Killed off

JTorch · Post by **JTorch** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:25 am

Just curious, to anyone who's really attached to the characters in your comic, how would it effect you to permanently kill one of them off? It probably depends on the comic and the character, but still.

Personally, since my characters have been around for over five years, it'd probably be pretty hard to do unless it was a minor character.

CJBurgandy · Post by **CJBurgandy** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:35 am

Killing everyone was what I was originally going to do to end my comic. I decided that was a cop-out though. I came up with a happier ending.

Stinkywigfiddle · Post by **Stinkywigfiddle** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:36 am

If I killed off my main characters, Merv or the Head Doctor, I would just start a new comic with other characters. I have plenty to work on.

But I still have a lot that I would like to do with these characters. They've just started out.

Rosediamond · Post by **Rosediamond** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:43 am

You've got to do what you've got to do.

Not that I'll kill any anytime soon . . . But when it gets to the point in the story where the character can no longer grow, and they're just dead weight to the rest of the cast, it becomes essential to either cut their scenes short, write them out gently, or . . . kill them. I would never just off my character for the sake of offing them. It has to tie in with the story. But it would be pretty hard . . . And the fact that the characters are such a close-knit group might make it that much harder.

Robin Pierce · Post by **Robin Pierce** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:43 am

Depends on the tone of the comic.

My comic takes place in the middle of a war. if ALL the main character come out of it unphased... then it's just a tinge unrealistic. But, to kill them all off in one hit is uh.. no pun intended.. overkill

Laemkral · Post by **Laemkral** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:45 am

I really hope none of my main characters has to die anytime soon cause that means one of my friends is dead.

Komiyan · Post by **Komiyan** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:51 am

Can and will

Fits in the story, see.

Skylark King · Post by **Skylark King** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:51 am

I have a couple strylines floating around, one of them includes a main character being killed off. The couple of scenes I had envisioned for the aftermath of that were simply beautiful and helped some of the other characters really grow as people.

Rember, folks, one of the bottom line BEST episodes of Buffy (like the hsow or not) was The Body. Killing of a regular character can really help your other characters grow and create some very powerful storytelling. It also helps you break certain barriers as a writer. Sometime you've got to let go.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:58 am

I could kill of any character in my comic and not really flinch about it.

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:00 am

Komiyan wrote:Can and will Fits in the story, see.

didn't gort die once already anyway?

As for me, i kill of the same character over and over and over. I prefer killing characters off (permanently) in a way that it works for the story, not just for the fun of it. unless it's jar jar, that's for the fun of it.

Warofwinds · Post by **Warofwinds** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:26 am

Well, for me it's more about killing off the vulnerable, loved characters, not the main character. The main character in my story has to survive, but he's gotta change, a lot. He's an ass. A lot of the people he'll finally be friends with, or at least respect, are probably going to die. That's pretty far off though. Only minor characters will die until then

TheSuburbanLetdown · Post by **TheSuburbanLetdown** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:28 am

I have no qualms about killing any of my characters. But it has to fit the story, otherwise it'll come off as stupid and gimicky. Like when they killed Maude Flanders.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:47 am

PeppermintAfterlife wrote:I have no qualms about killing any of my characters. But it has to fit the story, otherwise it'll come off as stupid and gimicky. Like when they killed Maude Flanders.

Or Dilbert. Scott Adams killed Dilbert off for a week or two as an experiment but apparently nobody noticed so he had Dogbert work with the World's Smartest Garbageman to bring Dilbert back with a cloning device (and garbage).

Netpoet · Post by **Netpoet** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:57 am

the vast majority of my stories and, of course, my comic, take place in worlds where people are at war. Sometimes it's rather small initially (like how TTG has only just begun), othertimes it's right smack in the middle of a rather large war.

People die. That's just the way things are. No character is *EVER* safe in any of my stories.

Of course, depending on the world, death also isn't necessarily the end of that character's story, either...

>Net

Linkara · Post by **Linkara** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:12 pm

In my books, I decided to both break and reinforce the cliché of fantasy novels where the main male hero meets up with the female main character and they go off on the journey. At the end of the third chapter, the woman's killed and so my main character's partner won't be the one to go off with him.

Later he meets another girl who becomes his partner, but I still think I surprised a few people who expected the first one to be the one to go off with him. I haven't reversed her death yet and don't plan to for a while. ^_~

It still hurts, though, to kill of any character in the stuff I write. As I've mentioned in other posts, I feel an actual "creator" or "God-like" (there I go again with my megalomaniacal talk) relationship with my characters and I don't want to see any harm come to them or their world, so more recently I've tried to avoid killing whenever possible and I have no plans to kill any main character in Lightbringer. In fact, if I were to ever end Lightbringer, I'd probably pull a Grant-Morrison-on-Animal-Man thing and kill a main character only to have Lightbringer meet me, the creator, in order to fix it. ^_~

Jeffy · Post by **Jeffy** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:24 pm

killing many of my characters (within reason and story-wise) has ALWAYS been a plan for my comic, especially main characters

I have been sick of stupid crap where the main characters are immune to death for a long time

it is also of my opinion that killing characters and then bringing them back for some reason is far worse than never killing characters

Post by **Mercury Hat** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:38 pm

Depends if it fits in the story or not. I've written stuff in the past where a main character bites it, but I'd need a good reason. Not just to force character development through angst or something.

CSchaefer · Post by **CSchaefer** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:45 pm

Anyone in my story can die at any time, pretty much. Doesn't mean I'd enjoy it or look for a reason to do it, but I have to let the demands of the story override my own personal wishes in that matter.

Vorticus · Post by **Vorticus** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:58 pm

My characters have a looney toons level of resilience and killing any of them off really wouldn't fit with the style or tone of the comic.

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:54 pm

If I kill off any of my living characters, then chances are they'll just turn up as spirits in the cemetery next door.

I can't really kill off the rest of the characters though, on account of them being dead already.

One of the main characters did die in the musical version though...that was sort of the whole original plot point...