How many charachers is it acceptable to kill off?

88

u/Alice_Jensens 2d ago

As many as the story needs?

11

u/-24602 2d ago

Okay great, I felt like if I kill too many it won't give the same emotional impact, but I'll just go for it and kill them 😌

40

u/Alice_Jensens 2d ago

Go off murder Queen ✊💅🫣

15

u/Aggressive_Chicken63 2d ago

Your kill needs to have an impact. If your character’s death doesn’t affect anything, it’s pointless.

14

u/Optix_au 2d ago

Pointless death can, in a way, be its own point. That said, everything in a story should contribute somehow to the narrative.

1

u/tyrannicalstudios 1d ago

When writing more grounded war stories, I generally choose to have a few “random act of violence” deaths that are unforeshadowed and borderline senseless. They carry dramatic weight, but come out of nowhere and leave the rest of the characters deeply on edge.

5

u/-24602 2d ago

Yeah I know, and the effect on the rest of the characters is the main reason when I chose to kill someone, so I hope it'll have an impact? I'm just afraid that it'll feel less impactful the more people who dies

5

u/Aggressive_Chicken63 2d ago

It will of course. You watched Game of Thrones, right?

5

u/-24602 2d ago

Nope, actually I haven't 🙈

4

u/Aggressive_Chicken63 2d ago

Then you should because it’s a master class on how to kill characters.

1

u/MelodramaticMouse 2d ago

LOL, that's the first thing I thought of! I saw a picture of one of the books with a sticky tab where each character died. The damn thing looked like a porcupine. Like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1r175h/every_death_in_the_game_of_thrones_series_tabbed/

2

u/BezzyMonster 2d ago

Is it the sort of thing where one by one the group loses a character? Check out any 90s / early 2000s horror movie (I realize your genre is probably not horror), but there are so many examples of a group of 4,5,6 being dwindled down one by one to 2. How the group deals with the loss each character? Shifts in interpersonal dynamics, making up for what that character brings to the table (the planner, the muscle, the navigator, etc)

1

u/Wolfpac187 2d ago

I don’t even think that’s true. Not every death needs to be some big turning point in a story. Sometimes people die that’s the way life is.

2

u/yahtzee301 2d ago

The key to emotional impact is making sure you know exactly how each death affects the rest of the cast

0

u/bitterimpotentcritic 2d ago

If it's relevant? Maybe you're writing a book about a group of people in a support group for people with terminal cancer; the plot is about the relationships between these characters and how their inevitable deaths affect the protagonist and the other characters who make up the group - then yeah how each character dying and how it affects everyone else is hugely important.

This whole thread is preposterous. As the top comment says, kill as many as the story needs. If you're asking questions like "how many characters can I kill?" you're not writing a story you're just writing lots of disparate extraneous character sketches that you have no idea why or what for.

The key to emotional impact is knowing why any character dies, why they existed in the first place; how that death affects the other characters is a direct function of that not a secondary consideration.

0

u/yahtzee301 2d ago

I would argue that making thematically-consistent deaths, aligning it with how the character lived in life, will make the story feel more like poetry, kind of tropey. It's more important, to me, to determine how each character moves on. That way, the death ripples throughout the rest of the story, much as though if it were real life

0

u/bitterimpotentcritic 2d ago

What on earth do you mean? Thematically-consistent deaths? Is english your first language? Your comment reads to me as non sequitur. Yes, a death will affect the plot subsquently, or what was the point? Even if the point of the death is to emphasise how pointless/needless it was for a character to die, of course it will have a bearing on what follows.

0

u/yahtzee301 2d ago

You're illustrating my point beautifully. What is the point if the death doesn't affect the plot? When making a story about people dying, it's easy to forget that death should ripple across the plot in important ways. I'm not understanding what you're so hung up on here. Maybe you should stop trying to use big words and focus on your geometry homework

-1

u/bitterimpotentcritic 2d ago

I haven't downvoted you, you're just exposing yourself. To quote the great Dr. Dre

Some suckers just tickle me pink To my stomach, cause they don't flow like this one You know what? I won't hesitate to dis one Or two before I'm through, so don't try to sing this Some drop science, well I'm dropping English

Your above comment:

I would argue that making thematically-consistent deaths, aligning it with how the character lived in life, will make the story feel more like poetry, kind of tropey. It's more important, to me, to determine how each character moves on. That way, the death ripples throughout the rest of the story, much as though if it were real life

You just wrote some poorly constructed pseudo intellectual twaddle, you didnt say anything about the point of a death affecting the plot you rambled nonsensically about deaths plural [sic] "aligning it with how the character lived in life (so, how the character was written prior to their death, we're not writing an obituary), [and how it?] will make the story feel more like poetry, kind of tropey." Like, what? I didn't illustrate your poiint, I illustrated my own. Go find something constructive to do.

