So I'm writing a fic (as many of us are), and it's one of those darker ones. Which means that the characters generally partake in more brutal actions.

For example: I'm currently working on a situation where a group of rebels end up being forced to kill a foal, because she was spying on them and they have no place to put her as a prisoner. I'm trying to convey the feeling of lost humanity. Forced brutality. Y'know, that kind've thing?

The murder is being witnessed by my protagonist, and it's first person.

So I'm debating about the most dramatic way to carry it out. This is actually something that comes up surprisingly often; as violent death is, I think, a good way of adding drama when conveying a message that would otherwise be rather nonchalant. Especially messages about neccessary violence, and whether its actually necessary after all.

But I digress. Back to the subject.

When you want to use a character's death to add drama to a scene, how do you do it? What is the best way to do it?

I have two main approaches for doing so. Both of them involve another character (who is close to the dying character) witnessing it, and having to cope with it right there. This adds, I think, a more deeply emotional, sorrowful tinge to it all.
Besides that, the death itself usually comes in one of three flavors:
1. Gory Brutal: A messy death, described in slow-motion gruesome detail. Strong shock factor, when you see a previously living character, with a deep personality, that you knew and loved, suddenly reduced to rubble.
2. Cleanly Brutal: A clean, up-close death. The character is killed with such simplicity that it almost seems wrong not to spend more words on them. Emphasis on the cold efficiency of the killer. The gore is set aside, and that space is filled with extra emotion.
3. Silently Brutal: A major death, treated as if it's insignificant. Imagine a main character dying by being shot in the back while running, and the story never has the characters even look for the body. Adds impact be depriving the reader of closure and emphasizing the insignificance of a single life against the backdrop of a world.

Anyways. What do you guys think of these methods? Do you have your own methods for this type of thing? Is such brutality not a good way to convey emotion or add drama?

Discuss.

Generally what I tend to do is more along the lines of the first one, except I write more in the third person than any other POV. Usually what happens is that if it is a child, or in this case a foal, I make the person or people who are going to kill the child/foal sympathetic. Give them that moment of "I really don't want to do this". Then I have them reluctantly kill the child/foal. It gives it a deeper feel and it hits really close to the readers' hearts because they aren't killed in cold blood. That's just something that I picked up along the way when I wrote war/feud/rivalry stories.

Hope it helps

To me, the quick, devastating and no-lingering deaths hit the hardest.

In the Wheel of Time series,
Two main protagonists get killed, and it is said in less than a paragraph, one or two sentances. I missed it the first time, and had to read it a couple more to get the full gravity. But when I did, it hit like a cast iron pan to the face. It really delivers the chaotic feel of everything, so much is happening at once and all of it so severe that things lose significance or get lost.
But that was during a battle.

There doesn't need to be gratuitous gore to show cruelness and depravity, a quick slit to the throat or a bludgeon to the head is just as good, without details. The scariest characters are the cold ones, who calculate and use their cunning for slaughter. Rather than having the corpse being beaten long after death, just one fatal blow and no reference to what has just happened can give some insight into the characters committing the act.

911792 I'm not an expert on the subject of gore, but If you want to get across that your protagonist is having to witness the brutal murder of a foal. Why not describe how, 1) each of the rebels hit's made the foal cry louder and louder and how his/her screams will be forever scorched into her memories, probably haunting her nightmares. 2) How the sounds of bones being broken caused her cringe and almost vomit. 3) The blood. Describe how your protagonist gets splashed with the blood of the foal, and all she can do is sit stare at it. The lost blood of an innocent. 4) The foals eyes. As the foal looked up towards the group of rebels continuing to beat him/her, why not have it so the foal looks at your protagonist. The look of fear in her eyes. The humanity disappearing from your protagonist as he/she allowed the brutality to continue.

There that's all I could come up with, hope I helped a little.

911792

Whatever you choose, remember, heavy on the emotions. The thing that makes Dark fics so great is how heavy the emotion can be portrayed. Maybe psychological effects on the rebels carrying it out or watching?

One that can't take it breaking down?

One that keeps the horrible memory bottled up until it tears them apart mentally and emotionally?

One going completely over the borderline and just slip into pure insanity?

Silver out!

I would suggest you not wax poetic when describing brutality. Use your words like blunt instruments. Hit your victim over the head. There's a 'crack' and they crumple to the ground. The bad guy walks away. End.

