# Writing Death Scenes



## luckyscars (Aug 18, 2018)

A lot of people agonize, quite understandably, over how to write a good love (or sex) scene. But in this thread I thought it might be good to discuss how to write a good *death scene. 

*For the purposes of discussion I would prefer to focus on the notion of the "tragic death", a death in which the reader is supposed to feel some degree of sympathy or emotional turmoil as a result...because I think that tends to be the hardest to get right. This could apply to antagonistic characters, but they would need to be sympathetic antagonists in some way.Here are some of my views on the topic of how to write these kinds of scenes...

*- *Pick a method of death that is, in itself, notable. All too often in stories I read about characters getting either shot or stabbed. While these have their place, where possible I think the more imaginatively sadistic or frightening execution method generally makes for more impact. These could perhaps consist of some dark humor (the meat grinder from Fargo), the it-could-happen-to-anybody type of nightmare (the busy road the little boy runs into in Stephen King's Pet Sematary), state-sanctioned (John Coffey's execution in The Green Mile) or just something creatively cruel like the famous "chest burster" scene from Ridley Scott's alien.

*- *Avoid cliches like the plague (especially when writing about the plague): This probably goes without saying but I find any generic language, use of common motifs or obvious appeals to readers' emotions typically have the opposite effect than intended. Nothing is less likely to bring a sob than a sob story. Avoid where unnecessary having characters visibly cry during a tragedy. Avoid common refrains like "I'll always be with you" and having the character dying in bed if there exists any possibility they could be somewhere else.

- Don't extend or exaggerate: In real life most forms of death usually does not take too long, is rather messy and painful, and it is usually rather unlikely the dying person will have much energy to deliver speeches or offer advice in the Victorian literary manner. If the character is horribly injured, or disfigured, try focusing not on their words but on other things that are more natural for somebody who is in great pain - a squeeze of a hand or a blink of an eye. Stoicism, or some sort of emotional restraint or disdain to the bitter end, tends to add to a sense of tragedy.

- Focus on humanizing: This could go for writing generally but often the most powerful writing comes from humanizing the character, to have them regress in some way to an almost childlike presence. It is especially effective when the character in question has been, to that point, cold, callous or otherwise _inhuman. _An example of humanizing the inhuman with a surprisingly tragic effect is in the gradual deprogramming of Hal 9000 in 2_001 A Space Oddessey. _The robot (Hal) pleads for mercy while it is slowly shut down, causing it to finally die while singing a song which is "his" earliest program.

Anyway just some thoughts to kick off with...


----------



## Phil Istine (Aug 18, 2018)

The only real stab I've had at this was from real life, and I used (not very good) poetry for it.  It wasn't a particularly noteworthy way to die except for those of us personally involved.

I'll probably elaborate sometime.
A good thread topic.  I hope it gains plenty of responses.


----------



## bazz cargo (Aug 18, 2018)

Hmmmm... death, glory and waiting in line. Thinking...


----------



## Winston (Aug 18, 2018)

From my POV, most deaths are just ordinary things in real life.  Nothing extraordinary or dramatic.
It is through the eyes of those observing it that death become a force.  A person suffering, fighting for life is dramatic, but it is the impact that it has on others that has real emotional impact.
If a character dies alone, then the reader has to be made the affected "observer".  

There is a big difference between watching the death of some stranger, and someone you are invested in.  A writer must create that "investment".


----------



## MJ Preston (Aug 18, 2018)

In my first book, THE EQUINOX, an elder Chocktee native goes to bargain with an ancient skinwalker. 

As the two joust over a challenge made to the skinwalker, the elder, named Jake Toomey, raises his knife and says to the skinwalker, "Let's get busy, Jackanoob! I have business with my ancestors. The skinwalker, towering over Toomey is an adversary that cannot be beaten by a mere mortal, but Toomey is ready to die and it is his warrior spirit that demands it. When the skinwalker blows him off, he feels broken, inadequate, and without a place in the natural order of things.

