I have an issuse. I need my MC to die. And I can not just run him down with a semi-truck and call it that because the general scope of the plot is too complex for that. I though about killing him by some passing yakuza due to my MC's past actions. But knowing him, my MC would, during his reemergence, try and find them and beat them up before calling the police. And that is not where I want the story to go. His destiny lies in something much bigger and greater than he could ever imagine and to do that I have to kill him in a way that would be (I know this is not a word but please bare with me here.) Unrevengeble of sorts. In the orginal manuscript I had him die spontainously which worked to move forward with the plot at the time. But now during the revision, I need a soild death. Anyone have ideas, suggestions, anything?
Well, the skies the limit I guess. It's your story, but why not a car accident or drowning? Without knowing exactly how your story goes, it's difficult to come up with a suitable demise. ~ J. J.
True, I did not leave a ton of information, so I'll try to illaborate some more. The MC is a teenager currently living on his own in Kyoto Prefecture of Japan, as he disembarks from a subway train, he makes his way home at the fringes of dawn. He is walking along the sidewalk toward his residence. An apartment complex neslted inbetween two modern buildings. As he sees his apartment complex, contemplating his dinner tonight he is quickly killed. Location: On a sidewalk beside a two-lane road. Possibly about twenty feet from an intersection. Time: Late afternoon, where it is bright enough that not every buisness feels it needs to turn on their signs. However, dark enough that any car passing would have their automatic lights on for caution. Temperature: Early spring, so not too warm, but differentaly not cold. Students like my MC have switched to more summer clothing already. Is this enough information?
Have a stowaway in the cargo compartment of a plane fall out and hit him with such impact that it kills him. This has actually happened. The stowaway would be dead so no need for vengeance and the air lines are not really at fault. Or have a really small and innocent child some how be at fault. Or have a tree fall on him.
Shot with large caliber rifle at long distance with a special bullet that can not be traced because it was custom made by the shooter.
Tried to do some googling after reading the stowaway idea. Apparently this happened over London not too long ago: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/9532863/Stowaway-plunges-to-death-from-plane-in-residential-street-under-Heathrow-flight-path.html How plausible does the death have to be? In the movie Amélie, Amélies mother is killed by a woman jumping off the roof of the local church. Or what about a shooting star crashing down at him? Driver having a heartattack behind the wheel? There are plenty of options. But you know the story better than any of us, so you know what fits
Thanks for the ideas! I will use Mg357's idea and tie it in with the story and plot. The stowaway idea is intresting, I am definately keeping that on the back burner for use in another story!
You want you're main character to die, but you don't want him to die in a way that would lead to "revenge". So I wonder, does he have to be murdered? Is it that important to the plot? Or can he simply die of an accident/natural causes? One cannot give good suggestions if we don't know this information completely.
Recently a guy in Florida tried to cross an turnpike on a bike and was run over by a semi, and then several other cars and trucks. When the State Patrol arrived they thought he was a deer.
Silverwolf0101 You're right, in fact. The entire plot circles around death and the sadness and joy death can bring. It also questions the very fabric of what death is. Is death simply the ending of ones life? Or can death be something as complex as ending ones past self and completely forgetting about it because of the inability to ever return to the life one once had. No matter how close that life is to your current new one... I'm always cautious to release too much information about any of my books over the internet. But I'll try and tell the basic premise so everyone here, or those who will be coming here in the future, can understand the story for the most part. To understand the story we must begin at one thing. Spell points, Like the term explains, a spell point is a unit of fuel, so to speak, that powers a magical spell to manipulate an animate or inanimate object. However, spell points don't come out of thin air. Because The law of conservation of energy states, that energy can be neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes form. Well, a Spell point is that law incarnate. A spell point is a souls remaining energy changed into a raw state of matter. This has to be preformed quickly, for if the soul completely departs the body, so does the opportunity to harness spell point from said soul. Now, if anyone is still with me and is reading this. We get to the main matter at hand. The uses for Spell points vary greatly, from manipulating objects for attack and defense, healing wounds or serious life threating injuries, to even bringing people back from the dead. However, their is more to bring someone back from the dead than simply tossing in a bunch of spell points into their dieing body. It takes a particular type of spell, a special type of exsistance, and a very very luck sequence of events. However if you can over come those obstacles, you will enter an entirely new world. One filled with both the joys and the sadnesses of death and if you're luckier still, the chance of new life... Thats part of my story in a nutshell, without revealing everything. Come on now, If I told everything buying the book would be pointless! Anyway, the MC's death is very important because without it, he would never be able to start his 'new' life. And thats where he learns about the truth of his currently 'starry eyed old life'. This is the first book that I actually might decide to publish but I'm so paranoid about making it as good as it can be that almost everything in the book is being scrutinized with a fine tooth eye come! Yeah I know, chessy...(.__.) Anyway I hope this clears up quite a lot of things now and doesn't disclose too much!
