: Re: Killing off a character: deciding if, when and how Killing off a character is a serious issue. Secondary characters or even extras can pass away without too much negative response from the readers

I'm more than a little wary of the second option presented here, i.e. "The character did something that would grant his death (e.g. he was a bad guy in the past)". This to me feels like the author imposing an external criteria of good/bad on the reader, in a slightly sneaky manner.

Now, sometimes doing this means you're sticking faithfully to the conventions of a genre. We all expect the villain in a James Bond film to get snuffed at the end, possibly through some 'ironic' twist, in which they are undone by their own evil plot. The viewer understands the rules that are at play there, and the villains are so outlandish that it's not really too troubling.

However, using the same principle more broadly can put artificial limits on the story. Or make it predictable. Or make it actively annoying.

Consider another genre staple, 'virgin girls never die in horror films', for example. It's almost impossible not to see it as on some level a moral judgement, but personally I find it annoying and insidious. Annoying, because for me horror films rely on surprise, and predictable patterns lessen this. Insidious, as I'm left wondering if the writer really believes in this criteria they're using - that on some level, having sex makes a character a more 'legitimate' target to be killed off in some nasty manner, depending on their gender.

So, I think use it carefully. If I as the reader can spot a pattern in the writing (e.g. how flawed a character is determines how likely they are to survive in a way that does not depend on the actual events in the story) it may break suspension of disbelief if I'm not expecting it. Worse, if I spot such a pattern but disagree significantly with the author's definition of 'bad', then I might begin to view the work as proselytising rather than entertaining. And then I might just put it down.

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: Re: Killing off a character: deciding if, when and how Killing off a character is a serious issue. Secondary characters or even extras can pass away without too much negative response from the readers

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: In a situation where the policy position might be implemented in more than one form, your first step should be to lay out the underpinning principles that you recognise. In the example you

: How to publish public domain books? It is known that the copyright permission is not needed for old books (usually 70 years after the author's death), because the copyright has been expired.

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