: Re: Killing the protagonist - should it be done? I am an aspiring author, but I have written several short 'test novels.' With each of those, it became increasingly clear how you have to develop

@Lee1909368

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The reader needs to like the protagonist and want him to win, otherwise he will stop reading. Therefore, I am unsure about killing off the protagonist. This is not because I like the character too much, but because the reader might stop reading.

No. Your level of storytelling ability determines whether the readers stop reading. I often read short horror stories with unlikable protagonists. If you create interesting ideas and characters that appeal to your readers (note that "like" is not the same thing as "appeal to"), they will continue reading. I have put down many books with likable protagonists because they were just generally awful stories (technically speaking as well as plot-wise).

Likewise, wanting a protagonist to win is totally independent of whether the protagonist dies. If you are afraid that readers will put down your book because the protagonist dies, you are over thinking things.

The only place I could see the hero dying without catastrophic results would be at the very end of the book. [..] However, the problem still remains that the reader will doubtless be displeased.

If your character dies anywhere but (roughly) the end, you don't have a story. Literally.
If the protagonist begins the story dead, then it is a flashback (someone else is telling the story) or they are speaking from beyond the grave (no explanations necessary, except perhaps they are somewhere else now).

If you create any character that is likable, the reader will be displeased at their death. The important thing is to make it worth the readers while. They will hate you for making death too much like real life (i.e. generally meaningless).

So is it advisable to kill the protagonist?

Is it advisable? No. Not unless they really deserve it or it's an integral part of the story (even if to show how much of an impact the protagonist had on other characters). If you do do it, then you will have to consider carefully the how's and why's to make sure the reader understands that you aren't simply doing it for shock value or to simply create a depressing story.

How can you [kill a protagonist] without alienating the reader?

By telling such a good story in the meantime that the reader hardly cares the protagonist dies. The only hard and fast rule in my opinion is that the death should make sense within the arc of the story -- that given the plot line, it is a logical and reasonable event within the scope of what you have laid out in your story universe.

Two Final Points

First, in real life, most people stay very much alive for long periods of time. So killing a protagonist is similarly limited in most kinds of reading material, just because it's a more accurate representation of what happens to most people (at least till they get too old).

Second, killing unlikeable characters often creates joy and killing likable characters will create a depressing atmosphere. Readers are generally fine with the first and not so fine with the second. If too many of your books are depressing, readers will likely be hesitant to adopt them because of this, even if they are excellent stories. Many people read books to escape unhappy lives and reminding them that things suck in print isn't always a way to win hearts. So use unhappy stuff sparingly.

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