Until...

The skinwalker changes form. Then overhead, a great flap of wing and dark shadow. 
Then ahead, it waits, and it says, "Notinew." which is Chocktee for "Challenge."
Toomey grins, raises his knife and runs to his destiny. 

----

In my humble opinion, the best death scene is the one the reader envisions, when you set them up for it.


----------



## QuixoteDelMar (Aug 18, 2018)

Keep it short. Put more focus on how it affects the protag than on the actual death. People go fast. Even the most lingering death ends in a heartbeat.

I've been to enough deathbeds to know that much. 

And if you have to do dialogue, be spare with the ellipses. Way, way too many... Deaths... Read... Like... This...

It's annoying.


----------



## luckyscars (Aug 18, 2018)

Winston said:


> If a character dies alone, then the reader has to be made the affected "observer".



How do you do that?


----------



## luckyscars (Aug 18, 2018)

A death scene that affected me quite a lot at the time was the one from Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones.



> Mr. Harvey made me lie still underneath him and listen to the beating of his heart and the beating of mine. How mine skipped like a rabbit, and how his thudded, a hammer against cloth. We lay there with our bodies touching, and, as I shook, a powerful knowledge took hold. He had done this thing to me and I had lived. That was all. I was still breathing. I heard his heart. I smelled his breath. The dark earth surrounding us smelled like what it was, moist dirt where worms and animals lived their daily lives. I could have yelled for hours.
> 
> I knew he was going to kill me. I did not realize then that I was an animal already dying.
> 
> ...



I think a main trigger point for me was that the voice, written in first person, sounds very much like a child. Childish language, frequent references and allusions to childish things, mentions of her parents and friends all make this far more emotionally devastating than it would be written in the voice of an adult or from a detached point of view. 

What is interesting about it is that the word death is not specifically used, nor any other particularly charged language. Other than the single reference to a knife, there is really no build up to the awful thing that happens and no account of the actual death and yet no doubt it has occurred.


----------



## Kyle R (Aug 18, 2018)

Good topic. :encouragement:

I find that death scenes don't carry much weight (no matter how movingly they're written) unless the reader has already developed a strong relationship with the character.

For that reason, I believe that what makes a powerful death scene is actually all the scenes that came _before_ it. If the reader has fallen in love with that particular character, then just the knowledge alone that the character's trajectory has ended is often enough to move the reader.

Of course, there are so many ways to handle the final moment. It could be poetic. Or brutal. Or graceful. Or sudden. A lot depends on the character's journey up to that point, and what would be the most fitting.

I find that I'm partial (both as a reader, and a writer) to characters noticing small, irrelevant details in their last moment. Like a blade of grass. Or a mote of dust floating in a sunbeam. Sometimes it's a callback to some earlier memory/conversation/moment. Other times it's random. I find it tends to work well either way; a way to slightly distance the reader from the situation, while still allowing the gravity of it to sink in.


----------



## luckyscars (Aug 18, 2018)

Kyle R said:


> Good topic. :encouragement:
> 
> I find that death scenes don't carry much weight (no matter how movingly they're written) unless the reader has already developed a strong relationship with the character.
> 
> For that reason, I believe that what makes a powerful death scene is actually all the scenes that came _before_ it. If the reader has fallen in love with that particular character, then just the knowledge alone that the character's trajectory has ended is often enough to move the reader.



