This is a substack (I know--hate me!) I wrote about the problems of sacrificing characters and what can happen when you first let them live.
And now I'm wondering... How do YOU draw the outlines of loss? How do you give shape to the hole that is left, making a real ghost and not just a vague nothing?
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https://imprompt2.substack.com/p/the-last-of-us-and-characters-who
@allisonwyss There are definitely deaths of characters in PoM. You might say that the loss of loved ones is the central trauma that the MC spends the entire story coming to terms with. And I think that's the key. Losing someone you love is devastating, and showing anything less than that utter destruction does everyone—the lost chars, the survivors, & the reader a massive disservice.
That loss can't be shrugged off, and it can't be ignored to make room for future plot or characters
@allisonwyss Put another way, characters who are killed should never be "written out of a story."
If anything, a character's death should more firmly "write them *into* the story" in a way that's inescapable. Their deaths should take root in other characters' minds and motivations in a way that living characters simply can't... live up to (pardon the pun)
Yeah. And I think one really powerful way to do that is to let them truly live before they die. Then they take root not just in the characters left behind, but also in the reader.
Allison Wyss
K. N. Brindle (they/them)