Character Death: when to warn?

[runespoor]

Okay, so I was thinking about the Andromeda Table and I wondered... What does "Character Death" means, exactly? So yes, someone dies. But when do you warn for character death?... All of this is, of course, purely hypothetical.

Say it's a Blaise/Pansy fic in which Sirius falls through the veil. He's not important to the main pairing, but he matters to the reader of the books, so do you mark character death? Say the fic is Remus/Sirius - do you warn for character death or do you assumes the reader knew what he was in from?

Do you warn for death if it's canon death? If it's AU but the character died in canon anyway? For any character - disregarding his or her importance in the fic and/or the original material? Do you take the "character death" warning to means only the mains characters of the fic?

Do you warn for death if the character comes back, for instance as a ghost? Is it any different if he or she is somehow brought back to life, or if they appear as an Inferi, or as a vampire, or as a portrait, or as something like Riddle's diary?

Personally, I take "character death" to mean that I'd better not get too attached to the main characters of the piece, because one of them is going to eat it. Then again, I like a warning if the SO of the main character of the fic is already dead. And I think "character death" is not too much to ask when half the wizarding world as we know it bites it in a final battle of any sort. It's all very relative, I suppose.

Please comment, I'd love to read your input.

Comments

[grasshopper.livejournal.com]

I hate warning for character death but, in the beginning, I always did so. Then I went back and stripped the warning off of every character death fic, except for the one in which everybody dies in a painful way, in quick succession -- in such an excessive case I figured it was kinder of me to let people know what they were in for. And if a death is by suicide, I might also consider warning for that, since it's a sensitive topic. But usually I like deaths to be a surprise, both to my readers and when I'm reading someone else's story.

I think the character death warning does the biggest disservice to those stories where the author is good and subtle enough to foreshadow the death early on without quite giving it away. In those fics, the warning lessens the suspense.

[luciademedici.livejournal.com]

Amen. If anything, more people should assume this line of thinking when dealing with darker material because it’s meant to evoke a strong response in the reader. Why dilute the gut reaction?

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

If, as a writer, you aim at gut reaction, then of course it's better to leave the warning out. If, on the other hand, you want them to feel the impending doom and irony and all slower but just as harsh emotions, then the warning can be a way of achieving that result.

[luciademedici.livejournal.com]

In the end it does depend largely on the circumstances, but as a darkfic writer, there are very few scenarios where a death is left untouched by something sinister - it doesn't have to be splatterpunk (though, if it is, it probably should at least carry that warning. Mind, I've never actually seen anyone categorize their fic as such. Or "visceral" for that matter.)

If dark fiction banks on subgenres like romance noir, comedy noir, etc. most readers might as well just hold onto their butts and hope for a good ride. BUT. (There's always a but). Everyone's got a different definition of "darkfic", so in the end, as you mentioned, it'd be a case by case scenario.

What I mean to say is, when it's not overt, and only the ending has the portent to be dark because of a major death - is that when you label it as such? I do. But then again, I've got a handful of readers (a small handful at that) and they more or less expect that of me.

I'd like to see a couple of recommendations, if you have them, where the death of a major character doesn't have a bit of the old macabre worked in, though. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that that could be considered purely optimistic or, "happy".

I hope this makes sense. I'm at that point of the day before my second cup of coffee.

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

Well, to me, darkfic means dystopia, as in a future fic where it ended badly (Voldemort/the Ministry/the Muggles won). It picks up when the "good" side has already lost, or as well as; I don't think I've ever seen a fic showing the fight against Voldemort and then the good guys losing, and everything having been completely in vain.

Mhm... The only thing I see that might more or less qualify is As Sharp As Sunlight (http://www.amanuensis1.com/assharpassunlight.html) by Amanuensis, which I personally decided a long time ago was comfort!fic, so I don't know if I really can be trusted with this type of things.

[runespoor7.livejournal.com]

Another problem with the character death waring is that it will put off readers who don't like character death and are afraid it will cloud their appreciation of a good story. I should know, I'm one of them. I can read a fic labelled dark, but I can't bring myself to click on a fic where I know a character dies.

When you want the death to be a surprise, sure it's best to leave the warning out. But the writer can also want to play on the range of irony and sense of impending doom in the reader, in which case the warning is quite an useful asset.

[luciademedici.livejournal.com]

garlandgraves mentioned it before, so I'm just going to restate her point - if a writer is aiming for a sense of impending doom, then perhaps strong foreshadowing could be used in lieu of the warning system. I'm all for that, actually. When it's successful, foreshadowing is a great tool to tip people off within the first few paragraphs before they get in too deep.