Oh death.

[nilchance]

24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What's the most interesting way you've killed someone?

I'm willing if it's worth my time, but honestly, I used to be more enthusiastic. I thought that to be a "real" writer, to write anything of literary worth, I had to kill my characters to make an impact. I fridged a lot of females in my writing, and there was a good deal of "rocks fall, everyone dies", because True Art Was Like That.

I'm burned out on the downer ending this year. Maybe it's because Mom died, or maybe I just read too many stories where the death count was sky-high. I don't know. I do know that I'm tired of reading an ending where my favorite character bites it. I'm tired of counting the dead fridged women and being told that, well, white men die too! (Not in such a sexualized way; not for nothing.) I'm just really tired of death becoming the only meaningful end to a story arc, and the perception that a hopeful end is a cop-out. Sometimes you live and that's harder. Sometimes you keep going, with your scars and your disability and your nightmares. Death is neater, but I want more messy endings.

As for interesting deaths: I've had a decapitation?

Comments

[otherpervert.livejournal.com]

Preach on, sister. Way too many people think of a happy ending or an ending where no one dies as the easy out, which is bull. It's all the little tough bits after the characters make it through whatever it is you put them through that get really interesting. Plus? If every fic I read that was good ended in my favorite characters getting fragged? I don't think I would want to keep reading these stacks of depressing ass fics.