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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Nawlins34 on November 10, 2009, 05:34:59 PM

Title: Do they exist?
Post by: Nawlins34 on November 10, 2009, 05:34:59 PM: Hi everyone,

I'm an aspiring writer with some good story arcs at the moment that I'm working. However I'm running into a brick wall with a particular issue:

I've learned through research and just being a reader that it helps to read other authors to give you an idea of what you want. I'm really looking for a novel where the main character dies at the end and everyone is okay with that. Could someone suggest some good books or series even where the main character dies and readers are fine with that?

That's my biggest fear. I'm sure if the storyline supports the direction the character has to go, readers will understand, but I don't want to have a reader throwing the book at the end of reading it. ( Unless it sparks their curiousity to pick up the next book in the series.)

I've yet to find an example and If it exists, I would like to see how that author executed that task; killing the main character at the end of a novel for the sake of the story without killing the series itself. Please let me know if anyone has come across such a book or series. The genre doesn't matter to me, so long as it exists.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 10, 2009, 05:41:16 PM: How are you defining "main character" in this context ? The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant seem to me to be the most notable within-genre example; that said, while they sell well and have lots of fans, lots of people also vocally hate those books. (And whether that counts as "dies in the end" is also sort of ambiguous; the character in question is stabbed in the heart at the opening of the first book of three, carried into a fantasy world at the moment of stabbing and magically healed, but has strong reason to believe, from his experiences in the First Chronicles, that whatever physical state he was in on transfer to the fantasy world will be exactly recreated when he comes back, so there's narrative tension around the expectation that he will end up dead in circumstances replicating the opening and how he deals with that; it's not a surprise that he dies in the end.)

Guy Gavriel Kay does some very effective and moving principal characters dying at or near the end of several of his books, though none of them really have a single main character per se, and I've not known anyone think those were inappropriate or not good on those grounds.

You might also want to look up some of Iain Banks, particularly Use of Weapons; Banks is on record as saying "A happy ending is one where not everybody dies", and that approach does not seem to have harmed his career.

It's not something I have a problem with, myself, but it has become clear to me that i do being attached to a story in characters in it in ways different from most people I know.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Nawlins34 on November 10, 2009, 05:49:57 PM: Ahh, good point. Allow me to clarify;

in this context, I'm speaking about the character from which the POV of this world, story will be told by. So, it's not exactly the norm, is that your take on it?
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 10, 2009, 05:54:04 PM: Quote from: Nawlins34 on December 26, 1973, 08:58:59 PM
in this context, I'm speaking about the character from which the POV of this world, story will be told by.

Right. The Thomas Covenant books I allude to above have two viewpoint characters, so not precisely the same thing.

Quote
So, it's not exactly the norm, is that your take on it?

It's not common, but I think it can be done. Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World trilogy does it, with stepping outside that POV at the very end; Clive Barker does it with two of three main characters in Imajica, I'll probably come back to this post later when i'm at home and can look at my shelves for examples.

Like anything else, there will be people who hate it no matter how you do it, and there's only so much that's worth doing for that audience's sake; and anyone else, you can make it work for if you are good enough.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Nawlins34 on November 10, 2009, 06:09:11 PM: Quote from: neurovore on November 10, 2009, 05:54:04 PM
Like anything else, there will be people who hate it no matter how you do it, and there's only so much that's worth doing for that audience's sake; and anyone else, you can make it work for if you are good enough.

Fair enough! I'll take a look at what you mentioned above in the meantime. It's a start at least and it wouldn't hurt to look at how it was done.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Starbeam on November 10, 2009, 06:27:43 PM: Possibly not quite answering the question, but George RR Martin has a tendency to off viewpoint characters.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Nawlins34 on November 10, 2009, 06:34:37 PM: Duly noted, adding him to my list as well.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 10, 2009, 06:42:24 PM: Quote from: Starbeam on November 10, 2009, 06:27:43 PM
Possibly not quite answering the question, but George RR Martin has a tendency to off viewpoint characters.

