{ ＩＮＫＬＩＮＧＳ } LOCK! NEW THREAD

[Zalia]

|There's nothing wrong with italics. ;3|

[Silverhart]

A bit late on this one XP:

Okay guys, question time.

How many important characters do you think an author can kill in one book/series without it being ridiculous? Some authors never let a single character die, despite all odds, and others... Well, others wrote Game of Thrones.

Depends on how many important characters you have. In a single book, one or two, three maximum and that's really pushing it. Any more then that and I just think the author is a horrible writer who has to rely on killing characters to invoke a reaction from the reader. I get annoyed with that. And the deaths also have to have meaning within the plot. You can't just kill important characters because you want to make the reader sad. They have to do something to further the story. I don't care if people think it's 'unrealistic' - if it does nothing to advance the story, it should not be in the story. Period.

Death is final. I don't like it when an author kills off a character and then brings them back. So I don't kill characters off lightly. Even side characters. Authors can also really abuse killing characters. Need a suspenseful twist? Have plot ends you need to tie up, but don't know how? Don't know how to show the impact of something important? Kill a beloved character, and save yourself the trouble! It's lazy writing if you're using a character's death to solve a problem.

There's also an issue I take with desensitizing your readers to death. If you're that writer who constantly kills off important characters, your readers start to not care about them anymore. Suddenly you lose any impact you might have had with them. The little problems and conflicts don't mean as much when they know that inevitably their favorite characters aren't likely to survive. The only way you can make them feel something important happens is if you kill another character. And you have to do it again, and again, because you never can top the death of a character. It becomes too much of a crutch. And as I reader, I get bored and annoyed by these kinds of stories. I have stopped reading several series because of that reason.

[watermelon.]

Silverhart
Your advice ALWAYS helps me :3 Thank you! Basically, you want to build up that characters likability- then BAM they are dead. It would really get people to be emotional when reading it!

[watermelon.]

Woah, reading through random plots- these are helping my mind get thinking!

This story starts in a zoo. In it, a chaste treasure-hunter falls passionately in love with a beggar who is haunted by a ghost. It seems an argument will bring them even closer together.

In this story, an ignored businessperson is in love with an unstable actor - all thanks to an accident at home. Yet, how can an engineer tear them apart?

The story ends during a police investigation. The story takes place a thousand years into the future. During the story, an organization begins recruiting. The story must have a zebra in it. A character kills someone, but the action is misinterpreted.

Setting: post-apocalypse. Theme:occult friendship story

These were all from here: http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate. ... quicktheme you can just click the different generators and such

[Silverhart]

Silverhart
Your advice ALWAYS helps me :3 Thank you! Basically, you want to build up that characters likability- then BAM they are dead. It would really get people to be emotional when reading it!

(I'm glad I'm helping someone! ^^)
Yes, but you don't want to rely on killing a character to tug at people's heartstrings. There are other, often better ways to evoke a powerful emotion from people. I think back on some of my favorite books and movies, and they never had to rely on a death to make me feel emotional. Killing a character is so big, and so final, that you can't top it. That's why a lot of good authors save killing off characters until the end of a series, or at important turning points. Killing a character simply to invoke an emotion or reaction in the reader, rather then to advance the plot or make a statement is lazy writing in my experience. I've read many books that do it, and I can't stand it when it happens. I don't mind characters dying for a story reason - that's fine. But killing off a character just for the sake of killing them off, I cannot abide.

[watermelon.]

Silverhart
Your advice ALWAYS helps me :3 Thank you! Basically, you want to build up that characters likability- then BAM they are dead. It would really get people to be emotional when reading it!

(I'm glad I'm helping someone! ^^)
Yes, but you don't want to rely on killing a character to tug at people's heartstrings. There are other, often better ways to evoke a powerful emotion from people. I think back on some of my favorite books and movies, and they never had to rely on a death to make me feel emotional. Killing a character is so big, and so final, that you can't top it. That's why a lot of good authors save killing off characters until the end of a series, or at important turning points. Killing a character simply to invoke an emotion or reaction in the reader, rather then to advance the plot or make a statement is lazy writing in my experience. I've read many books that do it, and I can't stand it when it happens. I don't mind characters dying for a story reason - that's fine. But killing off a character just for the sake of killing them off, I cannot abide.

Yes, yes, there are other ways and I know that Ugh.. whenever like my favorite character is killed (*cough* warriors) I'm just so upset it makes me want to cry.

[Mercury.Muses]

Saddest death you've ever read, guys?
Whitestorm's mother, Snowfur from bluestar's prophecy. (Right? xD) I read it in class, set the book down to stop myself from crying, picked it up the next three days and kept reading it, and kept trying to not cry. I bawled when I finally read it at home

[watermelon.]

My favorite death might be a spoiler to those on the newer books, but if you want to hear it PM me XP It made me nearly cry, and like always... I was at school. I was like *sniff sniff* "Don't cry push through it"

[䏠xote]

mine was probably prim. i don't think i've ever cried as much as when prim died, but i'm not completely sure.

[watermelon.]

Man... how do people do it? They build up all your emotions then suddenly they are gone and you're just like "WHAT NO COME BACK!!!!"