She heard Oscar Mendoza calling her name, “Beatriz! Beatriz!” and she opened her eyes. She looked and looked behind the darkness of her eyelids but there was not a single sin left and she was amazed. She closed her eyes and looked for her dark pile of sins, hoping she could release a few more on her own without the help of the priest, thinking that fewer sins would give her a lightness that these new men would recognize. She would do exactly what she was told and she would be spared. She would keep her arms the straightest of them all. She had more in common with the strangers who were shooting because she and they were all alive. She felt afraid of them now, the people she knew. Then there was someone else, but that was awful. He was flat on his back, his arms stretched out to the sides as if he meant to fly. There was Gilbert, who once she had kissed out of boredom. There was General Hector lying on his side, his glasses gone, his shirt a soggy mess. “Beatriz held her hands up straight above her head and the sun hit the crystal of Gen’s watch and threw a perfect circle of light against the wall. Beatriz is holding her hands up, trying not to get shot. Hope you enjoy them and learn from them.Īfter a long hostage situation, the special forces have invaded and are killing all the hostage takers. What I do below is show you great examples of well written death scenes, and talk about what they’re doing well. Because there are a thousand ways to botch up a death scene - writing the pace too quickly or making it too sentimental, for instance. I know, I know, you love them, you’ve created them, and yet for the sake of the story and for the sake of the reader, they need to bite a bullet, drink that poison, or succumb to cancer. Yep, you’ve got to kill one of your characters. In every author’s life there comes a moment when they must slaughter one of their creations. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled How to Kill a Character (with 12 deadly examples) ‹ Back to blog She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. But her loose fair hair was wet there was a wreath of roses on her head. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere-at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself-were flowers. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday-Trinity day. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window.
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