., and make sure that there are consequences. Resurrection should pretty much never be easy or without consequence. Resurrection goes against the way the world functions (in almost all scenarios), and there are going to be challenges and consequences to going against the natural law of the world. Keeping this in mind will not only help your reader accept a thought-through resurrection, but also keep you from pulling out this trick too many times.
Have you killed off a character before? Are there any character deaths from books or TV/movies that stood out to you as especially impactful? What do you think made them work? Comment below!
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