Not a story, but a plea to my fellow authors!
99% of the horror stories I’ve read on Medium start anodyne and end with the death of the protagonist, as though that’s some kind of plot twist. Most of the science fiction, too
Why? Is death the single worst thing we can possibly imagine in life?
It is so easy to kill someone, in fiction and in real life. It is so much harder to keep them alive — just ask Doctors Without Borders!
We are all going to die, all of us that are alive today. And everyone there ever was, however perfect or imperfect, good, bad or ugly, they all died. It’s mundane, and if that’s our last resort, our worst threat, it grounds our story in the boring.
Now, I know as writers we are all Gods of our own little universes, bending the laws of time and space to inflict revenge on our enemies in ways that somehow elude us in real life.
But while death revenges are a big thing in Shakespeare and John Wick, this approach is just too dull on the page. Big splashes of red excite us on the screen, but when we write them down, it’s all just black and white.
None of the great literary revenges end in death. (Actually, I’m making that up, I’ve no idea if it’s true, it just sounds right — if you know better, please let me know!)
But please, let’s find something more interesting! It’s just not an imaginative way to get our own back on our fourth grade nemesis or that person we dated who ditched us without warning.
And if the plot really does require the protagonist’s death, then what comes after that? A difficult conversation with a querulous god? Afternoon tea on a perfect lawn? A black screen? Another go round at the Game of Life?
Even in the best revenge fantasy of all time, Dante didn’t kill his enemies. He skipped that part, putting them directly in Hell and describing their suffering there. Which is why we still read his work, even though we have no idea who all those people are.
And, yeah, if you’re asking, I did kill someone at the end of one of my stories. And I’ll do it again, just you wait and see!