This is an incredibly hard question to answer, especially without any knowledge of the characters. But when it comes to how you present the death of a character, it seems to me that how you build up to the scene is just as important as the actual scene itself. It really seems to depend on the situation.

This is a question with such a personal answer that only the author can really answer, but...

I guess the third option are the kinds of deaths that stick with me the most. Think Kate's death from NCIS; one second they've cheated death, their laughing and joking, next second she's dead on the ground.

I'd describe a murder/killing with Option One for maximum brutality, with a dash of Two. Get visceral, describe the sound of breaking bone and bruising flesh. Describe how the victim gasps for breath or begs for it to just stop... if they can. Describe how the person administering the lethal beating treats the whole situation. Do they monologue as they do it? Or do they just let their bare hooves/weapon do the talking? And then there's the main character. Do they look on? Or do they look away? Can they ignore it? Do they even care? Can they do something about it? Will they do something about it?

In this situation, though, it's a kill out of necessity, not straight malice, so I'd go with an "off-screen" death punctuated with the sound of a crossbow or something. Not only is beating up a kid a bit on the "too dark" side, but there's little to no reason for it unless the executioner is a psychopath.

"What do we do with the kid?"
"The only thing we can do."
"Whoa whoa whoa, what are you doing?"
"I'm fixing the problem, [name]. Move aside."
"That's a kid!"
"Yeah, and we can't just let her go, or we all die."
"I'm not letting you kill a kid."
"And where are we gonna put her, pray tell? No, I'm taking care of this."
*shoves [name] aside, draws crossbow*
"You can't do this!"
"It's a quick death, a clean death. More than most spies could ever hope for."
*thwump*

Seeing as I write both third and first person narratives and that I have also described death scenes in cold blood or in a sympathetic way, I would probably have it so the one who does the kill seem ruthless, either going for a slow and painful death or going for a quick and painless death, while the other characters (not sure if it is your main protagonist) argue with him about how morally wrong it is to just go and kill a foal.

Focus less on the description of the murder and more on your character's reaction to it. You don't even need to show the murder to make it effective; you can even have a group of characters discussing whether or not to kill the child when suddenly they hear a cry or gunshot and they suddenly know exactly what happened

Sounds like you might want to grab a copy of Army of Shadows and watch it:it sounds like it deals with some of what you want to write about. In particular, I'm thinking of the scene where they have to strangle a traitor because someone rented the house next to the safehouse and might hear the gunshot. Nobody wants to do it, though, and there's a lot of tension about it.

It succeeds because it really builds up to the death, and then you have to watch as the guy is choked to death with a hand towel and mechanical advantage.

911792

It's interesting working together with Lucefudu, cus we both have very different approaches when it comes to brutality. I'm direct, but subtle, he's vivid, but flowery. This happens roughly every time blood is mentioned in our stories: I open the gdoc and I see that he's replaced "blood" with a description like "crimson drops" or "scarlet droplets" and I got "WTF is that? If you mean "blood" just write BLOOD, no need to dance around the issue. We usually devolve into fistfights after that.

But if you just want my opinion, this is things you should avoid:
1. The "ponies are baloons filled with blood"-effect.
2. Drawn out emotional death-scenes.
3. Death being used as a cheap way to add darkness to a story.

For that last point, I have another example working on a collab. I was the one suggesting that a character would actually survive the killer and go on to become a famous artist. My co-writers where against the idea at first, thinking it'd ruin the mood.

Then we actually started writing it, ad having the character deal with her own personal demons while her pain is exploited for art turned out to be a MUCH darker story than if she had just died and had it over with.

Gee, this is all really helpful.

For those of you asking for more context:
My protagonist has recently been enslaved. This is largely his fault. It's sometime around his second week as a slave, living in a part of a city dominated by, essentially, a corrupt crimelord. There are rebels that fight back, but they definitely don't have the upper hand, and they don't have any aid from the outside world except for some small-item smuggling.

My protagonist is walking along when he sees the rebels chasing after a filly. He runs after them, curious as to what it is all about, and thinking that the filly is probably in need of saving. When he arrives, he finds that the rebels are trying to kill her, because she's a spy. Better yet, the filly's sibling is right there too, and was trying to help her in the chase.

So then of course the rebels have to kill her, and he's there.

