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Mar 2023

Okay so for one of my stories, I’m not naming any of them yet because potential spoilers but are there any tips or advice for writing a death scene with emotion or writing a character’s death in general?

What’s the secret of giving that emotional punch when a character dies?

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    Mar '23
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    Mar '23
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Uhm, I’m not good at explaining, but I think describing what the character feels; like smell, taste, pain, surroundings, he/she’s past, regrets and stuffs like that in general can pass off the feel you want. For example if their vision is getting blurred with tears, you can emphasize on that. Why are they crying? Is it because of the pain or do they regret doing something or leaving someone behind? If it’s because of their regrets, you further emphasize on that too by maybe, making thoughts well up in their mind and stuffs. If it’s because of the pain, you can describe how the pain feels. I hope this helps

I’m not describing it I’m going to draw it haha but that’s a good thing to keep in mind. The scene I’m referring to is in one of my comics.

The character in question resented their parents and never reconciled with them and regrets doing so. Would that enough if I’d choose to go in that direction?

My tip to you is not to focus on the character dying, but to focus on the people it effects. Grief should be your number 1 priority, because that's what will really affect your readers. Seeing the other characters react is the most important thing.

That’s what I did when I killed off an important character in The Action Fruit Society’s fourth and final season. The death needs to feel like it takes a huge toll on the supporting characters of the one person to be slain.

For the character’s emotions, It’d be good if you could showcase this regret in various ways, both in their internal dialogue and art of course

To make the reader feel emotion on the death of a character, the reader must care about them. You can have a quick death at the beginning to move the story (Uncle Ben from Spider-man) but the audience won't care about it. They can feel for the death through the lost the character feels, because we care about the character, not the death. If you want the reader to care about the death itself that takes work. You have to make the reader care about the person before they die. This could take time. And a final note, if you kill too many character people care about (example Game of Thrones) then the reader won't care either as they will never get attached to anything. The reader will detach to protect themselves from being hurt.

because im in the middle of watching it im gonna use Gundam as an example

The show lets you know the characters and their goals and dreams before killing them off, even if they're on screen for like half an episode you have to make sure your audience gets to know the people close to them so they feel something and see the full effects of the grief never let your characters forget them

I just finished a 'death' scene in my webcomic. Take my advice with a pinch of salt because a) that's not a novel and b) of course the scene was emotional for me, I made it- but thinking more broadly about what death scenes do for me, I'd say it's the pacing that usually gets the feels going. But what kind of emotion are you after?

Try to understand what the scene is supposed to accomplish. Is the death supposed to shock us because it's so sudden? Or disturb us because it's so brutal? Or make us sad because it's so tragic? Dial up or dial down the pacing to achieve the desired effect.

If you want a shocking, unexpected death keep the panels short and snappy. Rush the readers along. Have characters process it later, let them drown in the emotions then. Maybe the dead character was gone in the blink of an eye. Maybe nothing remains at all. Maybe it happened silently. Maybe others didn't even realise they were dead till later.

If you want a characters death to traumatise, make it horrifying. Linger on the scene, drag it out. A kind and gentle character being brutally tortured? Awful. Focusing on the sounds and smells? Sickening. Their friends will never forget what happened. They may even be changed forever.

Sadness might be the hardest to achieve. That's because you're relying on the audience to either like the character so much they'd wish they'd stay or to be triggered by a specific type of sad. For example, some people find illness sad, or rejection is sad, or widowed old men sitting on benches staring wistfully at the ocean sad. Happiness can also be sad. Someone who is relieved to die or content with the lack of control.

Whatever brand of emotion you need, try to make the writing embody it. Hope this helps!

For an emotion to stick with your reader you must first show how that character has been wronged.
We cry not because they hurt, but because no matter how hard they've tried they still failed. Even through no fault of their own.

Whether that be the failure to keep a promise, or a failer to keep oneself alive. The sadness comes from the the characters reacting to that wrong.

Pain is knowing what will never be.

As long as the readers care about the character enough the death will be emotional, make it unexpected or sudden to deliver that extra punch, backstories help make it even sadder too. The closer the reader feels to the character, the more emotional it feels. How the other characters react can make it extra emotional too.

Put the reader in the shoes of the person who lost the other character.
In other words make your reader invest time on the character that is about to die.

Another way to do it is to create a relatable death/situation that most readers can connect with.

Some really good suggestions already around building an emotional connection with the character and focusing on the effect the death has on those around them, so this is like an optional thing you can add (not an instead-of):

Unfulfilled potential, or regret.

Some of the saddest deaths in media are the ones where the person wanted to do something, but was never able to fulfill that aim, or could only grasp it briefly, in death. In a lot of cases, this is things like the character who has been antagonistic or even a villain, finally has an epiphany and decides they're going to be a better person.... and dies just as we're shown a glimpse of how great they could have been as a hero rather than an antagonist. Sometimes, it might be somebody who used to be great, fell from grace, and gets one last chance to recapture some of their past glory just as they go.

But the extra gut punch version is that the regrets are normal, everyday regrets. The opening of Up is a great example of a death which, with zero dialogue, manages to be emotionally devastating... because the characters dies without fulfilling her big dreams. Her attempt to have a child resulted in a very everyday tragedy, and then through all sorts of everyday problems, she was never able to go on the big adventure she dreamed of.
The death of Hamilton's son in the musical Hamilton, similarly sets up the young man as this promising, bright, optimistic lad who wants to be like his father, challenges somebody to a duel over the family honour, is told to forfeit, and does as he's told... only to be shot before the count to ten to fire even finishes, mirroring the lost potential of a life snuffed out at nineteen.

It's that sense of "I wish they were still in my life", or "What could they have achieved if they were still here?" factor that can really add an extra twist of the knife.

For me it's always other character's reactions to the death that hits me hard

Putting in a lot of work beforehand to make the reader like the character.

One of the biggest flaws of modern genre writing is presenting the big emotional moments without doing any of the work to set it up.

A good example of this flaw is the death of Airiam in Star Trek Discovery. A character that didn't have a name until it was time to kill them off and we were expected to be as devastated as the main characters, that barely exchanged a word with her all series, supposedly were.

Now I don't know if you've done the wind up already and given the readers enough time to make your soon to be dead characters part of their "family". But if you have done that then the gut punch of the death will come naturally for the reader. No tricks are needed to bring out the tears.

For a perfect example of doing this right;

Not completely on topic, but I'd like to see more stories where more focus is given to the dead character after they die - I feel like with most stories you either have characters who are already dead at the start or die during the story with a tragic death scene but is never (or at least rarely) brought up again.

I just want more stories about exploring the aftermath of a death and its affects on those left behind, where the dead character is actually someone we've spent time with when they're alive and not just a part of someone backstory :sweat_02:

I am planning to have a funeral scene for the character in question so maybe you’d get your wish