Killing Your Darlings: On character death and torture

A sadistic title for a sadistic topic. This is a topic on killing canon characters or generally putting them through anguish (physical or mental or both) in your fan fictions.

Whether it's pain and death for drama's sake or for humor's sake or for some other sake, what kinds of characters are you most likely to do horrible things to in your stories: Characters you dislike or characters you like?

Strangely enough, I tend to give the most agony and write the most death scenes in my fan fictions for canon characters I actually like. Why would I hurt the ones I love? Emotional Torque - I know that if I feel something / get a little sad writing a sad scene that the audience is likely to feel it more so than if and when I write similar scenes for characters I actively dislike or feel indifferent to. I style myself as primarily a Dark Fic writer and this has worked for me. I have gotten reviews from characters who were either appropriately horrified (with my horror fics) over what I'd done to someone or appropriately tear-jerked (for sad scenes). It just always seems to work if I care about the character I am torturing.

I find that in the stories of others - this works best, too. When I can tell that the author really loves the character they're putting through the meat grinder feet first, their pain is effective. However, whenever I read something that tries to kill off a disliked character for comedy or Die for Our Ship, the story always comes across as immature and the scenes annoying.

So, what canons do you regularly kill and why?

I was expecting this to be a different thread, since "killing your darling" actually refers to deleting/rewriting the scenes you love the most.

That said, I tend to torture everyone at random and fairly equally. I read a comment on another fanfic, about how it's hardest to write the characters you hate in a realistic and canonical manner. Which is, I think, true, so I have tried (at times) to focus on writing the characters I like in ways that don't highlight why I hate them. This has the added benefit of occasionally making other readers who also dislike the characters find something to like about them.

Which makes it twice as effective when I then do something horrible to them.

Now that said, it's often just as much fun, as a sadistic writer, to merely imply that something horrific is about to happen to a character, and then hold off on showing the aftereffects for several (dozen) chapters. Like, say, imply that someone is face to face with a loved one who's been turned and unable to pull the trigger, or have a villain discussing the best way to capture an MIA team member and brainwash them to be on Team Evil. That way, six chapters down the line when you actually show it, your readers will remember and appreciate it all the more.

I don't tend to hate characters very much, ones that I do tend to present themselves to me as not being worth the time to torment, I usually just want to forget they exist.

As for ones I love, I wouldn't call it torture, more like consequences. I'm generally a stickler for realism and being a writer fairly deep on the cynical side of the scale most of my tales have plenty of potentially deadly conflict. I am fascinated how trauma affects the body so my injuries tend to be pretty realistic too. (I'm one of those freaks who plays Sniper Elite not for fpsing, or war story, but to determine exactly how and why my shot kills a mook.) But for something like torture I try my best to get in the torture's mind to sort out their motivation, methods, ect. Nasty business but to some it's necessary and I like to understand why.

Though I am a fan of Earn Your Happy Ending so I think the hardships the characters go through make it that much more sweet. I am a bit reluctant to kill characters though, whether that's the result of empathy or sadism I don't really know.

I tend to treat the characters I love poorly for drama, mainly because, well, see my sig. Gotta keep it in step with the source material.^note ironically, my most blatant torture story is so OOC even I knew it was when I wrote it... can you tell it's an Old Shame?

Though actually, my most recent story involved torturing someone I hate emotionally and I think it made me sympathize with him better. I think if it had been more physical, that wouldn't have happened, because the reason I hate this guy is because he has a conscience but he friggin' never listens to it... hence, physical pain = funny, emotional pain = once in a blue moon sympathetic.

edited 1st Oct '14 9:46:29 AM by PPPSSC

For some reason I have a very hard time letting Zechs Merquise be happy or live to the end of a fic. He's often sympathetic, frequently treated as a tragic figure, but Zechs Must Suffer.

edited 1st Oct '14 1:11:43 PM by Night

I firmly believe that to make your characters stronger, you need to break and reassemble them. Sometimes literally.

I can sympathize. Its the kind of problem that comes up in Evangelion fanfiction. Even if the story is meant to be more upbeat, it won't feel like an Evangelion story without at least some trauma. Heck even Nobody Dies lampshades this in its description and that story (weird though it is) borders on WAFF at times.

