The second panel I attended at #Readercon was "Killing Characters 101" with @RobertVSRedick, @cballison421,
@KarenHeuler, Miriam Newman, and @mythicdelirium
as moderator. Here are some takeaways from the panel (all paraphrases rather than quotes, I think)
From @mythicdelirium: For some characters, death isn't horrible enough.
From Miriam: some purposes character death can serve:
- Story catalyst (such as in a murder mystery)
- Freeing death (such as when a mentor death allows a character to come into their own)
- cathartic death (at the end, after a build-up. It lets us come back down.)
From @cballison421: Consider what the death means for:
- the writer
- the character who is dying
- those close to the character who is dying
- the culture
From @RobertVSRedick: Avoid a death that just feels like a way to wrap things up, or because things feel too slow.
Also from @RobertVSRedick: Every death that matters should feel not like a type, but like a thing itself that gets ripped out of you. Otherwise, you get redshirts. (Or, as other panelists noted, refrigerators: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.…)
From @mythicdelirium: Measure the death in terms of how the other characters have shifted once this character exits.
From Miriam: What does the reader remember afterward? The character? Their death? Was the death a thing that happened, or a thing you experienced?
From @KarenHeuler: If the death is thrilling, it's gratuitous. Also, was the death more interesting than the character?
Miriam pointed out that, in addition to violent death, there's also natural death, which can be meaningful too. And knowing what the dead character means to the other characters makes it meaningful.
A question from @cballison421 that didn't get answered: Does what the audience wants matter? For example, this is why Sherlock Holmes never gets to die.
And Miriam brought up "Marvel death" - when you know the character will be back, so the reader doesn't buy into their death.
From @RobertVSRedick: Death doesn't have to be the end. (Dead characters can still be part of the story.)
Two more questions that didn't really get answered:
- What's the benefit of a slow death vs. a fast one?
- Can self-sacrifice be done badly? Can it be done well?
Clearly, this panel needed more time! (It was a great panel.)
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