tone and advance the plot, use innocent civilians. I have a
really big list of Innocent Civilians/Nice People/Minor
Character Body Counts, just to set the scene or the tone of a
chapter. Violators include from the cream of the crop, the
aforementioned Libby Thomas, John Walter Biles-sama, Rod M.,
Alan Harnum, James Austin Wilde, Nicholas Stone and a plethora
of others.
What, me?
I'm a cheerful happy comedy writer, I am >:)
Just because I have mutilations, mass child killings
and the occasional scene where blood flows like fine wine
doesn't mean I'm...
Okay, maybe I am.
Seriously, though, I'd just like to also add that there's
a very tricky and fine line between necessary sacrifices
and gratuitous angst-generators. I can't really define it well,
I'm still working out the kinks myself, but a nice thing to
remember when you're writing about death is that, hey, it's
all just fictional. In your story someone might bite the dust,
but there's always other stories. That death scene might just
be the thing needed to add that extra zing to some other character's
motivation, or firmly establish another character as sliding
towards unforgivable damnation.
Not easy, but I'd rather write a death scene than a fight
scene any day.
Fight scenes, sheesh, now those are hard.
=Rod M