Whats the best way to kill a character?

>>9409564
A duel

File: UNO FARTO.jpg (41KB, 623x397px) Image search: [Google]

41KB, 623x397px

Halfway through

>>9409578
cliche-tier
>>9409580
meme-tier

>>9409564
In the first three pages.

>>9409590
Only correct answer so far

>>9409564
a wizard

>killing
How plebeian

>>9409564
Posthumously

>>9409564
All characters forget about the existence of that character in the middle of a sentence.

>>9409564
God.

they inexplicably disappear from the narrative

>>9409564
you find out at the end that they've been dead the whole time

>>9409617
what are some books that do this

In a subordinate clause, like Stendhal did in The Red and The Black.

Turning them into a depressed cockroach.

>>9409564
At the epilogue crushed by a rock

>>9409564
violently torture them to death in the 2nd act

Whatever way to die fits them and their story.
Of course you can do some "I'm way smarter than the reader" random death shit, but that would be below you, wouldn't it?

>>9409564
Why would the story happen to take place when a character dies, that doesn't even happen that often in real life?

>>9409685
but what if I am way smarter than the reader?

>>9409692
what if its a fantasy or sci-fi and the world means that people die more often.

>>9409694
then you're being a postmodern prick and you'll be chipping away at the foundation of genuine art and literature

>>9409564
In a traffic accident with no drama at all

>>9409694
Then I guess you wouldn't have to ask autists anonymous for ideas.

>>9409694
what the pseud is implying is that you wouldn't be if that was your approach. nothing wrong with reading whodunnit plots, or simply thriller/mystery plots, not to my taste, but yeah, it's a perfectly acceptable to aim to be smarter than the reader in the way you kill your character, since that's what that type of reader is looking for.

>>9409706
if you're doing it for no other reason than proving your intellectual and creative superiority, then you're not being genuine
there's nothing wrong with a random/surreal/confusing death if it serves a purpose in your writing and if your writing is ultimately an attempt to display something truthfully and not just a silly, arrogant game intended for similarly silly and arrogant people

File: PS-1.jpg (28KB, 592x343px) Image search: [Google]

28KB, 592x343px

>>9409564

>>9409564
just never mention them again
someone can later mention off-handedly that theyre dead

>>9409564
In an Epilogue, of old age/illness, after he has lost everything he had gained and achieved over the course of the book only to die in misery and loneliness.

^
joke ofc.

Real answer is to make his death necessary to achieve end goal, make him realise it, and make him plan and execute his own death so that the goal is achieved flawlessly.

>>9409720
yes, but if the narrative only functions at the level of one layer, that of a puzzle, there's nothing wrong with 'outsmarting' the reader. that's what those types of readers are after.

If you're contriving death for the sake of outsmarting the reader and that doesn't interact well with other layers, that's different. I was talking about shitty puzzle books.

Exit, followed by bear

>>9409703
Good. I hope we all get blown to cinders.

Kill them right as another main character realizes how important they are to them. Even that they love them. Shatter that other main character's heart and teach him/her the cruelty of the world.

>>9409658
Gravity's rainbow is the big one I think

Have them call some kids niggers then get hit with a big rock

>>9409564
in the subtext

a spiteful suicide disguised as murder to incriminate every other character in the novel all at once

Have him get shitfaced drunk at a concert held at an MLB stadium, then he inexplicably falls into a garbage chute, 5 stories down into a garbage compactor, where his dead as shit body is crushed and mangled, and then his body is found weeks later in a landfill.

in a long stream of consciousness passage that ends in their suicide described in an ambiguous manner that is confirmed in the next chapter

>>9410465
are you saying they should livestream their suicide?

>>9410508
or perhaps throw themselves in front of a train

File: REPIN_Ivan_Terrible&Ivan.jpg (341KB, 1200x877px) Image search: [Google]

341KB, 1200x877px

>>9409564
In the prologue, before you even know who he is like Humbert Humbert.

Or happily in his sleep at the end like Oblomov.

>>9409650
Noice

File: BAS_203.png (161KB, 597x577px) Image search: [Google]

161KB, 597x577px

>>9409564
BRAAAP fetish that triggers the bomb.

Jump cut the funeral, the camera pans down over a large greyscale portrait of the one who no longer serves your plot, and an Oxford priest says DEARLY BELOVED-etc...

>>9409564
Closing the book before finishing their story, dooming the character to purgatory; forever sitting on a shelf, or lying in a box.

They don't exist without your observation, you kill them by putting them from your sight.

Drive them to suicide.

>>9409564
Make it as melodramatic as possible. People eat that shit up all the time

Have him killed by a mistyped page number in the middle of a sentence chopping the character in half.

>>9411020
deep as fuck

Character has a bowel blockage that hemorrhages while on the toilet but character is too proud to call for help.

Character tries autoerotic asphyxiation for the first time but fucks it up and starts to die. In a desperate bid to male it look more like just a normal suicide, character ejaculated a suicide note onto the floor in front of him. "I hate you mom."

>>9411046
i can relate to that character

>>9409564
In a way that makes sense to the story and carries it forward.

So things like:
* Dropping a planet on them
* Making them drink a magic potion that is killig them then have them killed by another character per their request
* Kill them to destroy a phylactery then bring them back to life
* kill them off-screen (unless they are a secondary character, or lesser)

Are BAD ways to kill characters off. Also "impulsive" deaths at pressure from your editors, etc. are bad. Make it set up an action or purpose, dammit!

>>9409607
Wrong

File: image.jpg (26KB, 400x400px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 400x400px

>>9409564
Something that involves getting his braces caught in a girl's pubic hair.

>>9409564
Badass last stand ala Boromir.

>>9409564
There is no best way

>>9409564
The same way that you yourself will die

>>9409564
I have a few deaths in my story. Let's see how many I can think of.

Backstory deaths:
1. Death by vaporization
2. Death in a horrible lab accident
3. Death in a robbery
4. Death in an ambush
5. Death in shootout with federal agents
6. Death by grief

Story deaths:
7. Death in a one on one duel (not with a teenager)
8. Death by tying up loose ends
9. Possible death by first encounter with final form
10. Possible death by atonement, but I don't know, because it would be totally cliche
11. Death by soul-merging explosion

None of them are meant to be emotional except for 10. They just keep the plot going. 6 might be a little schmaltzy, so maybe it's my favorite.

>>9409564
Mexican standoff, guaranteed best-seller.

File: 1398891320223.jpg (27KB, 285x298px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 285x298px

>kill a main character off in an almost off-handed trivial way while in the POV of one of the other characters
fuck you Ellroy

>>9409658
Weirdly a secondary character is Forster's Howards End does this.

>>9409564
(in parentheses)

>>9409735
GAINAAAAAAAAAAX

>>9412673
What book?

>>9412673
spoilers here
The Big Nowhere and LA Confidential

>>9412916
>>9412853
oof meant to reply to you and not myself

>>9409658
Catch-22

Death can bring some characters to life.

During a Romantic scene