I find myself beginning to agree, but with a need to qualify further. The tricky thing is The Lovely Bones excerpt I posted is actually right at the start of the book, right at the beginning pretty of the first chapter so _there are no scenes before it_. Here is that chapter in entirety for reference https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Books/story?id=125057&page=1 

I suppose one could query whether or not something like this, so out of the blue and right at the start of the story, has as much impact as a similar kind of scene placed later in the narrative but I don't know how easy it really is to compare two different scenes from two different stories. For me what makes the 'Bones murder scene emotionally charged is, as mentioned, the voice and the way it is written. It's not simply the fact it is childish and therefore fosters a sense of innocence, not merely an attribute of _tone _but of a certain technique used by the author. Consider these specific extracts and their effect:



> _In my junior high yearbook I had a quote from a Spanish poet my sister had turned me on to, Juan Ram'n Jim'nez. It went like this: "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way." I chose it both because it expressed my contempt for my structured surroundings ' la the classroom and because, not being some dopey quote from a rock group, I thought it marked me as literary. I was a member of the Chess Club and Chem Club and burned everything I tried to make in Mrs. Delminico's home ec class. My favorite teacher was Mr. Botte, who taught biology and liked to animate the frogs and crawfish we had to dissect by making them dance in their waxed pans_.



^ A continuing pattern in the lead-up to the death scene is the tangential imparting of irrelevant, rather random information about this otherwise mostly unknown girl. What strikes me as clever about this kind of writing is how it essentially info-dumps a whole ton of backstory and background about her but manages to do it under the cover of a kid telling the story of how they were murdered. This, by the way, is a big part of why I think people who harp on about why "showing is always better than telling" are full of rich excrement. There can be a _lot_ of value and utility in the right sort of tell...



> I wasn't killed by Mr. Botte, by the way. Don't think every person you're going to meet in here is suspect. That's the problem. You never know. Mr. Botte came to my memorial (*as, may I add, did almost the entire junior high school-I was never so popular*) and cried quite a bit.





> I wish now that I had known this was weird. I had never told him my name. I guess I thought my father had told him one of the embarrassing anecdotes he saw merely as loving testaments to his children. *My father was the kind of dad who kept a nude photo of you when you were three in the downstairs bathroom*, the one that guests would use. *He did this to my little sister, Lindsey, thank God. At least I was spared that indignity. But he liked to tell a story about how, once Lindsey was born, I was so jealous that one day while he was on the phone in the other room, I moved down the couch-he could see me from where he stood-and tried to pee on top of Lindsey in her carrier. This story humiliated me every time he told it*, to the pastor of our church, to our neighbor Mrs. Stead, who was a therapist and whose take on it he wanted to hear, and to everyone who ever said "*Susie has a lot of spunk*!"





> He stopped and turned to me. "I don't see anything," I said. I was aware that Mr. Harvey was looking at me strangely. *I'd had older men look at me that way since I'd lost my baby fat, but they usually didn't lose their marbles over me when I was wearing my royal blue parka and yellow elephant bell-bottoms*. His glasses were small and round with gold frames, and his eyes looked out over them and at me.





> "This is neato!" I said to Mr. Harvey. He could have been the hunchback of Notre Dame, *whom we had read about in French class*. I didn't care. I completely reverted. *I was my brother Buckley on our day-trip to the Museum of Natural History in New York, where he'd fallen in love with the huge skeletons on display. I hadn't used the word neato in public since elementary school.*
> 
> "Like taking candy from a baby," Franny said.
> 
> ...



^ I bolded anything that provides background on the character and this is by no means all of what is imported in this one single lead-up to her demise. Needless to say I think you are entirely correct that a strong bond must be formed in order for a death to carry significance, however in the case of a story like this there are ways to create that bond without prior sceneplay, through strength of a defined narrative voice together with the subtle imparting of selective information that paints a picture - quickly - of who the doomed person is and avoids the sense of "Jane Doe".


----------



## Ace (Aug 19, 2018)

I think my biggest thing is that you have to create a character with a backstory and with an unwritten future time line.  It makes you think about the dreams and adventures that the character still had left to experience before life was quickly snatched from them.  Consider this: when a teenager is killed over this, that, or the other, what do people always say at the funeral?  "He was such a nice young man, he had so much to live for."  "He was going to do so much."  "He had such a bright future ahead of him."  It's because of this unwritten future time line I think the death hits home the hardest.

I will say though for the book I'm working on, my MC is going to eventually be violated before being drawn and quartered and left in a field to take his last breaths.