After reading this, I'll probably go for the "off-scene while arguing" approach, and have him arguing with the rebels, then just hear the gunshot. (Or actually, the rasp of a blade and a squeal would be more accurate. The only guns the rebels might have wouldn't make noise as they run off magic, not gunpowder.)

But hey, that's no reason to stop the discussion! I've gotta agree, I think that the off-scene idea is best for this, but in what situations are other approaches better?

911861

"The remains of a scream issued forth from the remains of a head, and all was silent."

912328 Eeeeep!!!!

If the death is important flesh it out a little but mention the pyshcological effects. If the death isn't important describe it briefly as if though it happens off screen and mention the after effects.

912581

There was a dragon. It was only part of a dragon. Rows of bleached white fangs gaping open in front of a slick distended gullet. Beyond that, a ragged stump of meat and scale where it once connected to the tapering bulk of its torso. Ruddy ichor and glinting red scale littered a swath of the field as if regurgitated from the cavernous gullet of a leviathan.

From the disembodied head, a round yellow orb with a red slitted pupil turned to look at him. A final wordless plea.

911792

2. Cleanly Brutal: A clean, up-close death. The character is killed with such simplicity that it almost seems wrong not to spend more words on them. Emphasis on the cold efficiency of the killer. The gore is set aside, and that space is filled with extra emotion.

They're not murderers are they? No, then just finish the pony quickly and be done with it.

The important thing is not the action, it's the afterthought. You have an awesome advantage being in 1st person, because the protagonist/narrator can simply 'think' about what just happened. Have him reflect upon it and how it makes him feel, that's how you can maximize the drama there. The death can be one sentence long, so long as it happens, but the narrator's thoughts are what sells it.

In fact the death could be neat and painless, yet your guy still feels mortified by what he just witnessed.

I would prefer the slow as the protagonist fights to defend themselves. The most ideal scene would be where a character dies trying to save his fellows. A grand, epic death where the character does as much harm to the other side as they do to him. In this instance, the death can be brutal since the character will most likely suffer massive injuries during the fight before they are ultimately brought down, and when they do die it is very dramatic due to the way they died, what they died fighting for, and how likeable the character was.

Well, it depends on the scenario. For example, I have written several scenes in which characters are killed/kill others for practice.

Part of it depends on the character watching. Who are they?

The Least-is-First, or Everyman of the group? They were in it because they felt that the group's cause was right, but now they have to realize that sometimes the moral thing and the necessary thing don't always come together. Maybe they argue that there has to be some other alternative, some way other than killing a foal. Or maybe they are just so stunned in to silence that they can do nothing but watch, or look away.

Are they the knight in sour armor? The cold and ruthless, "we have a goal, she's in the way" type?

Maybe the lawfully good sort, who's struggling to convince the others they don't need to kill the foal?

The viewpoint you use should depend on what kind of person that the individual narrating is. Their attitude, exeperiences, and personal beliefs will impact how they relay the story. If they're uncomfortable with the topic, they may just refuse to talk about it. In that case, you could (if it is the ending of the chapter/scene) end it at something akin to:

They killed her. Not me.

That was all there was to it.

Or, if they're a sociopathic sort, they might go in to vivid detail. Though this could work with the other end of the scale, maybe talking about how it was something that would be seared in to their mind for a long time.

912243

It doesn't even have to be off-screen to avoid details if you have a protagonist that really does not want to be there, and see what is happening.

In chapter 4 of Just Winging It, a fanfic I've been writing, I had a dream sequence in which Scootaloo was reliving the death of her parents for probably the millionth time. She didn't want to be there, and didn't want to see what was going on.

So she pinned her ears back and stared at one point, not acknowledging what was going on around her, while I mentioned details that couldn't avoid getting through. Yelling. screaming. A splatter of blood crossing her field of vision.

I think it actually was a more effective death scene then if I'd actually described fully what was going on at the time...

912243 I think you need to up the creepy factor.

I suggest "The tell tale heart" by Edgar Allen Poe for the mental thinking. And one of Poe's lesser known short stories, "The Cask of Amontillado" Where the killer doesn't speak, the victim does all the talking, but his actions are described perfectly to show what a ruthless killer he is.
No one can put a chill on a bloody bone, in as few words as possible, better than the master himself. Edgar Allen Poe