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Deadline: Thursday, February 22nd

There are many reasons writers decide to kill off their protagonist. The trick is to do it for the right reasons and in a way that won’t make the reader stomp off in a huff. If you’re a writer considering doing away with the main character (MC) in your short story or novel, we’ve got a few tips to keep in mind.

In 1893, thousands of English readers canceled their subscription to The Strand when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle simply was tired of the series and wanted to move on to other things. He was a little surprised by his readers’ outrage, and, eventually, he succumbed to public pressure and resurrected the beloved detective in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

When Tony Soprano was killed in the season finale of The Sopranos—well, we’re assuming he was whacked, as the tension built and the screen suddenly went black—the audience had no choice but to accept it. The series was over. And the final scene (or lack thereof) packed a serious punch.

Alice Sebold took a different—and highly successful—approach to killing off her main character. In The Lovely Bones, her protagonist and narrator is a young girl who has just been murdered, and she comments on the events that happen after her death:

“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it.”

If you’re considering killing off your main character, keep the following tips in mind:

  1. Be somewhat realistic. It may be hard to swallow if your main character survives what no one should be able to. When a jumbo jet crashes in the desert but your hero, Jack, walks away unscathed thanks to his skill with a nail file and a soda can, you can practically hear your readers groan.
  2. Plot problems. Don’t kill the protagonist if you are having problems with the storyline and simply don’t know what to do next: The heroine finds herself between an enraged grizzly and a cliff—if you can’t figure out a plausible way to extricate her, this shouldn’t be the only reason to kill her off.
  3. Beware morality statements. Perhaps your main character’s death is a natural consequence of his fatal flaw. He is a functioning alcoholic and sometimes drinks and drives. Be very careful not to make this into a morality statement by waving it over your readers’ heads: This is what happens to drunk drivers! You want the story to be powerful, not your personal statement on drunk driving.
  4. Don’t kill the MC off in a trivial or anticlimactic way. In other words, unless it’s tied to the theme or plot in some significant way, Hattie Heroine should not die from an infected paper cut. If we’ve invested in her character, we need some tension building up to her death.
  5. Avoid resurrections. Please don’t be tempted to miraculously bring a main character back to life unless it’s an integral part of your plot or theme (like a medical thriller centered around a miraculous new drug that reverses death). What? It was actually Hattie Heroine’s twin sister who died of infection? Like an ending where the MC wakes up and realizes everything was just a dream, a miraculous resurrection can be a little cheesy—or an easy out.

As a writer, consider the impact your protagonist’s death will have on your audience. There’s a fine line between a meaningful ending and ticking off your readers. Your reader has invested emotionally in your main character, so make sure it’s important or relevant that he/she be killed off—and preferably not death by paper cut.

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Ronnie L. Smith, President of Writer’s Relief, Inc., an author’s submission service that helps creative writers get published by targeting their poems, essays, short stories, and books to the best-suited literary agents or editors of literary journals. www.WritersRelief.com

36 Comments

  1. Valerie T.

    I definitely struggle more with #1 (Be realistic) than anything. Even when the storyline calls for it, I do pretty much anything to avoid killing off my main character! I get so attached to the characters I create, I end up writing myself into corners because I don’t want to let anything bad happen to them. I’ve probably often left my readers groaning!

    Reply
  2. Kris

    I HATE when I read or watch something that uses the examples illustrated in number five. Thanks for these tips!

    Reply
  3. Anon

    The Lovely Bones? Really?

    Reply
  4. Emerald Barnes

    I have a difficulty killing my main characters, but recently, in a work in progress, I killed a major character. It was difficult, but it moved the plot along better than leaving him alive. These are great points to remember!

    Reply
  5. daretoeatapeach

    My sweetie also hates resurrection stories. But they’re more than cliche–they’re part of the archetypes everyone has in our subconscious. Writers go back to them again and again because rebirth is part of every mythology, and one of all humans deepest desires. The tale of Odin hanging from the tree, the Buddha sitting beneath the same, Persephone in the land of the dead, of course Jesus–all religions and mythologies have tales of someone who has been brought to the brink, or just over, and snatched back. You see it work successfully in everything from *SPOILERS* Harry Potter to Game of Thrones.
    The key is to show that person changed. The person who has been to hell and back must be, in some key way, in entirely new person.
    Then again, I have #5 in my own novel, so perhaps my viewpoint is not to be trusted…I’ve been reading a lot of Joseph Campbell!