In my Evangelion story (which is only one chapter in thus far I'm sad to say) I'm still thinking in the long term of how to mess things up for the main characters.

edited 1st Oct '14 5:13:43 PM by PhoenixKnight6

One person in writing class compared me to George RR Martin. That should tell you how I treat my characters.

It positively delighted me when my class basically demanded to know why I slaughtered fifteen characters in five pages, acting either shocked or mad that I gave some likeable characters some of the most horrible deaths in the book.

You should read all I've done to Matthew over the years.

edited 1st Oct '14 5:56:44 PM by NickTheSwing

I have to admit, the title gave me bad vibes. But I guess its fine. As long as torture doesnt become outright gratuitous and disgusting...Like Fluffy Pony. God I hate that.

Hmm, it depends:

If it's an OC who doesn't get a major role that not a mentor or a mook: Sacrifical Lion.

If it's a group of mooks: Mook Horror Show.

Mentor: Mentor Occuaption Hazard.

I don't set out to torture my characters, but I do tend to seriously overthink worlds I'm interested in, and my trains of thought often end up in depressing places. For instance, a random befuddled joke I made early into my first playthrough of Oblivion - "Temple of which one, now? Pretty sure we're a polytheistic society here" - pretty quickly turned into serious self-flagellation for reading any of the background material in Skyrim on my second playthrough. To clarify for people who've played both games, obviously Justianus Quintius would have mentioned it if the Thalmor had actually succeeded in destroying the Stone Avatar, but I'm going to guess they tried, what with "Eight and One" being a commonly used term and anything that might clear up the matter no doubt being on the Thalmor banned book list. So, as a result, Temple District was probably the worst place to be during the Sack.

edited 6th Oct '14 1:31:52 AM by DomaDoma

I just like Dark Fic, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction in general. I tend to put my beloveds through the wringer because I want to figure out what makes them THEM.

For characters I don't like, I just don't write about them because I either don't care about them enough or I hate them. Either way, writing about characters I can't care about would make things too stressful.

I tend to think torture is massively overdone, so I'm reluctant to use it at all unless there is some compelling plot-related reason for it. And I write spy novels.

I once wrote a story, actually my first effort at a Magnum Opus, wherein I tortured my mains to the point I myself could no longer see them functioning as heroes, which in retrospect crippled the story.

Later on, when I wrote a Love Hina series, I originally intended it to focus on Kitsune and Su taking heat for their actions in the Molmol arc. But I also dislike revenge fics, and began to see that the whole lot of them, even my fave Shinobu, had stuff to answer for, and that maybe it was better to have them see the bleeding edge of their flaws and be put off by it than just slap them around or worse endlessly.

Long story short, my first effort continues to be a base breaker, when it isn't met with 'cricket noise' silence, and the LH one is likely my most popular ever. So torture, where it must come, must also have a very specific and thought-out purpose.

I'm kind of an equal-opportunity character torturer.... but I find it easier to break characters I like.

On this topic, I've done something completely strange in my (first ever) fanfic.

My fanfic is a crossover containing Frozen. The worst thing, emotionally, that could happen to Elsa is Anna's death. This is very visible in the movie, where Elsa pretty much loses the will to live.
But in my fic, Elsa's ice powers have rendered her unaging. The year is 2185. Anna has been dead for centuries, and Elsa has long come to terms with it. I've started the fic with an Elsa who's already been through her worst fear (multiple times, since she gets hit with it twice in the movie), and has grown because of it.

Of course I'm gonna drag it all back up, as well as flashbacks of the event, and it's gonna be fun.

Mostly I do this to my mains, and I tend to like them. I mainly write Digimon fics, and I think in both of the seasons I watched there's only one character I don't like—-but I like to write him, so.....yeah. I learn to love the characters I'm writing, getting into their heads, you know.