True; I'd not mentioned that because of the way that series has not ended yet, I didn't think it was quite what the OP was looking for.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Kali on November 10, 2009, 07:07:16 PM: Just as a note, no matter what you do or how well you handle it, there will still be people who throw the book against the wall and vow never to read another thing you write if you kill off the MC. ;) Although I'm ok with a character dying during the course of the book, if it's the MC and especially if it's in first person, I dislike such endings.

You might have to file this under "can't please everyone", though, and write the story you want to write.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Kris_W on November 10, 2009, 10:33:43 PM: Almost every rule in writing should end with the phrase ‘…unless you are a genius with a large fan base.’ I may find examples of writers who broke the rule I want to break, but that rarely leads me to successfully breaking it myself. I find they aren’t really rules at all, but instead straightjackets that keep us from hurting ourselves.

Writing a satisfying story in which the view point or main character dies in the end is the sort of straightjacket some much published, genius writers have managed to escape. This isn’t something I would recommend to a beginner writer.

‘Diary of Anne Frank’? It is definitely her first book, and the view point character dies in the end. There is valid argument as to whether it is a novel or not, but I think that it would be a valuable read in figuring out how to appeal to the audience.

‘Spy Who Came In From The Cold’ is a ‘first’* book by an author who has gone on to become very famous. The book won a lot of awards. It’s a very good book to emulate. John le Carré’s prose got a lot more murky in his later books and, alas, even more of a genius. I was already addicted by then.

How about ‘Flowers for Algernon’? Opps, the Wiki site says that he only regressed back to an IQ of 68. I had been sure he, like the rat, had died from the experimental treatment.

And then there’s Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’. The viewpoint character definitely dies and the audience is definitely relieved by it.

And the book with the ending only the soft hearted call ambiguous - Podkayne of Mars.

You also might look at examples where the main character dies in the middle – such as in Dickens’s ‘The Olde Curiosity Shop’. That one is worth reading along with the history regarding the distribution. It sort of puts the Harry Potter craze in historical perspective.

Oh, and the 'Illiad'. Most of the main characters die in it. Most of the rest die in the sequal.

I suppose I can toss in ‘Lovely Bones’. A viewpoint character is dead all the way through it, and even has her death scene. Again – genius.

* All the published writers I know have 6 to 12 manuscripts in a bottom drawer somewhere. Their ‘first’ novel is almost always merely the first that was publishable. It could be that by writing this story you are filling up the required space in that bottom drawer so that another, future, book is made possible. This is a GOOD thing.

In the end, stick to the golden straightjacket of writing - “Always write the book you need to write.”
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: LizW65 on November 11, 2009, 02:39:57 PM: Many classic noir novels of the Forties and Fifties end with the POV character dying or about to die--The Postman Always Rings Twice comes to mind, and there are several others. Double Indemnity, maybe? While downbeat, this is usually seen as justice, due to the POV character's own choices over the course of the novel.

(FWIW, I recall reading somewhere years ago that The Maltese Falcon ends with Sam Spade being shot and killed by his mistress Iva Archer, though in fact the book ends with her simply arriving at the office; a confrontation is implied but not shown.)
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: library lasciel on November 13, 2009, 12:07:07 AM: Spoilered for people who might not want to know ahead of time:
(click to show/hide)
Brandon Sanderson in his Mistborn trilogy does it in the end, but that's not quite what you're going for as it's the end of that story-arc, not the beginning.

An amusing (in a dark sort of way) death of LOTS of main POV characters is in The Last Battle in the Narnia series. The precipitating incident is a train wreck where everyone who ends up in Narnia dies.

I have to say I personally hate when POV characters are killed off for what I perceive as no reason, or just to show that the author "has the guts to do it" (where the most biting example would be killing Chewie off in Salvatore's debut into the Star Wars universe.) If it's for an actual plot-related reason that isn't contrived, then I am usually sad, but don't feel peeved at the author.

