In light of a certain popular TV show supposedly killing off a certain beloved character and shocking the broken hearts of its audience, I thought it would be important to talk about character deaths in YA. There are some that I may never get over (RIP Finnick) and others that just didn't sit well with me. There are certain responsibilities we take on as authors, and respecting our characters is one of them. Death is an interesting topic in a genre with so few defined rules. Are there rules when it comes to killing off characters in YA? If not rules, are there boundaries? If so, when is it okay to break them?
Young Adult writing is constantly evolving. Stakes get higher. Love scenes get steamier. Deaths get bloodier. One of YA's greatest criticisms that shows up in reviews is that it's all just recycled material. Authors see this, and have to find new ways to grab hold of an audience that believes they have seen it all. We take on this challenge because every one of us wants to have that book that's going to stand out from the crowd. It compels us to be daring, which sets up an interesting new frontier for YA.
However, this can also lead to abuse of the shock value. One of the quickest ways to get a reader on board with your novel is to break their heart, and the quickest way to break their heart is through killing. There are so many authors that pride themselves on their death tolls and kill lists. I love an author who's willing to go there and lay out their novel's brutality and aguish without fear or restraint. However, killing characters should be taken seriously and done responsibly.
Young Adult writing is constantly evolving. Stakes get higher. Love scenes get steamier. Deaths get bloodier. One of YA's greatest criticisms that shows up in reviews is that it's all just recycled material. Authors see this, and have to find new ways to grab hold of an audience that believes they have seen it all. We take on this challenge because every one of us wants to have that book that's going to stand out from the crowd. It compels us to be daring, which sets up an interesting new frontier for YA.
However, this can also lead to abuse of the shock value. One of the quickest ways to get a reader on board with your novel is to break their heart, and the quickest way to break their heart is through killing. There are so many authors that pride themselves on their death tolls and kill lists. I love an author who's willing to go there and lay out their novel's brutality and aguish without fear or restraint. However, killing characters should be taken seriously and done responsibly.
In the trenches of the first draft of my YA survival novel, I caught myself searching for my own shock factor. I had all of these deaths planned that I thought would give my story an edge or let people know that I meant business. As I went through my revisions, I realized that these characters I had planned to kill had no real purpose other than to die shockingly. As soon as this came to light, I felt as though I was doing a great disservice to my story. In English classes, I was taught that every word, sentence, and detail should be created purposefully. Setting up a character just to kill them off is toying with the reader's emotions in all the wrong ways. I can think of other instances in YA books I've read where this is also the case. It may work in slasher movies, but YA is no place for mindless killing.
Even after I rethought my approach to character deaths, I still had to move forward knowing how real death is, even in my pages. I had to acknowledge that the majority of my desired audience has likely experienced death and felt the weight of loss to some extent. Whether it was a family cat or a family member or a friend, it can hit home hard. The thing that I believe is most special about YA is that readers are going to clutch these books to their hearts. YA readers seek so much more out of these stories. They seek escape and community and something to believe in in the midst of their whirlwind lives. If I'm going to break their hearts, it's my duty to have a true reason for it.
That being said, we are creating worlds that are brutal, honest and quite deadly. Not everyone is going to survive the zombie apocalypse or a raging war. We need to lose the Prims and the Finnicks in order to feel the full effect of these dire situations. Death is a part of storytelling, and ignoring it can be just as detrimental as abusing it. Sometimes, this means the pain of saying goodbye to someone we've all grown to care about. It takes courage to make that kind of decision and I respect authors who understand when a character's time has come. Sometimes, it's a long, drawn out scene that has the audience sobbing the whole way through. Other times, it happens in the rush of a moment and we're left reeling and hoping we imagined it. Sometimes, there's not even a body to bury. Death doesn't always come with a dramatic soundtrack and a floral memorial. It can happen as easily as a blink.
Death is a necessary aspect in every story. We can avoid it in our literature no more than we can avoid it in our own lives. Characters break our hearts when their's stop beating because death and caring for someone is universal. Knowing this, authors of YA must go forth and ask the right questions about their characters' fates. It's not about shocking readers in order to prove a status or to declare a daring style. It's about moving a story forward and making the tough decisions for the right reasons. That's what sets you apart. That makes novels worthy of remembrance.
