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Who is laughing? Just you, at suckering your readers into caring about a character? Maybe this is not how you read, but most readers are making an investment of time and emotional energy in imagin...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:07Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29882 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T06:56:19Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29882 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Who is laughing? Just you, at suckering your readers into caring about a character? Maybe this is not how you read, but most readers are making an investment of time and emotional energy in imagining the characters. Developing a character they like, and then causing that character pain, stress and grief, is part of storytelling. But if you kill the character (and there is no afterlife for it) you have wasted their time and investment for an entirely superfluous stunt. They won't laugh at that, they aren't psychopaths. If you are going to kill a character, there are ways to make them _sympathetic_ but undeveloped. With a single line happy line or helpful act, a pretty actress gains credit with the audience, then you can have her laughing and looking over her shoulder as she walks into an oncoming garbage truck. the audience will **still** not find that funny, but they will wince and move on, because they did not invest _too_ much emotion into the character; just a first impression. If you want to play death for laughs, you need a burlesque story with over the top or supernatural characters (e.g. Beetlejuice, Zombieland).
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-08-23T18:20:15Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 6