Do characters HAVE to die ?

[Fullmetal Joestar]

Do I HAVE to kill off characters to make people read my work? I don't like having favorites die . I'd piss off a lot of fans.

Maybe I'll just have the nasty bitchy girl antagonist go. She's a minor character anyway.

I have an idea: the male protagonist's mom died years ago, so his dad re-married. Protagonist still hasn't accepted his stepmom, and it's been a year. I wanted to make his backstory interesting.

But his mom was so sweet! I don't want her dead!

[Maltese_Falcon91]

Lisa Is I

Do I HAVE to kill off characters to make people read my work?

Uh, no?

[I_Write_Ivre]

The actual question is 'Where did you get this idea?'

[megrar]

people die. if the situation calls for it, you shouldn't back out of killing off a character. if your character's backstory is what you want it to be, then yes, his mom has to be dead. on the other hand, there's a million ways to make his mom absent without killing her. maybe she realized she was gay. maybe his parents were unhappy together. maybe she was in the military (people in the military can't have custody because they obviously won't be around enough to look after kids), or had some kind of mental health issue bad enough that the court awarded custody to his father. maybe she's a travelling photojournalist--you can do pretty much anything with her, and it won't affect how your protagonist feels about his new stepmother.

btw, don't kill your "bitchy female antagonist" just to have someone dead. if no one reading cares about her, it won't have any sort of emotional impact. death in a narrative must serve the narrative. not because that's how life is--it's not--but because telling a story is ultimately engaging the reader, and events therein must contribute to how you want to interact with that reader.

[SebastiansLittleDoll]

Absolutely not. Though, like what someone else says, it kinda depends if the situation calls for it.

[terradi]

Depends on the story. If your characters are battling against very strong opponents in a quest to save the world from forces of darkness, or putting themselves into harm's way again and again, having them all make it unscathed is going to feel impractical. If you plan to have your golden bunch of heroes go untouched, especially if you're writing a story or series with a bunch of life-or-death conflicts, your audience is going to stop worrying about them after a while because they will know you won't ever really kill your darlings.

I like my stories with a little (okay, a lot of) risk. But I also tend to write things with a lot of risk and conflict where it would be strange if everyone made it out alive. If that's not something you write, and you're not writing a story where your characters are risking their lives over and over again, probably, there's going to be less reason to put one at risk or kill them.

Think about the sort of story you're writing. What's at risk? Does your story call for some hard sacrifices to be made? If death isn't a risk, what are the stakes? Because there is always conflict, and there are always things to be gained or lost, even if it's not life or death for any of the characters.

[Black Gabriel]

I think it's fairly obvious that you don't have to kill any characters off.

However, if you promise death it had better damn well happen. If you imply that a character has to die, go through with it because cheating your story's rules will only lead to dissatisfaction and regret.

[Phoenix Sorcerer]

You don't have to. It isn't a requirement. However, it does serve as an attention getter and serves to pull people back into the story emotionally where they may otherwise be waning. The best person I know for pulling on anyone's heartstrings is Joss Whedon, known for killing off a character in EVERY series he makes. It has actually become an act of anticipation with him and is part of what makes his works so great. Sadly, the truth is, people die. Sometimes it is good people which means killing fan favorites when the time calls for it. This doesn't mean they have to stay dead, only that you kill them for a purpose. Some die heroes or martyrs, others as villains or betrayers. Whatever the case is, death in any story shouldn't be taken lightly, but it is a good literary device to remind people of the mortality of your characters and to draw them back into the story at times.

[Cosplayer Skylar]

honestly, no. but to make it an actual story, people do die, it keeps it interesting to see how the main person will react to the death of ... anyone honestly, whether it be a parent, a lover, or even an enemy.

[Guro Malewife]

A dead parent does not make for an automatically interesting character.
Is her dying really important to the story? Is either character dying important to the story?

[marshmallowcreampie]

Where did you get that idea?

Anyway. Depends on the story, depends on the situation. I can't think of many situations that REQUIRE character death. What is the male protagonist's conflict? Is it that his mom is dead, or that he hasn't accepted his stepmom? If it's the latter, the situation could probably be changed by saying the parents are divorced and the mom can't be around too often.

[ponponpon way x2]

Circle of life, man... It's not about how much you or the reader like a character that should determine if they die. If death's a plot point that's the way it is.

[Cotton Candy Panic]

Missy Skylar

honestly, no. but to make it an actual story, people do die, it keeps it interesting to see how the main person will react to the death of ... anyone honestly, whether it be a parent, a lover, or even an enemy.

^

Was looking through the comments for something like this so I could put a little extra on it rofl

If someone does die, make there be a reason behind it. Make sure it serves some purpose for the plot or helps to develop a character that may have been attached to them somehow regardless of what the relationship was.

Killing someone just to have someone die is never good unless you're writing the book equivalent of a horror film, people kinda die all over for 'horror factor' in those.

Also, since I know the OP mentioned killing the "bitchy female antagonist" I think it's important to mention that depending on how that character acts towards the main character, and how the main character would react to the death, it could be a bad idea because that could end up looking like a "So and so was mean to the main character, so let's kill them" situation which people tend to look down upon.

Hmm... depending on the kind of book/story you're writing I think the easiest thing would maybe be having them (the antagonist) die of an illness, maybe have it be that the reason they were mean to people was because they knew they were going to die soon and they didn't feel it was fair or something like that. Maybe after their death their diary would be discovered where they say over and over about how they don't want to die and that it isn't fair that nobody else around them has to go through what they're going through. Maybe the main character could find out about that and reassess their own view of the person's past actions, and maybe have a different outlook on their own life from it.

eek Sorry if some of this didn't make sense, I kinda went rambling and I'm a bit out of it today.

[toasega]

Don't kill off characters unless their death is absolutely essential to the plot in some way. Even the seemingly inconsequential characters could draw a much larger following than you realize.

Example: George Lucas killed off Boba Fett in a fairly insulting manner. He was shocked to discover how many people loved Boba Fett, despite rarely being seen in any of the films, and having little to no dialogue.

If you absolutely must kill off a character, then do it because:

1. It's a pointless character who does nothing and adds nothing to your story at any point in time.

2. It gives no depth to your story and/or characters.

3. It's not mentally and/or morally challenging your audience.

4. It's Jar Jar Binks.

[Xiam]

Lisa Is I

Do characters HAVE to die ?

It's already been said, but... only when it makes sense. A lot of writers kill characters to be edgy, and a lot of writers save characters to save themselves and their readers the trouble.

Don't do that. Only kill a character (or save them) if there is something to be gained from the story by their death (or by them staying alive).