Death scenes (1 Viewer)

[hotcocoababe]

Okay, i know im asking this pathetically late (considering our MW is due in.. oh, only seven days... ) ......BUT......

anyone know how to write a really good death scene? or have any ideas on it? or got anything to show those of us who -
1) may have written one but its a bit sketchy or
2) have yet to write theirs?

I was going to have my protagonist commit suicide in the end, (she's definately a very tragic character in a very tragic story, so this would have been quite a fitting end for her) but my EXt2 coordinator told me that a story ending in death is too cliched... so instead, I want to make my last scene SOUND like she is preparing to commit suicide, yet it turns out to be something else entirely. I have yet to write it (am trying to concentrate on the damn ext2 report at the mo, plus art body of work plus drama IP's and GP's!!) but i need some hints, i think. and I know some other people have death scenes but they dont feel like they are... well, severe enough... or emotive enough... or impact upon the audience enough... you kno what i mean

so guys... any ideas? (and if you can't find the time to reply cuz youre too busy writing your damn reports and reflection statements and finishing your stories, then guys... I understand... I really do!!!)

 

[KungPow]

Re:

Let me just get one thing off my chest first. The main character dying is too cliche? Isn't the main character surviving at the end too cliche as well? What the hell are we left with then? Do we kill our main characters and magically bring them back to life? Or has that become too cliche as well?

As for ideas...um...don't drag it on for too long? Maybe it can happen really quickly? Unexpected even?

 

[teh winnar!]

EYAH THERE ARE WAY TO MANY MOVIES WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER SURVIVES

EXCEPT TITANIC, BUT THAT WAS A CINEMATIC CLIMAX OF LEAKY BOATING SO DONT GO THERE

 

[Dreal_nightelf]

WelPZ my short story is based upon conventions of crime fiction - thus therea number of crime scenes that i had 2 confront in my major work. Ideas which i used were:

1. Specify ur intentions and goals - what do you want to achieve? If the death is suppose to encapsulate or resonate a specific theme or ideology. Like in anything throughout the English courses - you must have a purpose.
2.Once u have decided upon a purpose - then select specific techniques that may allow you to achieve this purpose. For example - in my story i specified specfifc motifs of red and black imagery - evoking "themes" of blood and darkness - an underlying sense of corruption and evil.
3. Personally unless you have a highly developed prose - then i would avoid direct represetation of the actual suicide. Unless it is executed well, then it may very well result in a cliched or over done, thus detracting the over all work. Instead - I suggest describing the aftermath or leadin up to the event - rather than evoking images of your protagonist dying.
If however you really want to convey the actual process of death - why not extrapolate the actual death into a metaphorical repreentation...? Try researching Magic Realism - and their cnventions - ther are some whih you might want to look at. Anyways its due next week so you better get a move on. Don't stress it justs lessens your writing abilities - trust.

 

[bitchymcbitch]

my 'protagonist' commits sucide.. cept.. its her other personality that does it.. so its either muder or suicide.. i wanted to have the concept that you didnt know if they died or not.. cept that was really hard..

but i wrote mine based on things ive seen... things i've envisioned.. you know.. inspiration...

 

[Llyrai]

i reckon a good death scene shouldnt be stated. Let the 'death' become a slow realisation for the reader. the kind where you go "oh!...so he dies?" lol, i like em'

 

[400miles]

Let me just get one thing off my chest first. The main character dying is too cliche? Isn't the main character surviving at the end too cliche as well? What the hell are we left with then? Do we kill our main characters and magically bring them back to life? Or has that become too cliche as well?

As for ideas...um...don't drag it on for too long? Maybe it can happen really quickly? Unexpected even?

Mmm it's a pity but death is extremely cliched, and suicide perhaps more. It's considered by so many as 'teenage angst' and I know in self-devised Drama pieces (and I'd guess Ext2 pieces too) they expect to have a number of pieces that end in such a style.

To have the character live I guess you could say is cliched too... but I think the way to stop it being cliche is to put an entirely different emphasis on it altogether. Don't talk about life and death. What I was told in Drama is to take a simple idea and convey it in a way that presents something new. So instead of death maybe you're talking about the weight of a rainbow or the fragility of the aged...
Of course though, as everyone knows, suicide and death are extremely powerful especially when written in a classy way. But how do you find a fresh approach to suicide when it's been done so much?
Just my opinion.

 

[Monkey Butler]

That's how I approached mine (it's a film script, so bear that in mind) - The actual death is unseen - you see him jump off a building, but then you cut to black, and you just hear him hit the ground. Mine's still a bit cliched (although it's meant to be) but I think that's the way to go, like everyone's said - think of something to represent the death - maybe have like, i dunno, a moth caught in a spider's web or something (that was completely random, sorry)

 

[hotcocoababe]

hmm thanks guys.... is all cool!

Yea i know we only have a week dammit!!! (Hay my friend just told me, someone in another thread or sumfin is saying their MW is due tomoro!? wat the!?)

anyway.... i guess the idea of a tragic story ending in a death is what i meant was cliched...not necessarily just a main character from any random film/story/poem dying. If you are reading a tragic story, you will automatically expect the tragic, mysogynistic depressed main character (protagonist) to commit suicide, right? especially if it sounds like they are leading up to it. Thats what i wanted to do, but have my charater NOT die.. as tricky as it sounds.
hmm guess i will hafta work it it a bit ay... in my one short week!

argh... i'll prob just give up and kill her off anyway LOL... who knows...

 

[Monkey Butler]

Well isn't that the whole point of a tragedy? That the fatal flaw of the hero leads to their downfall (OK, not necessarily through suicide but y'know what I mean)... Saying that death at the end of tragedy is like saying that "and they lived happily ever after" is a cliche for a legitimate fairy tale - it's not cliche, it's convention...

And my MW's due on Friday...

 

[Enlightened_One]

I included two death scenes. One was murder, the other suicide. I've wrote better before, but with an eight thousand word limit you can't get all sentimental and shit, or as much as you want anyway. I barely scraped in under the word limit as it was.

Mine was a tragedy I suppose. The main character was dead, though he was the bad guy. The hero is dying. Though the real victim did survive, she had suffered greatly, and I doubt it's a happy ending.
Besides, I couldn't kill off a pregnant woman, that would have been too nihilistic for me.

 

[Enlightened_One]

Actually it was three death scenes, because the heroine retells one from first person perspective. Oh, and in one death scene two people die.