So basically, they're harnessing the power of souls for whatever reasons as you listed above, and your MC is somehow tied into this science (I guess we could call it)? Considering that, and what I read from above, you need a way to have your main character die that allows this "Spell point" thing to be utalized? Which would mean that an accident probably wouldn't work for his death on count of the fact that someone might not be around in the needed time frame. Which I guess would mean he has to be murdered? If indeed he has to be murdered, from the title of this thread, you need a death that can't be proven. That's a bit trickier to answer or give suggestions to. From watching shows though, I guess the perfect "murder" would be more of an "accidental" type murder or even a murder where the departed soul died of "natural causes". There was an episode of Monk recently where the murderer, a master chess player with an IQ of 180, was able to make it appear as if his wife had died of natural causes, in other words, a heart attack. Comes to find out though, he actually used a slow-acting poison that doesn't come up on toxicology reports and can't be tasted, smelled or seen when added to a liquid. This was the cause of the heart attack. This is just a suggestion on one method you might be able to use, but I suggest that if you do want to go with the murder theme, you start researching different methods of how one can get away with murder.
Thanks Silverwolf0101, My brains cogs are starting to spin and I'm definitely gonna tie your suggestion with the bullet plan. The scene is already written as a sudden heart attack so if I just add in a scene somewhere. That he taps something too hard or gets injected with something unknowingly my revision on this chapter could be cut in half. Constantly thinking about killing people in this book is making me I feel like a murderer. Anyway, this "Accidental murder" will comeback to haunt the MC and the main heroine later on in the major storyline. I'm not exactly sure how long I want this series to go on to; since I've only seriously planned up to book 5 where the plot gets darker, the eventually climax, then the ending. So when exactly the murder returns to become a focal point? I can't really tell you; But what I can tell you is that I'm limiting the number to 20-30 books so it should reappear soon. Okay I know, getting off topic. Alright, So the slow acting poison idea was something I had been thinking up during the outlining stages. But I quickly wrote it off because of my near archaic knowledge of poison and it's delivery methods. Yes I know, I was being too lazy by not doing the proper research. But at the time, I was rushing to get to my favorite points of the book and tossed care to the wind and revision. Now, I'm learning my lesson, big time. Anyway I think I have the proper killer in mind after the killer changed faces in the outline and my mind quite possibly over 2 dozen times. I've narrowed it down to two people and of the two. One of them is going in the revision. If I don't like it I'll just have to swap them out and rewrite the scene and one large part of the chapter for this different character again. It doesn't really matter at this point though, because the entire chapter has practically been rewritten about three times. I'm crossing fingers that this is the last. I'm sick of revising Chapter one! I wanna get to the interactions between my MC and the Main heroine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's gotten to the point that I'm writing random scenes about the two so that I can procrastinate at looking at chapter one. I know, this is weird. Anyhow, I guess it's time to research on a slow acting poison that could seep through the skin, or skin and clothes and get my knowledge up to snuff to finish this revision. Un-traceble bullets + Slow acting poison... Thanks for the ideas everyone!!
One in two hundred people are allergic to bees. And in Japan, aside from bees, they have a freakishly large hornet (like the size of your thumb) that kills more people every year than any other animal apparently. So unless he is the type to seek revenge on a mindless beast (damn white whales) that should work fine. Or the venom is harvested by a crafty killer and used to simulate a hornet attack. Wouldn't be surprised if that really happens...
