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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31554
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31554
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I know this answer is late, but for anybody coming across this question, the premise is wrong. Characters die in fiction all the time. Consider (in multiple stories) a secret service agent that fails in his duty to keep the President from being assassinated. Or a family dealing with the accidental death of a mother or father or sibling. Or older friends dealing with the impending (or recent) death of one of their own circle. Or a parent dealing with the death of their child.

Dealing with the death of somebody you love or value is a part of human life. In order to make the death 'real' to the reader, you generally have to present the character alive, show their value to the main character (or society or others), and then kill them. That IS the plot, as in the OP's question.

Anything else, such as kidnapping or disappearance or stroke, becomes ambiguous and is no longer about dealing with irrevocable death, especially a murder. A stroke is not the same as a murder.

Only a small number of people are so averse to dealing with death they cannot handle it in fiction, and trying to write around it makes the story fatally unrealistic or impossible to please this tiny percentage of the audience.

Original score: 0