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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35143
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35143
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You should show how they interact with your protagonist before to give the reader a feeling for the importance of these characters. Everyone knows that parents are important, but highlighting the bond between the character and his parents is important to make the reader _feel_ the importance.

Afterwards you should be careful about how this changes the people that are affected. The character will obviously be mentally scarred by this and the mother will have quite a few problems herself. Furthermore caring for her only remaining child _alone_ will put more of a burden on her. Show how they changed after the incident, how their relationship changed and how they slowly started to get back into their normal, everyday life - before he suddenly loses his mother, too and is reminded of all the horrible things from his youth, all the fear that he just can't fight because of how young he was, all of the problems that arise from this. Show what is different this time. This time he has to plan the funeral, while still grieving. This time his mother is not around to care for him, but maybe a girlfriend tries to help him?

If you are careful about this it shouldn't be a problem to have both parents die in your story. Just don't go overboard with the "everyone he loves dies". If you always spend five minutes of screentime before killing of a character your reader can't get attached to the characters and the readers will soon realize that they shouldn't get attached because it's obvious that everyone dies.

> This is his brother Luke. They always play together in the garden and are the greatestestest brothers of all time!  
> \< accident \>  
> Now, Luke is dead...
> 
> But this is his mother! She was still trying to cheer him up after Luke died. She is the bestestest mother of all the time!  
> \< accident \>  
> Now she is dead...
> 
> But this is his girlfriend Lucy! She is the bestestest girlfriend ever!  
> \< accident \>  
> Now she is dead...
> 
> But this is his good friend Joe-

This will get boring _very_ fast!

Every loss should count and get its own screentime. If you can't afford the builtup and showing the problems that follow you shouldn't let a character die just to foster the "everyone around him dies" image.

Original score: 8