----------



## bazz cargo (Aug 19, 2018)

Having skipped back and researched my work I find nearly all the core character deaths happened before I write about them. I concentrate on the after affects. I have no idea why. You have me curious about my work.
Thanks
BC


----------



## luckyscars (Aug 19, 2018)

MJ Preston said:


> In my humble opinion, the best death scene is the one the reader envisions, when you set them up for it.



I might be a trifle dense but can you elaborate? Are you saying the writer needs to anticipate reader expectations regarding the demise of the character and fulfill them verbatim?

I don't know if most readers have an idea in mind ahead of time unless it is made obvious before hand? And I'm not sure what the merit is in being predictable in a story. Ever.


----------



## bdcharles (Aug 19, 2018)

I think alot of it has to be in the groundwork of the character setup throughtout the novel. If readers sympathise with them, then any death is going to hurt. Hell, even finishing the novel with the character still alive can do that, so use that mechanism. I suppose you could tie the manner of their passing into their fears, or some other earlier events. A boy, whose earliest memory may be of peering over a dam, may as a man tumble over a similar precipice. Create the fears early, realise them at the denouement.

I think also an interesting technique is to be close in their POV at the time of death. Meditate on death a while. How will it feel, that knowing that in a short space of time your life will ... well, no, it _won't_; that's rather the point of death. Everything you know of will cease. You will be - but no, there will be no _you _to be or not to be. The question, therefore, must be how to capture that moment. Splatter and gore, while useful to describe the circumstances in which one's spark is suddenly extinguished, can only go so far. 

What would the moment look like to an observer? What changes would come over the face at the instant that the brain ceases its mysterious activity and the blood slows to a viscous crawl? Might there be something beautiful at that moment - a flicker of a bedside light, or a flock of gulls taking sudden flight. You could use external motifs and objects to heighten the impact. Think also about an unanticipated change of pace: all the chaos of the preceding situation could be kicking off about you but when you get propelled into a sudden state of zenlike calm, you know clearly something big has happened.

Of course, you might get plunged into some sort of afterlife. Imagine what that would be like, particularly if you weren't expecting it.

Great topic by the way. I like writing these scenes because they allow me to go all out, damn the grammar and the technique, anything goes!


----------



## bdcharles (Aug 19, 2018)

QuixoteDelMar said:


> And if you have to do dialogue, be spare with the ellipses. Way, way too many... Deaths... Read... Like... This...



You mean "... can't quite ... got to ... mother? ... argh ... _grak!_" is not OK?


----------



## Kyle R (Aug 19, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> ... I think you are entirely correct that a strong bond must be formed in order for a death to carry significance, however in the case of a story like this there are ways to create that bond without prior sceneplay, through strength of a defined narrative voice together with the subtle imparting of selective information that paints a picture - quickly - of who the doomed person is and avoids the sense of "Jane Doe".



I agree that Sebold does a great job fleshing out Susie in a short amount of space. It's also a testament to the versatility of first person (you can get away with a lot of info-dumping, as its being presented under the guise of the character speaking directly to the reader).

Though I still believe that if you really want to pull the "ugly cries" out of the reader, the more time (and emotions) that they've experienced with the character up to that point, the better your chances of succeeding. :encouragement:


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Aug 19, 2018)

When I kill a character, I like it to be a surprise for the reader.
Yep, I agree that you should create real characters, make the reader get to know them...and then kill 'em.
I killed one in a recent book, and all of the beta readers got PTSD (practically) because they were not expecting what happened.
They actually told me: Don't kill XXXXX!
The readers were just as surprised as the character when it happened, even though they saw it all unfolding.


----------



## patskywriter (Aug 19, 2018)

Death can be very simple. A few years ago, I sat by my dying aunt’s bedside. I played soft music, put her wheelchair right next to the bed, and sat there. Sometimes I talked to her, but I knew she probably couldn’t hear me. I watched her breathe and got scared when she started breathing real fast and shallow. Then her breaths slowed down and her chest stopped going up and down. I got scared again and leaned in closer. She was still breathing, just barely so. Her breaths were so regular that they lulled me to sleep. When I awoke, she was gone. I just sat and stared for a while. She really made it look easy, and I was relieved in the simplicity of it all. 