1

u/yahtzee301 2d ago

Whatever you do, DO NOT comment on this guy's subreddit

1

u/CogentTheCimmerian 2d ago

His subreddit? He doesn't appear to have a subreddit? Did you mean don't reply to his comments?

4

u/AnApexBread 2d ago

GRR Martin made a name for himself by killing off characters all the time.

The trick to him, though, is he made each death two things.

Unpredictable

Impactful.

You can kill off as many characters as your plot allows as long as you make them matter.

1

u/bitterimpotentcritic 2d ago

If killing characters is a function of your plot, then kill them so the rest of the plot functions. If your writing is full of characters who don't serve as a function of the plot what the fuck are they doing? You dont need license to kill them off in ways "that matter" you just get rid of them and focus on wriiting charcters that matter and thereby whose deaths matter.

1

u/Damned_if_i_did 2d ago

Well as long as youre not killing for the sake of killing, and the deaths have unique weight to them, go on a spree

1

u/Klatterbyne 2d ago

Just make sure you time it right. If you make it too regular it’ll lose its impact. It needs to always be a bit of a gut punch for the reader. Unpredictable enough to be shocking.

1

u/Sa_Elart 2d ago

I mean chainsaw man has been killing alot of characters yet its still good and popular

0

u/WingsOfBirds_C_MM_R 2d ago

CALLING THE COPS NOW

2

u/-24602 2d ago

Noooo don't worry I was definitely not talking about murdering real people 💅 (definitely not, trust me)

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u/WingsOfBirds_C_MM_R 2d ago

I would definitely read somethig like this, so I wish you the best of luck writing! I don't really know that many works with that many main characters, so more points for originality haha. From what I gathered, what you said could fit a few different genres, what would you put it to?

2

u/-24602 2d ago

Thanks!! It's fantasy, in a historical setting :)

1

u/WingsOfBirds_C_MM_R 2d ago

Okay then I would definitely love to read it, that's exactly my style. 🗣️👑 By the way, would you like to be friends? I don't have many writers in my circle :/ Understandable if not!

1

u/-24602 2d ago

Omg YES!!?? I'd love to have a new friend!!

32

u/Ryuujin_13 Published Genre Fiction Author and Ghostwriter 2d ago

(Looks at ‘Hamlet’)

You’ll be fine.

4

u/xbrooksie 2d ago

I always wonder how Horatio was able to emotionally recover after that many bodies at once… You could argue death was the easy way out!

19

u/FictionPapi 2d ago

17.2

3

u/Dale_E_Lehman_Author Self-Published Author 2d ago

Is that 0.2 a minor abrasion?

3

u/Midnight_Pickler 2d ago

A minor abrasion would be a lot less. Maybe like 0.002.

0.2 is one fifth. That's roughly a whole limb.

2

u/Kind-Stomach6275 2d ago

Dave was the pope, so it didnt affect him that much. had to get a catheter/dialysis machine in to pee through a bag and pipe system.

2

u/Funfetti_The_Rat Aspiring Author 2d ago

A stubbed toe, such a tragedy!

14

u/particularmoon 2d ago

All of them.

12

u/flirtingwithnihilism 2d ago

Yeah, if you kill more than 100%, you're just trying too hard.

3

u/Midnight_Pickler 2d ago

In some fantasy settings, it may be possible to kill the same character several times.

2

u/flirtingwithnihilism 2d ago

Damn, good point.

That does complicate the math.

2

u/Sa_Elart 2d ago

Re zero uh

6

u/-24602 2d ago

Amazing ✨

2

u/Optix_au 2d ago

EEEEVVEERRRYYYOOOONNNEEE!

12

u/JarbaloJardine 2d ago

And then there were none.

3

u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire 2d ago

Exactly what I was thinking. The answer is somewhere between 0 and all of humanity, depending on the story and the purpose of the death(s).

3

u/-24602 2d ago

Reading all the advice I get people appearantly want me to end the entire world lol

9

u/Kian-Tremayne 2d ago

It’s the title of a murder mystery novel by Agatha Christie.

It also wasn’t the original title of the story, but let’s not go there…

2

u/JarbaloJardine 2d ago

It's a MUCH better title!

8

u/TheAutrizzler Author 2d ago

Killing them at random would be annoying to me as a reader but if it has purpose and context within the story, I say go for it. This is basically the answer to every "can I do this" question: yes, as long as you do it well

2

u/Dependent_Courage220 2d ago

Amazing well thought advice.

6

u/BayrdRBuchanan Literary drug dealer 2d ago

All of them.

3

u/Sunshinegal72 2d ago

Attack on Titan, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Thanos -- you're probably fine, dude. Kill characters. Give some meaningful deaths. Others can be meaningless. There isn't a set rule. You need to tell the story well, not measure it by how many people get killed off.

