How, why we kill off characters, by writers

Writers will agree that killing-off a major character in a story takes great writing skill, precision, suspense, style and timing and perhaps a lot more. Without some of these ingredients, a story where a major character (or even a minor one) is killed-off may appear vague, unjustified, irrational  and unreal to readers who hold unto […]

Writers will agree that killing-off a major character in a story takes great writing skill, precision, suspense, style and timing and perhaps a lot more. Without some of these ingredients, a story where a major character (or even a minor one) is killed-off may appear vague, unjustified, irrational  and unreal to readers who hold unto every word that leaps out of the paper with an almost total innocence. However, it will not be irrational to conclude that almost every committed fiction reader is far from naivety and digs into the story the writer brings alive, with a fierce critical mind that always produces a quiet plea that seems to say: “convince me that I am not reading fiction but reality reincarnated.”
Character killer syndrome
What does ‘killing-off’ a character actually mean? Some may ask, wondering how a writer can kill someone who is not real.
But just in the same manner that a reader connects with an emotional or tragic story in a book through a writer’s careful plotting (The Encarta dictionary defines a plot as the story or sequence of events in something such as a novel, play, or movie) so it is that the writer embodies his characters in the story; feeling what his or her creation feels and simply obliging to use the pen and end it all (kill-off the character) as the reality within the confines of the pages permits, like a sympathetic friend (referring to the writer) asked (by the character) to help finish what ‘agony personified’ started. In other words, the writer is the narrator and thus must know when it is timely (and relevant) for a particular character to die in order to move the plot forward. 
The creative suicide task
This act of killing-off a major character could be carried out by springing a noose around the neck of a dejected character fed-up with the total essence of life, by equipping him or her with a gun, an overdose of drugs, drowning in a river, slithering of the wrist or simply shoving the character off a storey building or cliff with a slow crescendo of words that makes the reader visualise the gradual tightening of the noose, the backward retreat of the trigger, the flush of gulped tablets, the fading sound of thrashing water, the caress of the knife as it digs into raw flesh and the sound of the wind beating against the character’s form as he or she descends into space and death. Here, the author of Whispering Trees and a nominee of the 2013 Caine Prize, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim lends Bookshelf his wealth of experience: He explains that foreshadowing is an effective tool to manipulate if the character has the tendency to commit suicide. Because foreshadowing implies dropping hints that suggests the capabilities or not of the character, it serves to prepare the minds of readers who carry their hearts in their mouths and with every flip of the page expect a number of mildly suspected (but perhaps not too obvious) scenarios to play out. Thus, he calls them “indicators” that make unfolding events not to surprise the readers totally because the stage had already been set. “If the character is a gentleman or irrational, the writer must give away those irrational tendencies,” he adds.
The accident
This could be a car crash involving a head-on collision with a truck; a drowning incident where the current of a village river overpowers the character, or in a fire where an inferno leaks through a building and consumes the major character until death comes due to either burns or the choking smoke. The art of doing these is important. Every unplanned or premeditated action emits sound that the reader must hear against the softness of the pages, with every cry coming to life and forcing emotions out of the reader. At such a moment, the pages live in the response of the reader to the events springing forth from the writer’s work, thus, the ability of a writer to make the major character come to life.
However, the death of a character is not always planned, Onyeka Nwelue, author of   The Abyssinian Boy says. “I am one of those writers who let their characters lead them on. I have never been interested in creating a format for my storytelling. I don’t write out outlines before I start. I just start a book and let conversations happen. I let the characters live their lives. I enjoy being taken on trips with them, by them. They make things easy for me. The most thrilling part is that you will feel the pains of your character if you are a writer who pays attention to the human predicament. If my characters are about to die, sometimes, I don’t know about these deaths. I just watch and let it happen. I don’t set out to kill them.” In other words, this author is always caught unawares by the prospect of sending a character to his or her death in order to move the plot forward. Although he may not set out to do the deed, his pen eventually succumbs to the bidding of his plot engineered by the interactions of his characters.
Fictional murder  
This could be a vendetta carried out with the use of a knife, a gun, or the quiet fury of a serial killer who drowns his victims or pushes them before a moving truck. Also, a character could be so liberal in life style, which eventually attracts an enemy with a thirst for blood. This scene is dynamic. With a scene like this, can a writer claim innocence of the intention to murder a character to move the plot forward? If not, how is it made believable? Jude Dibia, author of Unbridled and  Blackbird  told illustrates how he does it: “My creative process will dictate that the major character is flawed in a certain way, call it an Achilles heels syndrome. Not only will she or he be flawed but also I must subtly make use of the foreshadowing technique (dropping subtle hints without being too obvious), so that when the character is finally killed off, the reader can connect the dots which were not visible.” Here, unlike Nwelue, Dibia employs the foreshadowing technique from an early stage in the story before he ends the life of the character.
Killing as a major writing tool
Tom Rowlands-Rees, co-writer and producer of the movie ‘Confusion Na Wa’ reiterates the importance of killing a character as a major tool that moves a story forward through a flash back that takes the reader back to where the reader begins to consciously look out for hints that may lead to the death of the major character even when ‘the killing’ had been revealed from the onset: “A story is like a plate of food where everything there goes with everything else. Murdering a character can be like suddenly taking the ketchup away and telling people they have to finish their chips without it. It can be unsatisfying. Of course it’s only like that if things are handled carelessly. In ‘Confusion Na Wa’  (SPOILER ALERT) we killed our most likeable character right at the start of the film and then rewound the clock so we could follow him to his death – the audience’s knowledge of what lay in store adding a bitterness to our enjoyment of the character. Believability is linked to significance – for it to be believable, the significance of a character’s death in a story should match the significance of that character.”
Natural death
In the case of natural death; the discovery of an illness or symptoms of it, already prepares the mind of the reader who keeps speculating, whether or not the sick major character would make it to the end of the story. Dibia’s technique of foreshadowing appears to be an unavoidable tool at this juncture. If the death is not through an accident, murder or suicide, then hints seem to be an unavoidable plot for the writer. Jumoke Verissimo, the author of  My Name is Memory, shares a similar style with Nwuelue who says; “for me, it is a difficult question to answer, really. I’m usually led by the story itself, allowing it to decide how the major character gets killed – in the instance where he does.”
Thus, Verissimo and Nwuelue’s style of allowing their characters dictate the outcome means those same characters may have to leave hints as they explore the pages in a story telling macabre where they themselves are unaware of unfolding events.