Death

If you don't mind I/T, then one of my stories, www.literotica.com/s/well-met-by-moonlight has a main character who fits in the 'dead all along' category, and all four chapters of www.literotica.com/s/big-girls-dont-cry-ch-01' are foreshadowed with the impending and eventual death of the MC's terminally-ill father.

Gee. I am really surprised, possibly I shouldn't be.

It seems... that writers... have been able to overcome death in a number of ways - and they have been dealing with the subject and the issue for years since deep history, and are continuing to handle it.

And there are a lot of writers who handle the subject, many more than I thought previously.

Death is in the same category as aging - it is inevitable in the normal run of things. Yet science fiction, Gothic fantasy, horror, and mythology all provide examples of the exceptional case.

The psychology of death is obviously an important thing in human thinking.

The ultimate 'case' of death actually overcome, would also seem to imply the capacity to fully control and re-organize material substance and reality in terms of aging and the two are linked - you can see this time and again in stories such as the vampire myth and reincarnation stories like Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando.' In the case of Woolf's story, she also includes the issues of gender and personal ego consciousness.

I prefer to think of it in terms of loss and grief. It isn't just about aging and death. Though there is no evidence I'm almost certain that dead people don't tend to worry about it and don't contribute very much at all. Aging is a different proposition. As age accumulates so does loss and grief in most people's experience.

If you ran a survey about it I'm sure there would be a very high percentage of people coming to this site who have had significant loss and grief. I think it would surprise a lot of people.

Sure

I’ve used death in a couple of my stories. I have one written now where a main character dies, I just haven’t submitted it. (Mainly because I’m a craven coward and I will be hated by 90% of my fan base when I do submit it.)

Desiremakesmeweak said:

The psychology of death is obviously an important thing in human thinking.

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In my opinion, death evokes extremely powerful emotions, and that many writers have tried to harness that in a variety of ways. Almost all power sources are (potentially) destructive forces.

AwkwardMD said:

In my opinion, death evokes extremely powerful emotions, and that many writers have tried to harness that in a variety of ways. Almost all power sources are (potentially) destructive forces.

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fffff
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Yes. Death is evokative- but only when It's someone else's..

I haven’t used death as a topic or plot point in any of my stories, but I’d like to nominate a story from my meager favorites list, by lgreenwood. It was a contest winner about 5 years ago.

https://www.literotica.com/s/word-of-mouth-1

Actually mentioning the story in the context of this thread is a bit of a spoiler, but I think the reference is worthwhile anyway. I haven’t read any of the dozen or so other stories by this author, and his last submission was in 2014.

Think the answer here is that lots of writers are using death as a story element.

This story had a tragic ending:
https://www.literotica.com/s/swinging-twins

Many readers commented that they'd have rated it higher if it didn't have that sad ending. But I wrote what happened

it's still scoring well, though.

Death has been used as a plot device in several of my stories. Plus several others yet to be published.

https://www.literotica.com/s/it-happened-one-day
https://www.literotica.com/s/the-circle-of-life-1

I read a magazine story many years ago in which the elements of sex, betrayal and Death were all worked in. I am fairly certain that the story was called 1947 or something like that.

The plot was that two British soldiers returned home to find that their young wives had been busy with the war effort by selling themselves to the American servicemen at a local base.

One admitted her indiscretion and the husband was inclined to forgive her- because she had paid off the mortgage - but then he found out she specialized in Black servicemen (because she could charge them more) That was too much for hubby so he strangled her.

The other woman lied to her husband but gossip got to his ears, he doubted her and left her, went into a period of morbid introspection and committed suicide. The apparently grief stricken widow put on a good show which disgusted the locals but earned the sympathy of a slightly naive young American officer - result, whirlwind romance and she became one of the 75,000 UK war brides shipped off to America.

Great plot with lots of sub plot opportunities but ruined by the fact that the author couldn't write, he was hopeless. In particular he was incapable of conveying the emotional scenes, all very wooden. But I have always liked the fact that the villain was the winner, it just deserved better writing.

Incidentally 1947 was the most prolific year ever for murders (of erring wives) in the UK. It also had the highest number of UK births ever - despite losing 75,000 members of the UK breeding capacity to the USA!

My "The Aviators" by sr71plt, posted here and doing well, is similar. It's set in wartime England at a bomber base where American and British aviators are trying to live a life with each other and in the community knowing that sooner than later they probably will be dead in aerial conflict because most all of them did die. Living in the jaws of death and what that brings out in men--sexual men. It's a male-perspective bisexual story.

If you would like, you can have a look at one of mine that has a man protecting another friend(female) from contract killers... Jack O'Hara - One for a Kill.

Or the other one in the series... Orchard Falls.

Both are kinda long, 7 and 11 lit pages respectfully.

My latest story (“Halloween in the Cemetery” - link in signature) involves a rather hot death for the male participant. Didn’t score to highly but I did enjoy writing the ending....

