Generally speaking, you want to keep it a secret if a character dies or not, to the reader, because otherwise, it would take away the emotional impact when reading about the reaction from his friends about his death. But I've written myself into a corner because the chapter building up to the (maybe) death of the character is intertwined with the chapter that reveals if he survived or not. What I did to fix this was, leaving out the moment when the character is saved and moving it to the chapter after the characters friends has their tantrum, creating kind of a "Hours Earlier" chapter. What are your thoughts about this? Do you think it will ruin the flow or do you think it can work if done well? PS: It has been established in the story that major characters can die so there nothing should be obvious of the fate of this character.
I think you should focus on the big impact coming from a guy dying. That's what has the biggest punch. People reacting to that after the fact should be, if you've done it well, still emotionally resonant, but seeing a character they sympathize with die is enough of a tug on the heart strings. The reason why you'd focus on the other characters is if we don't know the dead guy and we need the reaction from someone else to know how we're supposed to feel about it. Personally; I'd show the guy die, get the pop from that then play off the dramatic irony as the other characters don't know he's dead and then pop again as they find out he'd not coming back. That gives you the max amount of emotions; adding tension to it because clearly the characters are going to find out some time and you can better set up them finding out what happened. You can put them in a really nice, happy moment with the audience knowing what's about to come crashing down on them and then bam. I think if you do it your way then you'll end up with a pop for the people reacting to his death, then you'll get nothing when you actually show it and that's a bad thing. So get the shock from seeing this dude die, then get the sadness as people mourn him.
If done well, yes. I would actually love that, too. It's become so popular lately to kill off characters that it's not even surprising when it happens, it just makes me go "here we go again". But if it's kept hidden from me and I didn't expect it at all... At this point I think we all need to be creative on that topic. Surprise me and I won't think less of you. (Not you in particular of course haha).
Good point. The crux is that the character isn't going to die. The chapter ends before showing his actual death. So the problem is if I should show him surviving before or after his friends reacting to his death. But you believe the readers will sympathize with his friends reacting to his death even if they know he survived in the end?
Since you're leaving his fate ambiguous, the characters reacting to his 'death' should clue the reader in that he's dead. So when they find out later on that he's not, it still has the impact and makes for a great reveal.
I think it partly depends on who you expect your readers to have the strongest empathy with. If you think they are going to have really engaged with the character being killed off (or not as the case may be) then it will be more emotional to see them die. However, it can have a huge impact to see the MC react to the death of a friend. For example (from a quite well-known fantasy novel) Spoiler in The Lies Of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Spoiler: the actual bit the moment when Locke and Jean come back and find Calo and Galdo murdered is extremely emotional because it is so unexpected - because they didn't expect it. They were the closest people to them so the reader feels their pain and loss, rather than seeing an action sequence ending in the twins' deaths. This might not have had as much impact because the fear they would have felt was so at odds with their characters .
They better be really important and likeable, otherwise it won't matter much. I write about death as it is a major thing in Mil-Sci-Fi, and have killed off a fun secondary in the sequel to hurt an important secondary character. Then again I have killed off minor tertiary characters, and have an MC have a very emotional response as a result of the loss. Just don't do it for the George RR Martin effect, of having a great and likeable character killed off because you want to elicit (and/or piss off) an emotional response from the reader because you can. (I have not read any of Martins work, but I can extrapolate based on others reactions to it.)
I think you want to be careful you don't leave the reader feeling tricked or manipulated. If you want the death to have a real emotional kick, it's kind of unsporting to have it all be a false alarm. So if your character isn't actually dead, I'd be inclined to minimize the emotional reactions from the other characters. Otherwise I think I, as a reader, would feel manipulated.
Your reader is looking in with omnipresence, it is always good to let your reader know something your characters don't know. If he was assumed dead and there was a reaction to that it would be comforting to the reader to feel "Oh no he isn't"