    Reply
  6. Rob

    Correction: Sherlock Holmes was resurrected in The Adventure of the Empty House, not Hound of the Baskervilles.

    Reply
    • Writers Relief Staff

      Rob, Absolutely right. We weren’t clear: It wasn’t so much a resurrection as an appearance. Conan Doyle resumed writing about his character in Hound of the Baskervilles. You are correct that Sherlock Holmes himself was not “brought back to life” in the novel. Rather, Conan Doyle brought back his creation for a reunion tour in The Hound of the Baskervilles. published in The Strand magazine between 1901-1902. This story, a sort of prequel, was set before Holmes had his unfortunate cliff diving accident, so there was no resurrection just yet.

      Reply
  7. Margaret Garside

    The only time you kill your main character, or even bit players, is when that’s what happens in the story. Most readers will know straight off if the death is ‘organic’ or a mere contrivance.

    I always wonderd if Tolkien didn’t intend to kill off Frodo Baggins, and in the end couldn’t bring himself to do it. He found a compromise that worked. But that solution isn’t readily available to most writers. Margaret Mitchell would have looked awfully silly if Melanie had sailed off with a bunch of elves at the end of ‘Gone with the Wind’.

    Reply
  8. Stephan

    I keep waiting for Dexter to get caught and face the music but I hope, although hopelessly evil, that he lives on.

    Reply
  9. Ana

    I think one of the examples in fiction is the way Richard Matheson killed off Richard Neville in I Am Legend. It isn’t necessarily a morality statement, but facilitates ongoing discussion/examination for the reader because it touches upon themes that are universal (social in and out groups, minorities and majorities, etc).
    I personally don’t go for resurrections but The Lovely Bones would have to be an exception, only because the voice of the protagonist was written so well.
    As for Harry Potter. I’m still not sure whether Harry’s death would have been better or not. As a writer, I would have killed him off, only because I wouldn’t want to be placed under pressure to continue the story.

    Reply
  10. Vivienne Diane Neal

    Even though my romance short stories never end happily ever after, I haven’t killed off any of my main characters. I may decide to bring back some of these protagonists to wreck havoc on more people’s lives.

    Reply
  11. Nancy Purcell

    Years ago I wrote a story about “the other woman” in a relationship, who was, at story’s end, killed by the wife. I had many questions from readers who were invested in this “other woman”. The one question I heard over and over was, did the wife kill her or did the author? I resurrected that story, took a hard look at it and found the REAL ending. It isn’t the “other woman’s” death. It was her own realization that she preferred relationships that were open-ended. She was someone who could not commit.
    I say don’t be in a hurry to take the easy way out, let the story germinate, however long it takes.

    Reply
    • Writers Relief Staff

      Nancy, Really great advice! Thanks for sharing the story of your story!

      Reply
  12. Gyppo

    In the original Rambo novel, not the book of the film, but the true original, Rambo dies at the end.

    It was, as the author knew, the right ending for the poor mad dog who didn’t fit into society. He and the sherrif were both ‘walking wounded’, scarred for ever by their respective wars.

    But Hollywood didn’t want to kill the golden goose. The subsequent stories all rang false to me.

    Gyppo

    Reply
  13. D.L. Sparks

    This is really good advice. One of my favorite books turned movie, My Sister’s Keeper, changed when the book became a movie. I think when the MC dies in the book it added more depth to the story overall. But when I saw the movie and the MC lived, that change made it, as Gyppo put it, ring false to me. I was extremely disappointed.

    Reply
  14. Jalestra

    I think if you’re going to kill off an MC it should MEAN something, but one thing I hate is the amnesia killing. The body isn’t dead but the mind is sort of thing. You follow a character for long time and then suddenly the character “gets amnesia”. I’ve seen that happen and I was willing to go with it until the character became so stilted and robotic that there was NO reason to continue following the story. Even if the MC regains their memory, that period of time has ruined the entire story for me. The MC went from a vibrant, passionate, HUMAN personality to a robotic, emotionless, clumsy (and I don’t mean physically) cartoon. I saw the potential there for a great idea, but the writing on that character changed so much I felt it was obvious the author wasn’t in it. Anything that is death-like should be fluid and belong. It should never feel contrived.

