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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/31155
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Back in highschool in the 90s we had an assignment to write an extra chapter for a book. After some discussion the teacher told us that under no circumstances can we kill the protagonist as the book was being told in first person and therefore the protagonist must survive to now be telling us the story.

Is this a way modern readers think? Do most people feel safe reading a work thinking that the protagonist will not die, not even on the last sentence of the book?

I remember _Kickass_ specifically addresses this, reminding the viewer that he might be telling this story from heaven. Is this something that the reader has to be told to not feel safe? Has this trope been done enough now that the narrator is in danger?

Also does the tense of the work matter? Does putting a story in present tense make the narrator more logical to die as he is telling the story now, and not having survived after the fact?

To make it clear, I am not asking if I am allowed to kill the narrator without betraying the reader. I am asking if first person reduces tension.

Original score: 12