Writing death/revival of characters!

Oh here’s a topic I’ve waited a looooong time to address. I’m not talking about fake out deaths when the character is assumed dead but they actually survived by making a clone of themselves and transplanting their brain. I’m talking about them being 6 feet down actual dead. Let’s take a look at some examples!

Using magic

Ok let’s get this one out of the way.

The go to solution for this trope is to just resurrect someone who has died with a magic spell or revival artifact.

There’s nothing wrong with doing so, but they need to be planned and not feel like you're cheating the reader. With resurrections where someone really is dead and then magically returned to life, there's also a very important question that I think you need to answer: if one person can be returned to life, why not all of them? Badly mutilated bodies aside, why would anyone need to die? What are the limits and dangers in resurrecting someone? Is there a cost, and how high is it? Allowing for resurrection also puts pressure on the plot later. If for example a sword wound doesn't prevent you from coming back, how does the hero make sure his nemesis isn't returned to life after he's managed to thrust his weapon through them? Beware of conveniently using a trick in favour of the protagonist just to never mention it's a possibility again.

Also be sure to know why it’s possible to revive people in the world. Did someone make that artifact or spell to bring back someone specific? Was it left behind by an ancient civilization that had yet to perfect it, and someone only figured out how to use it now? What I mean is, revival spells aren’t just lying around waiting for the protagonist to find them when one of their friends die. Be sure that you aren’t dropping in revival as a deus ex machina, because people WILL notice and just roll their eyes. (Like in Steven universe.) “Oh this magic way to revive people suddenly became known the second someone remotely relevant died, so now we can just bring them back and then never talk about how big of a deal it is ever again.”

Please don’t do this.

These types of things need handicaps. Some kind of rule that doesn’t let them be exploited. Because someone will always try. I don’t care how morally sound your characters in your universe are. Someone in that world WILL try. Rules like “you can only come back once.” Or “Someone has to really want you back from the other side.” When it comes to these types of rules, the more specific and costly, the better.

Ultimately, If a character saves the world or a kingdom or whatever, but doesn't pay the price, it cheapens the great deeds, their life, and the story as a whole is lessened because of it. Bringing them back to life just because you love your character isn't a good enough reason.

They’re back, but at a price

This is the worst case scenario for the characters but a best case for people reading. Because it shows you aren’t using the resurrection as a “end all solution” and usually is the more interesting option.

if you bring a character back, it should have consequences. They should be changed by the experience. You don't just lightly die and come back; even if the rules of your setting it can be done, it shouldn't be a casual thing. Unless you have a setting in which revival is a casual thing for everyone, in which case you need to think of the consequences for the society you're writing.

You should really be sure if you even need to kill them off in the first place. If your character dies just to give oomph to the story ending, then it might be better to re-write that ending. Dying is an easy way out in creating tension and emotion, you need to ask yourself, is it really necessary for them to die?

If not, then don't do it. Also, unless it is a supernatural book, do not introduce something like that just to have her resurrected, it will come across as weird, not in a good way. You have to stick to the rules of your Universe.

Now let’s talk about consequences. Let’s say you found that super convenient or needlessly complicated way to bring the dead back. They should never come back exactly the same.

Let me say that again.

They should NEVER come back exactly the same.

That person died. They were away from life and their existence was momentarily lost from whatever world or realm they were in. That should be one of the most traumatic things a person can experience. They get to feel what it’s like moving and breathing in their body again after it’s been unused for however long. Expect nightmares and vivid flashbacks. Expect visions of where they think they might of been when they died of fear of going back. Death isn’t something people are meant to come back from, so when they are back, the unnaturalness of them living again should be seen and felt.

Another route you could go is wiping their memory slate completely clean. The love of your MC’s life was killed, she crosses heaven and earth to bring him back, she eagerly awaits for the process to complete itself and when he finally opens his eyes.... he has no idea who she is. (This will have its own set of problems if you make these people gather all these memories back in the end because that’s the easy way out. They didn’t really loose anything by doing so. To be honest, making him fall in love with her again through new experiences would show she loved him more despite the change.)

They should loose something for being brought back, wether it be mental or physical.Because of course, bringing people back to life should never be a free deal.

We really shouldn’t...

Sometimes there’s a solution to bring someone back, but then the characters realize it’s best not too.

I say go this route if there’s no plausible way to realistically bring back a character in this world once they’ve died. Because it can cause more problems than solutions than most think. But at the same time, just because there is a solution, doesn’t mean it’ll be worth the price needed to pay to make it work. Sometimes the better option is to just leave the be and that doesn’t make the characters bad people for not bringing them back.

The biggest reason is that it lowers the stakes. Even with rules. If you use the “you can only come back once” rule, then you’ve automatically given everyone in the main group one free death . Readers will expect most of those es to be used because... well why wouldn’t they? And you won’t be able to tease their death either if you don’t plan for them to die, because they’ll have that safety net. And planning on just killing most of them twice begs the question of, why did they even get to come back the first time? If you really needed them in the story to do more plot stuff, why even have them die that soon just to do it again later? You can’t use their death to develop another character either, because the SECOND they find out that person is alive, 90% of that is gone. You could possibly never have the two meet in the interval they’ve been brought back from the dead, but that likely means they’ll be alive for a very short time. And if the person dying made the other develop so much, they were likely very close to them to begin with and it would be very hard to hide from them that their loved one has been resurrected before dying again.

I won’t sugarcoat it, this is a very hard concept to write well. Many don’t like the revival trope and most published authors will tell you to avoid it like the plague if you don’t know how to write it well. It CAN be done, but should only be used if it’s absolutely needed to do so. Or you can flip everything on its head and make it an integral part of your story that revolves around people dying and being brought back. Who knows?

Be sure to vote on the Revival of characters poll!

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