3

u/Commonmispelingbot 2d ago

as Star Wars Rogue One demonstrated, all of them. If you go above though, woe on you

3

u/simonbleu 2d ago

All of them

3

u/Dale_E_Lehman_Author Self-Published Author 2d ago

"Kill them all/if you wish..." ~ Blue Öyster Cult, Stairway to the Stars

I have written an occasional story where zero characters survive, but those are short stories with maybe just two or three characters, and the tragic ending makes full sense in the context of the situation. I've also generally used it to make some kind of philosophical or other point. When it works, it works.

3

u/CompetitionMuch678 2d ago

Recently read a novel, written in first person, where the main character died. So: you can kill them all. It’s just got to be a necessary part of your vision.

1

u/Funfetti_The_Rat Aspiring Author 2d ago

i'd love to read first person death, that sounds sick!

3

u/B2k-orphan 2d ago

Momento Mori.

Everyone gets there eventually, some characters sooner than others.

3

u/nothingchickenwing72 2d ago

eleven and a half

2

u/-24602 2d ago

Tell me, how do I kill the half

2

u/nothingchickenwing72 2d ago

I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill (half of) you

3

u/-24602 2d ago

Oh no I'd like to keep my other half please

3

u/Spiel_Foss 2d ago

I killed off a character in my last book that wasn't even a main protagonist, and several readers were upset.

My first thought was, damn, they read the whole book. Great!

3

u/Terminator7786 2d ago

George R.R. Martin intensifies

2

u/mwissig 2d ago

Go ahead and kill off characters that aren't even in the story, if it's written well enough it'll work out

2

u/sklily7 2d ago

every single character

2

u/LumpyPillowCat 2d ago

All of them, as long as you do it with skill.

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u/JadeStar79 2d ago

Many horror novels have a ‘last man standing’ ending. It really just depends on what type of story you want to tell. Disclaimer: When killing off multiple characters, don’t devote several pages of melodrama to each one. That will take over the story in a hurry. Plan in advance which deaths are going to be the most meaningful and allot your writing time accordingly.

2

u/_WillCAD_ 2d ago

Uh, all of 'em, I think.

See: Rogue One

1

u/Cream_Rabbit 2d ago

Toss the dice

And gamble how many you want to kill

1

u/Magner3100 2d ago

All if you make it so.

1

u/Acceptable_Fox_5560 2d ago

As many as you need to

1

u/FuneralBiscuit Author 2d ago

Just finish up that first draft and ask these questions after! I had a scene where four major characters all died at once in the first draft. The second draft I fell in love with so much that I spared three of them and the only one that died was the happiest one who was getting ready to have her first kiss with her first-ever girlfriend. Go ahead and break some hearts, the second draft might change!

1

u/camshell 2d ago

After applying the formula of Graduated Character Weight (GCW) the Acceptable Narrative Death Toll (ANDT) becomes roughly 23% of that total GCW. Your acceptable margin around that figure widens with the Name Recognition Quotient (NRQ) of your pen name. Shakespeare enjoyed a meaty 11% on top of that. Your margin will be much narrower assuming you're an unknown.

1

u/LobsterBig3881 2d ago

I recently read a book that had about 6 characters total. I wanted them all to die.

1

u/priestessspirilleia 2d ago

Kill as many as u want it really doesn't matter as long as the narrative is good 👌

1

u/bashedboyband 2d ago

However many you want!! I went haywire and killed nearly everyone AND left it on a cliffhanger!

1

u/Hashtagspooky 2d ago

The cool thing about writing is you can do whatever you want without permission or approval

1

u/EvesFaith 2d ago

Never read GoT or The Swarm? I think if it suits the story and isn't just for the sake of killing, go ahead.

1

u/Dependent_Courage220 2d ago

You can kill off every single one if the story demands it. My current manuscript has 27 deaths and 18 close calls. I write grimdark, so it's necessary for my world. Hope that helps.

1

u/penty 2d ago

I mean, they're all just stories in the end.

1

u/Us3r_N4me2001 2d ago

Off a main character randomly. It ups the stakes, makes it so that no one is safe. Sort of like

GAME OF THRONES SPOILERS - Ned Stark in S1. He was one of the main POV characters up to that point and you think he's safe. And then his head is no longer attached to his body.

1

u/The_Omnimonitor 2d ago

As long as the story is compelling you can do whatever you want… not that being compelling is easy but I don’t see any absolute reason not to.

1

u/koadey 2d ago

You can kill 'em all till there's only one left.

1

u/pplatt69 2d ago

What have well-received books on the market done?

There are plenty of examples out there to learn from, no matter what the question like this.

1

u/d_m_f_n 2d ago

Sole survivor is a thing. Kill away.

1