Here's the deal. (American) MC finds he's absolutely necessary to prevent Britain from being overturned by a hundred-mile-long giant getting up and thereby killing everyone. He wanted to see his little girl grow up, and live a life with his wife, but has to sacrifice himself or watch this disaster happen. At the end, he's a ghost, who can check up on his family; some consolation. The point is something about heroism, I think.

One point I think OSC was making is that it's more interesting if death isn't kind of OK; it's a real cost. I get that: I shouldn't shield the reader from sadness, but drive into it hard. But here's another thing. I can't think of a story in which the MC dies at the end (OK, I can think of one but I won't spoil it), and I think readers don't like it. I don't.

It makes me very sad when a MC I like dies at the end. Sometimes uncomfortably sad to the point where I can honestly say I don't like it, but that's the mark of a well told story, isn't it? I mean, if I didn't care then the death wouldn't affect me.

I think there should be more stories in which the hero dies at the end. I also think that true heroism often comes wiht a price and that this is a tremendously powerful theme.

However, if you know from the get-go that the character is dead, then the reader may be less likely to feel cheated. However, I guess you may feel that in doing this, you're kind of putting the ending at the beginning.

Stories of (self-)sacrifice can work, but I think there is a resistance to them, out there in the market. Probably best left for when you're an established name...

There's also nothing wrong with an ignominius death, as long as it's in a story and not real life

But if you're going to have the main character sacrifice his life, you better make it worthwhile. Keeping him around as a ghost means that you don't really believe it's worth killing him all the way dead. And the reader will probably agree with you, eh? If his death isn't worthwhile, then that has to be the driving point of the story.

The fundamental problem with playing around with stories where you kill off the MC is that it usually means that you don't really value his life enough in the first place. You're planning on the reader caring far more about this person than you ever do. And it doesn't work. The story is always better if you care enough about your character to give him an honest chance. In Making Monsters, James Patrick Kelly has a good insight into this element of the craft.

quote:

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Pardon my hubris, but the god Henry was praying to was me; what kind of universe was I running here?

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He claims that he wrote a much stronger story as a result of having that critical insight. I don't doubt him. The point is that when you set out to kill off a main character just to get a reaction out of the reader, you damage your own critical ability to empathize with the character, and that will hurt your chances of writing a great story.

It's different if your character is based on a prior existance, either a real or fictional person who already died. That's the tradition from which most of the world's really great "death of the hero/antihero" literature is born. But I suspect that isn't quite what you're doing here.

I haven't written a story in which *The* main character dies but I've killed off important characters before. In my long-running trilogy I decided to kill off a character before I ever really got to know him because it made the plot work. But untrue to Survivor's suggestion, I eventually fell in love with the character. I gave him a romantic interest, power, honor, and courage. Before I knew it I really, really liked the man and wanted desperatly to find a way out for him. I tried several different ways to keep him alive but in the end I knew the story was stronger for losing him. And so I hope the reader cries as much as I did when I wrote his death scene.

Maybe the best-told story written in the English language. Absolutely in the top five, ever, not counting the Bible. And it ends with the MC dying.

I wrote a story that got plenty of negative feedback for having the MC die at the end (with critiquer's questions such as: why do we follow him if he's going to die at the end? and the like), but upon reflection on those comments, it probably had more to do with the MC not quite knowing if he died in vain or succeeded -- which is a fair nit. But since he changed the past and altered his present, he could never know anyway... sort of paradoxial, with the only way to resolve it for some readers is by having the MC know for certain that he succeeded.

(Note: The readers definitely knew he succeeded in the final scene, but I very likely handled it badly and rather cheesily with a new POV). I _could_ write it in so that the MC knows, sure, but then I'd feel like I wasn't telling an honest story and that I was pandering to a particular audience's opinion of how stories should end in their Star Trekish universes to make them happy -- one of the comments I got was roughly: "who cares if it breaks the rules, you can do what you want!"

But whatever. What I _want_ is for the MC to die... and he was going to die anyway...

Everyone dies eventually. Might as well happen at the end of a story that will never have a sequel. That's just my opinion. But I definitely do not subscribe to no good reason/shock value/Quentin Tarantino-"Resevoir Dogs"-how-about-we-kill-everyone-off endings.

The MC's death must be a consequence to elicit the pathos of the ultimate sacrifice. There is a transaction in the readers mind, the daughter's continued existence for the life and actions of the father. Simple barter. It cheapens the value of the daughter's life, if Dad gets to parent from the ether. Thus, the emotional payoff of the father's sacrifice is lessened. It doesn't matter if the father didn't know that he would come back as a ghost; the writer did. The reader often feels ripped off.

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There are tons of examples where the MC dies, and the books still turn out to be great.

A couple more titles for reference:

"El Paso," Marty Robbins.

Of course, I was the kid who read and re-read 'Where the Red Fern Grows' and cried every time, so it's pretty much established that I love a good tragedy.