Should you kill your MC?

[Meerkat]

I just finished a draft of a big ol' sprawly thing that (in all honesty) I'm none too fond of. It is a sci-fi story, actiony and whatnot. I could not decide whether or not to kill my MC. I asked my IRL writer friend, and he went on a rant about how nobody wants to read a book in which the MC dies.

Is this an accepted rule? MCs shouldn't die?

 

[Carol Rose]

Pretty much.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Arthur Conan Doyle had this very problem, with his popular creation Sherlock Holmes. He grew sick of writing about him, so killed him off, even though he knew it would be unpopular with his readers and likely to hurt his income:

The Burden of Holmes

It's one thing to kill a protagonist, but making a sacrificial lamb of a character you've written as likeable is a good way of propelling the plot onward, encouraging the reader to bond with those seeking revenge.

One of the most surprising examples of a hero being killed came in the film 'The Cowboys' from 1972. In this, John Wayne, of all people, was bumped off by a cowardly trail hand played by Bruce Dern. This happened an hour into the movie, producing stunned disbelief in the audience. It had a detrimental impact on Bruce Dern's career—as if he'd vandalised a national icon.

Bruce Dern: 'Shooting John Wayne killed my career'

 

[Bluma Bezbroda]

On the other hand, there is nothing more annoying than plot armor....

 

[Patricia D]

Certainly not if you might want to write a sequel

 

[Nicole Wilson]

99% of the time, you can't kill off your MC. However, it does work for some books but only if the story **demands** that it happen. It has worked for a few books including Hamlet and V for Vendetta. But. It is strongly, **strongly** advised that you don't.

 

[Brian Clegg]

You certainly risk irritating your reader if the MC was in any sense likeable. What worries me more is 'a big ol' sprawly thing that (in all honesty) I'm none too fond of.' - I've written plenty of stuff that other people weren't fond of, but if there were something I'd written that I myself didn't like, I think I would be looking at a major rewrite. To date, though, I've been convinced of my own genius...

 

[MichaelBlackbourn]

Ive written two stories now where Ive done this.

In the first the narrative is being told out of chronological order and you only realize at the end that the MC has been dead the entire time.

In the second the MC falls prey to being tricked by the nemesis. He underestimated his adversary and has to make a bold, self-sacrificial move to try and stop terrible events from happening. I pick up a PoV of a second character in an epilogue to follow the events to their conclusion.

Worked well in both of those.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I can think of a number of books written from the perspective of someone dead, which end with said death (Marquez did this, as did Kurt Vonnegut). There are also books in which the MC dies at the end which have become quite popular (The Book Thief is one, as is The Love Song of Miss Queeny Hennesy), though in these books the MC dies a natural death, and it's not really a surprise when it happens.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Ambrose Bierce wrote a highly-regarded and influential short story called An Occurrence at Owl Creek. This is told by a plantation owner, who is about to be hanged from a bridge in the Civil War.

The tale is a mix of memory and imagination, for it's revealed at the end that his neck was broken by the noose.

 

[Meerkat]

What worries me more is 'a big ol' sprawly thing that (in all honesty) I'm none too fond of.' - I've written plenty of stuff that other people weren't fond of, but if there were something I'd written that I myself didn't like, I think I would be looking at a major rewrite.

Well, I'm not fond of it because it's long. I prefer my stories (these days) to be about 20 pp. I'm uncomfortable with its length because I'm unsure of my ability to adequately handle it.

I gave it to Mr Meerkat, who is my first line of defence against a bad story, and he praised it to high heaven and said it had the most potential of anything of mine I've ever written. He thinks it should be expanded into a novella. Hence my despair. I trust his judgment, and he thinks I can do it, but . . .

Anyway, the point was that when my friend said that, I immediately thought of numerous books in which the MC dies -- Mother Night, The End of the Affair, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary.

My personal artistic feeling toward this bit is that it's necessary for her to die. Funny that V for Vendetta should be mentioned -- that, actually, was the inspiration for the story. That's why I feel she should die -- she needs to be a symbol/martyr.