I am not opposed to putting characters through hell, though I tend to mostly use mental and emotional trauma—thinking friends are dead, sadistic choices, despair event horizons and hope spots, leaving them no safe ground....that sort of thing. I've gotten better a physical trauma after doing research, but as I'm a highly emotional person who was deeply affected by the Chamber of the Ordeal from the Tortall books and also fell instantly in love with the "I though you were dead/ they told me you were dead" thing....I tend to stick to emotional trauma. I almost always have an Earn Your Happy Ending though, because I like happy endings. Don Bluth style: heap misfortune and trauma and whatnot on the darlings and in the last chapter things work out, but never before then. maybe I'm predictable, but eh.

but up until the happy ending in the last chapter, anything goes, and I've got the freaking out/angrish reviews on fanfiction.net to prove it.

edited 30th Nov '14 8:36:57 PM by Ellowen

God I really hate this trope. I know that happy and fluffy stories make boring literature. I know you guys arent the kind of writers that fall into the common traps of this trope but GOD.

The worst part is that people actually confuse this for good writing. Sure, Tropes Are Tools and it CAN be used right but I've yet to see a fic where it didnt get annoying and gratuitous.

Blah, blah, blah, your needs...

I like dark, so I write dark. I like sadness and heavy emotion, so it's what I like to write. Though, there is a limit. I didn't really address limitations when I started this thread, because it was about WHO you did stuff to, not about pacing yourself.

Dark can definitely get obnoxious if it's overdone, or done too melodramatically. I was reminded of this when I was issuing a link to one of my own stories that I no longer like: I don't regret writing it because I needed to get it out of my system and I keep it up because (some people like it) and because I like to have it up as a reminder of hitting my limit and "Don't do this again." I have a Legend of Zelda fic that deals with a certain canon-dark timeline in which I just... did a lot more to poor Link than fan of his ever should. I am not sure if the Hero of Time has forgiven me. One of my critics was right in that I'd made Ganondorf go from menacing to cartoonish.

And that's the limit you have to watch out for. I've noticed it in animes I've watched in particular - the line between the kind of darkness and drama that horrifies and engages and the point at which it either becomes unintentional comedy or I just stop caring. I've only seen the first two or three episodes of "Deadman Wonderland" for instance - the plot/setting struck me as contrived, the writers trying to do a Rule of Horror to the point of making their society and setting not make a lick of sense. (Making the tourists think people getting killed in front of them was just "special effects?" MY ASS! It would make more sense if they knew what was going on). I skipped out on "Death Note" about six or seven episodes in because all of the characters were so "dark" I didn't find a shred of likability to them, and I've seen a bit of "Hellsing Ultimate" - that one's different in that I want to catch what I missed and see all of it, but the rivers in blood in it are so over the top that what I think was suppose to be dramatic made me laugh.

And that's just thing... you have to find the balance between the Emotional Torque in doing terrible things to the characters you like in order to develop who they are or to express yourself, but you have to know where you're turning it into melodrama or causing most of your audience to stop caring or were the horror becomes Narm.

I never said anything about you. I even said that no one in this thread was guilty of that. I even said the trope can be played right if done well. You just lost all respect from me.

WELL, GEEZE!

In case you didn't get it, which you didn't, SPECTACULARLY, the first part was ME JOKING. Man, text on the Internet needs voice-inflection.

I was AGREEING with you that sometimes, going overly dark doesn't work. I was giving examples of where, in media, it didn't work for me, and an example of my own work where I went overboard.

Gah. Well, I hope things can be mended. The "blah, blah, blah, your needs" thing was a FREAKIN' JOKE.

I hope I can gain your respect that, but your tone tells me that you've written me off, in which case, I'm going to be side-eyeing pretty hard whenever I see your name around here, too.

I tend to mistreat my characters, but I only kill off the adults. For drama.

I know its going to sound massively hypocritical especially coming from me but PLEASE dont use random caps. It makes it seem like you are yelling at me.

But if I misunderstood you I apologize. Sorry for being mean.

You are cool.

edited 6th Jan '15 2:41:27 AM by AegisP

In what I'm writing, I almost always kill off or torture the major characters in a horrendous way. And nearly all minor characters get killed off.

In what I'm writing, I almost always kill off or torture the major characters in a horrendous way. And nearly all minor characters get killed off.

The main character's a canon character, and she's in for a hell of a ride....

I already killed her once. Thankfully she can afford to die multiple times.

edited 5th Mar '15 7:39:38 AM by Bk-notburgerking