My aunt’s death wasn’t dramatic, but it was very profound. While sitting there, I had a lot to think about. If I were to write a death scene, I’d probably try to come as close as what I tried to depict here. Sometimes life’s most life-changing moments happen very quietly and without fanfare.


----------



## patskywriter (Aug 19, 2018)

bdcharles said:


> You mean "... can't quite ... got to ... mother? ... argh ... _grak!_" is not OK?



Literally (and loudly) LOL. This, in comparison to what I just wrote about my aunt’s death, is hilarious. 

Hooboy.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Aug 20, 2018)

patskywriter said:


> Death can be very simple. A few years ago, I sat by my dying aunt’s bedside. I played soft music, put her wheelchair right next to the bed, and sat there. Sometimes I talked to her, but I knew she probably couldn’t hear me. I watched her breathe and got scared when she started breathing real fast and shallow. Then her breaths slowed down and her chest stopped going up and down. I got scared again and leaned in closer. She was still breathing, just barely so. Her breaths were so regular that they lulled me to sleep. When I awoke, she was gone. I just sat and stared for a while. She really made it look easy, and I was relieved in the simplicity of it all.
> 
> My aunt’s death wasn’t dramatic, but it was very profound. While sitting there, I had a lot to think about. If I were to write a death scene, I’d probably try to come as close as what I tried to depict here. Sometimes life’s most life-changing moments happen very quietly and without fanfare.





That's some good writing right there.
Write what ya know.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Aug 21, 2018)

PS: I followed you on twitter Pat.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Aug 22, 2018)

Okay, enough twittering & twerking and all that kid stuff.
Let's get back to the original topic of killin' folks!

Seriously tho, death scenes can come in many varieties.  I write pulp fiction so often my death scenes are more to illustrate the hero than the victim/bad guy.
I had one where the MC executes a whole gang, on video, because they had been caught with a trailer full of women chained up in the back.  He is very officious as he does it, and the video causes a lot of hard discussion in the town.
But in the end, it sets a precedent.


____________________________________________excerpt_________________________________________________

*Day 108.  1633hrs.  4.5 miles north northeast of town
Video footage courtesy of the Calizona Historical Society*

“Document this!” came Alex’s stern order as he pointed an angry finger at whoever was holding the camera.  “Film the chains right there.  How many were there? Twelve women living in this little area, chained to the wall.”

Zooming in, the camera captured the filthy restraints that now lay on the ground.  The captives having already been freed.  A few more seconds of chains before the camera settles on the sight of a child’s toy.  It was a chilling thought to consider that the children would have been used as leverage to better control their mothers.  There were few acts, no matter how repugnant, that a mother would not do to ensure the safety of her baby.

“Now film that pile of weapons we recovered.  Get some good footage of that for the Professor.  Let that asshole know how fucking stupid he was for wanting me to impose gun control on the town.  These assholes were puttin’ together a pretty impressive arsenal to use on us.  Looks like the only thing kept ‘em from using ‘em on us was lack of ammo.” Alex narrated as they moved to another part of Verdugo’s camp.

“This is what I really wanted to document.” Alex said as he arrived at a small group of men, several barely eighteen. 

“We raided this camp first thing this morning, killed their sentries, and caught these men sleeping.  We also liberated a dozen women and four children that were being used as sex slaves.  I have collected videotaped statements from the victims to be used as evidence and placed in the permanent archives.  We have also recorded our interviews with the prisoners.”

“Bring out Jolene.” He directed one of the militiamen guarding the doorway to a shanty.  A few more seconds and a woman appeared in the doorway.  Behind her were the rest of the captives.  They had been moved to better accommodations after being freed from the dungeon they had spent the last month in.

