yeah, but in real life, we all survive things that might have killed us by near misses... it is just more dramatic in a story because reading bare real life as a story would be boring (refer to the failed "real" theater of the 70's) but when you think about it, real people survive by hairs all the time. i can think of at least ten semi-dramatic near misses on my life and i am only 22. maybe three of those would be workable into a story.
and the best heroes are often ordinary people who manage to do extraordinary things... i mean, which would you rather? superman who is immortal and unstoppable? or the village healer who manages to get a lucky hit in with the sword and actually has a chance of being killed but overcomes those odds? but i think my real point is, real life is horrifying. people die for no good reason and leave huge amounts of pain in their wake. who wants to read that over and over? like in the midshipman books... people die a ton and they are so depressing i could only read about 3 and a half of the series. and developing characters is difficult. one of the ways to do this is to stick them in tough situations and watch how they survive. if you kill them, well, so much for all the work you put into that. so the death has to have some meaning for someone or what was the point? so really, i agree with ursula. there should never be such a thing as a "meaningless" death in fiction. there has to be some sort of real reaction and some kind of purpose to it.
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Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 02:10 pm (UTC)but when you think about it, real people survive by hairs all the time. i can think of at least ten semi-dramatic near misses on my life and i am only 22. maybe three of those would be workable into a story.
and the best heroes are often ordinary people who manage to do extraordinary things... i mean, which would you rather? superman who is immortal and unstoppable? or the village healer who manages to get a lucky hit in with the sword and actually has a chance of being killed but overcomes those odds?
but i think my real point is, real life is horrifying. people die for no good reason and leave huge amounts of pain in their wake. who wants to read that over and over? like in the midshipman books... people die a ton and they are so depressing i could only read about 3 and a half of the series. and developing characters is difficult. one of the ways to do this is to stick them in tough situations and watch how they survive. if you kill them, well, so much for all the work you put into that. so the death has to have some meaning for someone or what was the point?
so really, i agree with ursula. there should never be such a thing as a "meaningless" death in fiction. there has to be some sort of real reaction and some kind of purpose to it.