: Studies of when to kill a character I have a pretty simple question: Are there any studies/surveys that show the appropriate time to kill a main character earliest? I am talking about studies

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I don't know how you'd really do a study on this. It's far too subjective. One reader might say that he found the death of a certain character very emotional and he was crying so hard he couldn't continue reading, while another might read the same book, shrug and say, "Glad they got rid of that character. He just slowed down the story."

Yes, in general a writer should be careful not to spring dramatic moments too early, as the reader has not yet had a chance to get invested in the characters. I recall a book I read years ago, "The Ship Who Sang", which I think was generally an excellent book but I considered it flawed because the writer kept introducing characters, and then within a few pages that character would have some tragedy and the reader was clearly supposed to feel for him or her, but I didn't, because I'd only "known" this character for a couple of pages.

I'd worry less about killing a character (or introducing some other dramatic event) too late. Other than in the sense that any development in a story might come too early or too late: it doesn't fit the flow of the plot. If something happens too quickly, it can be abrupt, happening without adequate build-up to justify it. But if something takes too long, then the reader can be bored. Like, "Oh come on, obviously John is going to try to steal the money and disappear, get to it already."

But if someone could actually "study" this and come up with a formula, like "the ideal time to kill a main character is one-third of the way down page 183", well, at that point we wouldn't need human authors, we'd just program computers to write novels.

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There are no studies that I'm aware so I'll give you my opinion which is, kill off the character when the time is right. As you've said, too early and your reader won't feel any emotion but too late and you won't have time to deal with the repurcussions of the death.

I myself have killed off someone I portrayed as a main character in the first chapter of a book as it saved me a lot of time later explaining why the real main character is like he is.

The late author James Herbert was an expert at making a character, giving them a back story then killing them all in the space of a single chapter. I distinctly remember in his book "The Fog" where a girl was sitting on the beach reflecting on the summer of love she'd had which had just ended. The whole thing was very detailed and led to her deciding she wanted to live but at that point, a whole load of infected had filled the beach and pushed her into the sea.

On TV, Star Trek: The Next Generation created Tasha Yar, the security chief, made her a central figure in several story lines then killed her half way through series one. This gave the viewer the belief that any main character could be killed because Tasha was a "main" character for so long.

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