Her eyebrows furrowed tightly as she slammed her way through the screen door, Jolene strode with a deliberate pace.  Arriving at a spot several feet from Alex, her gaze locked onto someone at the back of the line of prisoners.  Between the hardened expression on her face, and her accelerated breathing, it was obvious that she was holding in a significant amount of rage as she stared at the men.

“That one.” Alex snapped his finger for the guard to bring the nearest of the prisoners.  “Jolene, is this one of the men that kidnapped you?”
No words, just a nod of her head. 

“He was in charge of keeping us locked up when we weren’t being used!” A woman’s voice in the house called out.  Preferring to remain behind the security of the screen door, only Jolene had the steel nerve to face her former captors.
Alex gave a nod as he grabbed the man by the sleeve of his jacket and roughly pulled him forward for the camera.

“I hereby find you guilty of kidnapping, and accessory to institutionalized rape.  We have no jail cells in Calizona, and there is no place in it for men that can’t be trusted to walk the streets.  That is the law.”
Without hesitation, Alex drew and fired a single .45 caliber slug into the man’s head, liberally coating the other kidnappers with bloody ejecta.  The suddenness of the act stunned everyone in view of the camera.  Only Alex and Jolene did not blanche at the sight of a semi-headless man slumping to the ground with a thud.

“That one!” Another snap of the fingers and the next plasma-spattered man was dragged forward.

“I was real good to the girls, I always treated them real good.” The man’s border accent was thick as he tried to defend his actions.

“That one killed Carmen’s baby just to make a point.” Jolene’s words were measured and tight, as if there were a great pressure of rage just behind them.

A quick glance at the faces peering through the screen door was all the confirmation that Alex needed to fire a shot into the man’s head.  Behind him two more men stood shaking visibly.  There was no doubt what fate awaited them in the next few seconds.

That one?” Alex pointed to the youngest of the two.

“He killed Carmen so he could rape her oldest daughter.” Jolene referred to the man before them, but her eyes continued to stare beyond him.  She barely noticed when Alex gut-shot the pedophile.  Slumping to the ground in agony, the man was left to bleed out.

Alex was about order the remaining captive be brought forward when Jolene placed a hand on his shoulder.  A look in her eyes told him that this man was special apart from the others.

“That’s Enrique.  He murdered my husband, he murdered my son, and he took me as his personal property.” She said firmly as her hand unsnapped the knife on Alex’s belt.  “He raped every one of us, he tortured our children to make us do what he wanted, and there is only one place where he belongs.”

As if on cue, two guards grabbed the restrained prisoner by the arms as Jolene rushed forward, the Buck knife flashing in the camera’s spotlight.  Sinking the blade into the man’s abdomen with surprising force, Jolene gritted her teeth as she craned around to watch Enrique’s pained expression at the moment she put her whole shoulder into twisting the knife.  Taking only a few seconds to bask in the pure satisfaction she gleaned from his terror, she abruptly pulled the edged weapon clear and stepped back.
Blood dripping from the blade, she examined his form as he slumped in agony, only to be propped back up by the militiamen.  Then with a vengeance, she was back at it, ramming the knife deep, over and over.  Each thrust of the blade making a wet sloshing as it penetrated the growing bloodstain on his shirt.  Thirty, forty times she repeated the act until she simply lacked the strength to stab him again.  With the daylights fading fast in Enrique’s eyes, the guards finally let his body slip to the ground to join his peers.

“I hereby decree that these men were lawfully executed for their crimes against humanity.  They represented a clear and present danger to the citizenry at large.  So executed this day by order of Alex P Trujillo, Governor, Territory of Calizona.”
*
---End of footage---*


----------



## JustRob (Aug 22, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> Focus on humanizing: This could go for writing generally but often the most powerful writing comes from humanizing the character, to have them regress in some way to an almost childlike presence. It is especially effective when the character in question has been, to that point, cold, callous or otherwise _inhuman. _An example of humanizing the inhuman with a surprisingly tragic effect is in the gradual deprogramming of Hal 9000 in 2_001 A Space Oddessey. _The robot (Hal) pleads for mercy while it is slowly shut down, causing it to finally die while singing a song which is "his" earliest program.
> 
> Anyway just some thoughts to kick off with...