I am a very emotional reader, however, and get snippy when I suspect an author of being heavy-handed with the emotional tugging - simply because I also suspect it's easier at times to lay the emotions on thick than to bother with careful plotting, and it upsets me personally.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Starbeam on November 13, 2009, 12:26:25 AM: Quote from: library lasciel on November 13, 2009, 12:07:07 AM
I have to say I personally hate when POV characters are killed off for what I perceive as no reason, or just to show that the author "has the guts to do it" (where the most biting example would be killing Chewie off in Salvatore's debut into the Star Wars universe.) If it's for an actual plot-related reason that isn't contrived, then I am usually sad, but don't feel peeved at the author.
From Wikipedia:
Quote
At the time of its first publication, Vector Prime was extremely controversial among Star Wars fans in that its plot called for the death of Chewbacca, making the Wookiee the first major character from the original trilogy to be permanently killed off in the Expanded Universe novels. The concept of killing such a character was the decision of the book editors, who sent a list of characters they would like to kill to George Lucas, with Luke Skywalker at the top of the list. The response was what characters they couldn't kill, and Chewbacca wasn't on the list, hence his selection. This is covered - in some detail - in the round table interview with the series editors published at the end of the final New Jedi Order novel, The Unifying Force. Opinion was sharply divided as to whether this death of a beloved character was a cheap ploy to boost sales and interest in the new series, or if it served the dramatic purpose of declaring that not even the core characters were necessarily "safe" anymore. However it was George Lucas who told R.A Salvatore to kill Chewbacca, not R.A. Salvatore himself.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Nawlins34 on November 13, 2009, 12:49:38 AM: Quote from: library lasciel on November 13, 2009, 12:07:07 AM
If it's for an actual plot-related reason that isn't contrived, then I am usually sad, but don't feel peeved at the author.

And as narrow of a target that may sound, I'm trying to aim for that impact. For the storyline i'm looking at, the MC story will stretch out into a series of books. but as I look at the outline of her story, and the actual story i'm telling, she'd be going against her beliefs and the very thing she's fighting for if she lived. The storyline as well as her POV would lose credibilty at the end of the series if she didn't die.

But I digress, I'm pretty far away from that ending. I'm sure plenty of ideas will jump into my mind on how to end her story.

I'm grateful for all this feedback, alot of you are throwing stuff I haven't thought of so it's helping to get the creative juices flowing.

I don't see myself making it a habit, but for this particular storyline, it may have to happen, we shall see ;)
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: library lasciel on November 13, 2009, 12:59:14 AM: I suppose instead of author, I should have written 'creator.' I know it wasn't Salvatore's fault that Chewie was picked, but that whole back-room "lets pick someone to kill off" type discussion by editors and universe creators is exactly what I disliked about the idea. And the way it was plotted seemed very unrealistic to me. That part WAS Salvatore's fault.

That particular case, where it seemed obvious that reasons from outside the realm of the story are causing the death - that's was what I was getting at. It seems callous to the readers who are trusting you as an author/creator to stay "in character" and true to the world you developed. It also seems unprofessional to sloppily apply the 'tricks' of an author. I know, as a reader, that you are using tricks and you have to - you have places to go and things to accomplish with your story. It simply should be done well, so I as the reader don't notice them.

It just bugs me that it was so obvious, and so pointless. There was no overarching reason for the character to die (in that particular situation) that couldn't have been served by a lesser fate. I suppose that it was a valid way to re-energise the franchise, and that they've gone on and killed off other main characters as well (at least I think so - I haven't read a SW book post-dating Vector Prime, and never will.)

And the above parentheses shows at least one reader's reaction to a poorly executed character. I know there are lots of other people out there (some are even my friends! ;)) who really enjoy the direction that the expansions have taken. I simply didn't, so they've lost a reader. But there is only one of me, so it's isn't the end of the world. I'm sad, because I very much liked the SW universe before that book, but now I don't, so there's nothing new there for me to read now. *shrug* My loss, I suppose.

In the end you have to write the story you want to write, and understand that some people are going to really love it, and some people will hate it, and some people won't understand what you were trying to do.