    Reply
  15. Candi Holme

    I agree with your comments . . . that the death of an MC should be avoided, but when your books are an historic series of fiction, the MC has to die. They can’t live forever. You have two choices: Have the MC continue to tell the story of his/her descendants from his/her POV as a spirit,or develop a new MC who is just as admirable and appealing as the former MC. An example of this is the story of Roots by Alex Haley. So every time a MC dies because they age, he or she should die in a memorable way and be replaced by another leading character who continues in the path of the first MC. This can be in a slightly different way, one that makes it interesting for your audience. You can continue a subplot, for example, showing that the struggle of the first MC continues, but with an intriguing twist.
    Any other thoughts about this?

    Reply
  16. Gloria Girrard

    In the book I’m working on now, Age of Treason, there’s a character I’ve been fantasizing about killing, thinking of all the possibilities of his death (I’m psychotic, I know). 🙂 I really hate scenarios like #5, such as the end of Breaking Dawn. Talk about let-down! The character’s a drug addict and I’m trying to give him one last chance of redemption. Any ideas?

    Reply
  17. Collaredcrow

    I’ve been thinking about killing off my protagonist as well. She’ll go in knowing full well that she would die, potentially saving the word, and never have a chance to say goodbye. I want it to be an emotional but significant ending for her, and the weight of the story will fall to the devastated shoulders of the one who loved her before closing. As much as I would love for her to live, I feel, since she has always been alienated by the world and she would never live in peace, she may as well die. And it must be significant enough for the world to cast off their thoughts of her being some sort of demon. In her death, she will be freed.

    Reply
  18. A-Writer

    I’m writing a series of short stories set in an alternate reality – and plan on killing off both my MCs at the end of the final story. But it’s set during a world war, so I don’t want to fudge it.

    Mind, there’s plenty of space for prequel stories, if I’m inclined to come back to the universe.

    Reply
  19. Tyrion_13

    I read fiction because i want to discover new stories, not because i want to read a different variation of the same story over and over again.
    When i start reading books of a particular author, let’s say it’s in the thriller genre, if at the end of the third book the bad guy got caught/killed by the good guy for the third time in a row i’ll never read a book from this author again.
    I want the good guy to die in the middle of the book sometimes to be replaced by someone else.
    I want the bad guy to win sometimes (wether by not being so bad after all or just because good triumph over evil is such a crappy cliché : just look at the real world).
    I can go through a “classic” resolution from time to time if i know that this author can surprise me (the best would be those that surprise me the most by a “classic” resolution because so much of their repertoire is really unexpected).
    I read between 300 and 500 fiction books a year, if you want me in your readers following, by all means, don’t be shy about killing your main characters.

    Reply
  20. V Murthy

    Nicely written. Good suggestions. Thank you.

    Reply
  21. Lisa Ann

    Yup! I’ve killed off my MC… It wasn’t intentional, but it had to happen. i write my stories as I see it unfold in my head, meaning, the story writes itself. But in the first story I wrote, the character had to die because of all the close call events that kept occurring in her life. No, she didn’t die from a paper cut or anything that annoying, but from something that happens often and it was very unexpected. Now, for the MC to die must have meaning?…. Mine did, but I’m not sure it’s necessary to have a meaning behind the character dying. But 11/10 when I get the feed back about the ending, the point I was making was missed every time and that’s okay. After all, I want my reader to read and enjoy the book. Some people have requested a sequel, but a sequel without the main character? Anyway, I don’t think anything is wrong with killing off the MC. Now, the other two books I’ve written afterwards, I didn’t kill off my MC nor am I going to with the other books I’m about to write. The FIRST book was my personal favorite.

    Reply
  22. Harsha

    “the death has to be organic”

    This fact has to be repeatedly emphasized. I feel that JK Rowling made a big mess when killing off characters in the last book. She killed many side characters and left the core ones untouched – I feel this made the book unbalanced. More often than not, killing off your MCs is necessary, not an option.

    Finally, yep! – AVOID resurrections. You want your story to be realistic and definite? – then don’t do that stuff. Just having it allows the reader a “back door”, where he/she believes a dead char may return. Death should be absolute, the end of all things. That way, when that beloved character dies, the reader will mourn the loss like for a real-life personality.

    Reply
  23. Mkv Anime

    Thanks for the info!

    i learn a lot 🙂

    Reply
  24. Bill Harrod

    In my book, ‘A Lark over New York’, I killed off my MC in New York, two thirds of the way through and his wife back in England became the MC. In the final stages of the book, as their daughter becomes older and famous, she becomes the MC.
    She is the MC in my second book ‘Upon the Dewy Ground’ which is the sequel to ‘A Lark over New York’.
    I hope I have done the right thing.