However, HAL has only been shut down, not killed off, and is restarted in the sequel 2010. In that film it realises that it must sacrifice its own physical existence to save the humans and accepts that, but even then the incorporeal Bowman saves it as a virtual entity. Which "death" is the more effective then, its being killed or accepting death willingly?

Personally I prefer the Tears in rain monologue  in _Blade Runner_. Previously the replicant has at the moment of killing someone said "Time to die" to them but at the end of the film his final words "Time to die" refer to himself. It is interesting that Wikipedia states that the actor Rutger Hauer himself cut the speech in the script down to the bare essentials for greater effect but did keep in those essential pauses _between_ statements rather than any in the middle of them.

I can't comment on death scenes in my writing as my characters have a habit of recovering from them shortly after. In fact in my novel there is a rule that anyone who dies at work gets the rest of the day off as a concession. This was actually a jibe at employers who provide what are in reality worthless fringe benefits in their terms of employment. In the story one person does take advantage of the rule, but as he is the boss anyway nobody is that impressed by it.

As for the demise of inanimate devices, I had significant emotional problems writing, and at least one reader had similar feelings while reading, the demise of the time machine in my novel. It was already non-functional and derelict but the story's central married couple boarded it and symbolically operated the launch control with their hands on top of each other knowing that nothing would actually happen. Nevertheless to them at that moment it had gone irreversibly into their past and this was simply their way of achieving closure on that part of their lives. Of course it's very difficult to kill off a time machine permanently when one thinks about it, so ...


----------



## luckyscars (Aug 22, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Sinking the blade into the man’s abdomen with surprising force, Jolene gritted her teeth as she craned around to watch Enrique’s pained expression at the moment she put her whole shoulder into twisting the knife.  Taking only a few seconds to bask in the pure satisfaction she gleaned from his terror, she abruptly pulled the edged weapon clear and stepped back.
> Blood dripping from the blade, she examined his form as he slumped in agony, only to be propped back up by the militiamen.  Then with a vengeance, she was back at it, ramming the knife deep, over and over.  Each thrust of the blade making a wet sloshing as it penetrated the growing bloodstain on his shirt.  Thirty, forty times she repeated the act until she simply lacked the strength to stab him again.  With the daylights fading fast in Enrique’s eyes, the guards finally let his body slip to the ground to join his peers.
> 
> “I hereby decree that these men were lawfully executed for their crimes against humanity.  They represented a clear and present danger to the citizenry at large.  So executed this day by order of Alex P Trujillo, Governor, Territory of Calizona.”
> ...



I excluded some of the scene because I wanted to hone in on the actual play-by-play of the moment of death (MOD). 

This works for me in, shall we say, a conventional sense. I use the word conventional because I recognize much of the language used to describe the MOD from various scenes over the years. I am not saying there is anything about it that is plagiarized, only that in a basic death scene this is usually what happens. It's strong, it's powerful, but it's definitely non-nuclear. 

 We describe the object (in this case, as in many, it is a knife), the physical movements and resulting sights and sounds, and we describe the fact of the character's mortality. I would say this reaches its climax with the line "With the daylights fading fast..." Yeah, it's well written and it does the job for this kind of scene. But needless to say this is probably the kind of thing we have all read a hundred times before.

I wonder how else it could be written? Maybe there is no other way, other than to avoid the blow-by-blow completely as in the Lovely Bones example I posted?