Just aim for more of the first kind. (and no, I have no idea how to do that. ;D)

I do know that if you try to be honest with your story and not force it into some particular desired shape or other, you'll probably be better off. Or, conversely, be technically skilled enough to start with the perfect desired shape, and then mold the story into that shape from the beginning. To me it seems the second option is a whole lot harder to manage, but it may depend on the author.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 13, 2009, 03:26:09 AM: I suppose it's different if you're writing in an existing universe where people have expectations and attachments to characters already, but I have zero attachment to doing that and almost zero to reading it (honourable exception being John M. Ford's two Star Trek novels, and The Final Reflection is an excellent Klingon historical novel with negligible connection to anything else Trek unless you count Bones McCoy appearing as a baby, and How Much for Just the Planet ? is "Well, Paramount fixed that loophole, but nothing in this here contract says a Trek novel can't be a musical comedy/farce ending in a pie-fight.. " )

If the characters are yours, their emotional significance is yours to control from day one, so setting up what your protag believes and cares about such that her death is the logical conclusion of plot and emotional arc should be workable; it would stroke me as a thing needing to be set up from the beginning, though. Not flagged, but set up.

(One of the works I have out in the wild seeking a home features a protagonist for whom achieving the victory he has put his life into contains as an inevitable consequence rendering him totally obsolete and leaving him no place in the world; that was a lot of effort to set up and make work, though I think it does now.)
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 13, 2009, 03:27:28 AM: Quote from: library lasciel on November 13, 2009, 12:59:14 AM
And the above parentheses shows at least one reader's reaction to a poorly executed character.

I saw what you did with that ambiguity there.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on November 13, 2009, 03:33:14 AM: Quote from: library lasciel on November 13, 2009, 12:59:14 AM
I do know that if you try to be honest with your story and not force it into some particular desired shape or other, you'll probably be better off. Or, conversely, be technically skilled enough to start with the perfect desired shape, and then mold the story into that shape from the beginning. To me it seems the second option is a whole lot harder to manage, but it may depend on the author.

Sorry, for the double post; cut and past went odd there.

I was going to say, this seems to be an either/or based on ways of working that exclude a middle that has been feeling to work for me.

Which is, that I usually start with a key scene or scenes and know how they should play. And the very first thing I ask of a character is "is this a person who will, absolutely utterly to the core of who they are, have to behave the way this scene needs when it arrives ?" There's no forcing story into shape there, nor is there molding story to shape, because the shape of the story and of the people depend on each other so thoroughly that it can't be any other way. (Bits in between may flex, but the key scens don't.)

I strongly recommend Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet because they make this particular angle very visible. They are set in a not-like-anything-else fantasy world with distinct and unique cultures and magic, and the people in it are really amazingly perfect products of culture and surroundings such that it's impossible to believe people like that arising in any other setting or being anyone else than who they are.
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: library lasciel on November 13, 2009, 03:50:21 AM: Quote
I saw what you did with that ambiguity there.

;D

Thanks very much for the suggest. I have the hardest time finding new stuff to read. It's like a curse.

I suppose I was thinking more along the lines of a general story archetype stage for the second way of writing I mentioned. Like - "I want to write a tragedy" or "I want to write a comedy of manners" and then finding themes and character types who would easily morph into those stories without losing their core ideas.

I can easily see it being more of a combined process during creation - I was only thinking about how I would do it myself if I had to try. I can't seem to get past individual scenes anyway. :P
Title: Re: Do they exist?
Post by: Kris_W on November 13, 2009, 04:02:42 AM: If you give a manuscript to your beta readers and some of them send back brief e-mails or post-it notes on the hardcopy that say “Don’t kill off character X”, then you should not kill the character off.

If you give a manuscript to your beta readers and only one of them calls you as he / she is still reading the manuscript, crying or swearing at you, and follows up with incessant emails, phone calls and a stink bomb in your writing room cursing your name for killing the character off, well, that’s when the character must die.