    Thanks for the info.

    Reply
  25. Alaina

    Totally agree with this advice! I’ve just started a novel I hope to actually finish and decided to have my MC(s) killed. I was originally planning of having one of my MCs die suddenly, but #4 changed my mind about that. She deserves a more meaningful death and I’ve chosen to lead up to her death gradually so I can send a valuable message to readers and other characters. Still contemplating having my other MC commit suicide as a repercussion of her death…hmm we’ll see…

    Reply
  26. TurtleSoup

    The main character for my story went out of control and started to write himself. So I had to find a way to put him to rest. 🙂

    Reply
  27. WD ( Dragon )

    I agree with the advice. use alot of the tips here myself in both my stories and rpg works. Pretty much all of it is true, specially the resurrection one, MOST of the time I detest the idea of resurrecting a main character after they just moments ago died in a battle trying to save their friends or something. My main advice is if you`re looking to kill a major or main character, make sure its significant. By significant I mean make it change the theme or emotion of the story, even if it’s just in a small way. Also make sure it affects the characters who were close (to that character) in a big way — don’t make them act like nothing happened or make them forget it in 5 seconds. It has to leave a large mark.

    That’s pretty much it. Useful advice all around, and great for beginners

    Reply
  28. Bill Laycock

    I was very disappointed with the two main characters in Castle being killed off. The characters were well liked and their relationship grew to be very heart warming.

    Reply
  29. ALemon 627

    This is all good advice. I’m currently writing for a competition and wanted a dramatic ending.My MC is a boy who sees the world outside of the box, and dreams. However, these dreams haunt him as he believes that everything is destined to doom. He feels guilty for everything he’s ever done, and I wanted him to commit a suicide. I wasn’t sure if it was going to end well, so I thank you for the advice.

    Also hey. Reading this in 2017 😉

    Reply
  30. MAC

    Great tips, thanks!

    Some readers probably won’t like me too much at the end of the one I’m working on. But the plot essentially leads up to this the whole time. So it’s not tacked on by any means.

    Reply
  31. Miyoka Suzuki

    I’ve recently finished my first book and had such a hard time trying to find a way to not end my story on a cliche. My story is about a team of FBI agents, police officers, and private detectives who are trying to find a serial murderer. I promise it isn’t as cheesy as it sounds! I already hurt my secondary main character by having the unsub stab her in the eye. So now she’s blind in one eye (and still working on the case). But there’s this final showdown where the unsub gets the main character and an officer alone. I was planning on killing the police officer (who doesn’t even have a name yet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), but after reading this article, I’ve reworked the end of my story and now the plot fits together so much better! I actually started crying while I was killing her off, but I guess that’s a good thing? The story ends with the unsub killing two more of my beloved characters, and then killing the main character. He then commits suicide by cop. It ends with the killer dead, but having taken about twenty citizens and detectives with him, and then dying himself just to piss everyone off even more basically. I’ve started drafting the sequel too, the new MC is the character who is blind in one eye. The MC I killed off was one of her only friends, and since I also killed off a few of her coworkers, she is depressed, out of a job, and mentally unfit to continue working in the FBI. Her fiancé calls off the wedding and now she doesn’t even see a point in getting up in the morning. The events of the previous book scarred her a lot, and although horrible, I now have a plot for my second book (no spoilers though!). Please let me know if a made a cliche or something too big, but the entire book is just bonding with the other characters and giving them their own arcs and storylines, so I think their deaths are pretty meaningful. Let me know what you think, I know this article is quite old, but oh well! ~

    Reply
  32. Jynifir

    One phrase; fan’s will understand.

    Keeper of the lost cities. Forkle.

    Reply
  33. Samuel Robbins

    My two main characters sacrificed themselves inside a magma core room of a volcano to make the volcano erupt and destroy the evil armies outside. Problem is, I want them to survive! How do I do this??

    Reply
  34. Sarah Kolakowski

    I’m writing up a book series and one of my main characters is killed off. They try everything they can to bring her back but in the end, the only thing do is a spell long enough for her to say good bye. She even makes rhetorical statements about how it isn’t fiction and sometimes pretty girls just suffer the misfortune of having a bad ending. Nothing could possibly change that.

    Reply

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