TarnishedPenny said:

Has anybody successfully worked in death? I don't mean Daddy-died-when-I-was-very-young, just-mentioned-in-passing death, I mean something recent and somebody close, a demise leaving a major character deeply grieving.

Death would seem to be the ultimate damper on desire. Has anybody successfully overcome this?

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TP, First, I love your work! Second. I wrote a story for the Halloween contest that was sent back because the reviewer considered it 'snuff'. The vampire character kills her lover, go figure. Perhaps what really set them off was the fact that said vampire 'got-off' on the final demise of said partner. Whatever. I had to edit it back. It is now The Hitchhiker.
I have been working on a novel for a few years, non-sexual, and I found myself killing-off a character that is very dear to my MC. I actually cried writing it. In fact, I still get emotional over it.
BUT - death is inevitable in this life and we are wise, as artists not to avoid it. Isn't great art about contrasts? Sex, it seems to me, is enlivening. Death seems its natural contrast. I'm not suggesting necrophilia or 'snuff'. Rather some way of saying, yes, death surrounds us but LIFE wins.
My two cents

I'm working on it. In "Mud & Magic", people close to the main character and his friends die, usually in a rather horrible way. Finding the strength to keep on going is a huge part of the narrative, as is the comfort you can find with others. Death is never easy, but it can grant resolve and tighten bonds between people. Grieving together is much better than grieving alone. When handled carefully (and I hope my touch so far was light enough so far) a death in the inner circle of protag and friends can be very powerful and yes, lead to tenderness and sex.

I think one of two of the AG stories touched on it.

But remember, it doesn't have to be dark. Some very successful movies worked it in for the comedic angle. 'Death Becomes Her' for example. And there are the more serious but still not dark romance movies like 'Ghost' and 'Always'.

Now, have you worked in the death of the main subject as seen and realized from their own point of view?

The Twilight Zone has numerous examples including three of the best of the series, 'The Hunt', 'The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank' and 'The Passersby'.

Several of my 'normal' short stories have deaths in them. Not so much in the 'erotic' stories. But, yes, there are a few.

TarnishedPenny said:

So...

We use violence in our stories. We use poverty. We use social isolation. We use illness, including mental illness. There's a whole area more-or-less devoted to infidelity of someone close. Age and aging are fair ball. All these very negative things are common enough in our erotic works.

Has anybody successfully worked in death? I don't mean Daddy-died-when-I-was-very-young, just-mentioned-in-passing death, I mean something recent and somebody close, a demise leaving a major character deeply grieving.

Death would seem to be the ultimate damper on desire. Has anybody successfully overcome this?

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I've dealt with death in several of my stories. My most recent post used the death of a character as a major component of the plot:
https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/the-voice-in-my-head

This one is a story which deals with grief and loss in a couple of ways.

"After six months, three days, sixteen hours the pain felt just as real. " . . .

I have a story... Just Another Day that the guy telling the story dies violently in the end, along with his wife.

Then I have another where the woman who is telling the story, her husband dies in the end. His Last Deployment.

I have several others where people who are a key part of the story die in the end. (just an aside, killing them off gets you out of continuing them as a series)

Death is a normal part of life, why not show how it effects/affects the people around those who die?

I did off one of the major characters in the Elizabeth series, and that story is by far the lowest-rated of the lot even though the sex scenes are some of the best I ever wrote (in my humble opinion). So I could only conclude the readers didn't appreciate that dark turn.

More recently, "For Twelve Month and a Day" is about a death that occurred a year or so before the story happens, and that one was well-received. I guess the lesson is, just don't kill your darlings.

Nope.

Closest I've come, has been from the main character worrying about his final fate if he gives into the charms of a succubus.

TarnishedPenny said:

So...

We use violence in our stories. We use poverty. We use social isolation. We use illness, including mental illness. There's a whole area more-or-less devoted to infidelity of someone close. Age and aging are fair ball. All these very negative things are common enough in our erotic works.

Has anybody successfully worked in death? I don't mean Daddy-died-when-I-was-very-young, just-mentioned-in-passing death, I mean something recent and somebody close, a demise leaving a major character deeply grieving.

Death would seem to be the ultimate damper on desire. Has anybody successfully overcome this?

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I leave others to judge “successful,” but in my current Winter Holidays 2020 entry (link in sig), my main character Sirena loses her new mate about midway through when they’re attacked by orcas (well, the actual death is offscreen, but as last seen he was being chased by four orcas and he never reappears and the merpeople and orcas have long experience, and hatred, of each other). They’re merpeople, so it fits... She also loses (to cancer) her mentor the Old Melon, on whom she’d had a unrequited crush since she’d been a teen. Both losses play into the ‘Christmas Miracle’ of the title.

My Halloween 2019 entry (link also in sig) had a sudden fire in a derelict church that caused a few dozen deaths, but no one immediately connected to my main characters. One comment felt my depiction was... oh, rather cold when my male MC went off with his ex-teacher crush after the disaster. Harsh, yeah, but the place was full of gangsters and drug dealers and biker gangs.