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Plot Armor and Character Death

However, we seem to build this opinion that death in stories, especially stories with action, drama, or excitement, needs to have a few characters die. On the particularly long stories, you know, the epics... death almost becomes expected. You assume in the last book that some characters are going to die.

However, this isn't necessary. You don't need death to make a story interesting. You don't need death to make it suspenseful, and you don't even really need death to generate fear. Some scary movies don't depend on killing character after character, and yet can still be frightful just with the threat of death. Take the infamous Doctor Who episode "Blink". The Weeping Angels are terrifying monsters, and yet not a single person died.

I know, know, that's a cheap example. After all, not many bad guys use time travel as a weapon. Technically two people "lived to death" in this story, her friend and the cop. However, the point was still there. The scariest scenes, the ones with the greatest impact didn't involve a single death, or even threat of death.

So what does that mean for your story? Well, that's up to you. However, I'm telling you that there is more than one way to generate concern for your character. Threat of death is only one way. In essence, it isn't how close your character comes to death that's the suspense, it's how much your character has to struggle to achieve.

Seeing your character fight and struggle, and even sometimes fail, that's truly when kinks in plot armor are formed. Basically, the truest form of plot armor comes when you make a Mary sue, or the perfect hero... essentially those who are infallible. If you never make mistakes, then no matter how badly a situation gets, people assume it's always going to go the MCs way.

If you want to make a character with less plot armor, you need to make a character who fails. Maybe not in the case of the big things, but everything can't turn out their way. And I'm not talking about last minute twists that cause things to go outside their expectations. If you really want plot armor to go the way of the dodo, your character needs to make plans, and those plans need to fail.

Maybe they expected someone to appreciate a flower they sent, only to have it anger them more. Maybe they made a plan to sneak somewhere, only to get caught and held by police. Have them face the consequences. Have their plans fail, and don't give them some backup plan where they come out of it on top. Naturally, these failures need to be part of the plot. You can't just have them be a failure and then suddenly when the story starts they never make a mistake.

It's all about putting chinks in the armor, dent it, thin it, and hit it until no one even recognizes it as plot armor in the first place. Then you need to...

Plan ahead of time and stick to your decisions

Basically, I'm telling you not to throw in plot twists to keep things interesting. When you create your characters and put them in your story, it might be a good idea generally to decide what you want to happen to them. If you want someone to lose a hand, or lose an eye, plan that crap in advance. Think about where your character will start, what your character will experience, and where your character will end up.

Plan accordingly, because that lets you drive up the tension, suspense, and concern for your MC within the limits you prepared. Don't just suddenly do something for shock value. That will almost certainly anger your audience. That's not to say don't create a shocking scene, but make sure that scene makes sense within your narrative. Prepare for it, lead up to it, and by the time it happens there should have been some signs leading up to it. Maybe they had a conversation just ten chapters ago about their own mortalities, maybe they had a nightmare at the beginning of the book that turns out true... whatever it is, and the trauma you put a character through shouldn't come off as random. The best of us should see it coming, and worst of us should at least be able to nod and say "Yeah, that seemed necessary".