JustRob said:


> However, HAL has only been shut down, not killed off, and is restarted in the sequel 2010. In that film it realises that it must sacrifice its own physical existence to save the humans and accepts that, but even then the incorporeal Bowman saves it as a virtual entity. Which "death" is the more effective then, its being killed or accepting death willingly?
> 
> 
> Personally I prefer the Tears in rain monologue in Blade Runner. Previously the replicant has at the moment of killing someone said "Time to die" to them but at the end of the film his final words "Time to die" refer to himself. It is interesting that Wikipedia states that the actor Rutger Hauer himself cut the speech in the script down to the bare essentials for greater effect but did keep in those essential pauses between statements rather than any in the middle of them.
> ...




I don't think there's any real difference between writing a scene involving real, human death that is final and a scene involving a machine being shut off or a character who somehow survives/returns. I mentioned the HAL scene not because I thought it was a good example of death -- machines can't technically "die" -- but because its effect in the context of the story was very moving, at least to me. It was moving because it showed the way in which death might come to artificial intelligence. I would expect there are numerous better examples. It's not really my genre.


On that score, I don't think there's any difference in how an inanimate object "dies" to how a human does. Not really. If the inanimate object's demise is notable at all we can assume it has taken on some sort of human role. A time machine is a great example of the kind of inanimate object that can assume a sort of living presence, all be it one that isn't really human. I specifically remember a scene in one of the Back To The Future films where they mention destroying the time machine and my reaction to that was as though they were speaking of destroying something living. I suppose it would be a stretch to say I thought of it the same as a human being dying, but it's not a million miles of.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Aug 22, 2018)

"But needless to say this is probably the kind of thing we have all read a hundred times before."

Like I said, I write pulp fiction. The pulpier, the better.


----------



## Ralph Rotten (Aug 22, 2018)

How come I'm the only one who ever posts stuff?
Everybody else just talks about writing.
C'mon and show us your tits!
_I mean, show us your writing!* _ 




*Sorry, habit. In addition to being a degenerate, I'm also a pervert.


----------



## JustRob (Aug 23, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> On that score, I don't think there's any difference in how an inanimate object "dies" to how a human does. Not really. If the inanimate object's demise is notable at all we can assume it has taken on some sort of human role. A time machine is a great example of the kind of inanimate object that can assume a sort of living presence, all be it one that isn't really human. I specifically remember a scene in one of the Back To The Future films where they mention destroying the time machine and my reaction to that was as though they were speaking of destroying something living. I suppose it would be a stretch to say I thought of it the same as a human being dying, but it's not a million miles of.



I regard "characters" in the way that computer games creators regard "actors". In the latter case an actor is any element of the game that contributes to the action. In the live theatre even scenery and props can "act up" and change the course of events. In the same way I see a character in a story as any active element of it that the writer chooses to give distinct characteristics and purpose. To my mind "unfortunate bystander number six who happened to get shot" may not be a character at all while the gun that shot him could be a much loved possession with such a back story and idiosyncrasies that it could be considered to have a character. The gunman may even be convicted because he didn't have the heart to throw it in the river when it came to it.

HAL had a voice. I played with this concept in my novel by having two computers. One was a very simple one that used a pre-recorded female voice to provide information and therefore was viewed by its male operator as having a character. In contrast the other was a very advanced supercomputer capable of reading its female operator's thoughts but it only communicated with her through a display screen, not a synthesised voice, so its character was not apparent until one day it displayed to its shocked operator the question "Do you love me?" before giving her access to a secure directory of files. She had to give the right answer to access them, but what was it and had she even admitted it to herself?

It was claimed that the star of the film _Titanic_ was the portrayal of the ship itself, which was possibly true. I wouldn't know though, having never watched it. As the time machine in my novel was based on my own brain I hope that it conveyed some sense of having a character.

"Death" of a "character" is a concept that needs clear definitions of both words.


----------



## PSFoster (Sep 17, 2018)

The few death scenes I have written were sudden deaths, as an older man having a cardiac arrest while having sex with a much younger woman, or a revenge killing by a wronged woman. None of them evoke sympathy for the deceased. In short or flash fiction there isn't time for the reader to get attached to the characters.


----------

