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‘Life vs Death’ is probably one of the most basic concepts that any person can wrap their head around. Living things don’t want to die, which means we will root for the hero to survive. We see almost every genre having at least some grouping of stories that involve this conflict. Of course, we’re not looking at genre here because these themes can span all of those.
Adventure and action stories are what would normally have ‘life vs death’ conflicts. A person is in a situation where they are facing death and will struggle to survive. It could be a fantasy story about adventurers, romance about lovers lost at sea, or a drama where someone is fighting to survive cancer. You can see that these will have various levels of action as far as physical violence. There has to be a near constant worry that the heroes will not survive. Even if a person sees plenty of pages left, they need to know that death is possible to achieve this theme.
Some would even call this survival from nature because it is primarily about a death that doesn’t involve purposeful pain. A character who dies simply fails to get away from the threat or make the right decision. There isn’t malice or a desire to make the hero suffer if they fail when it’s a simple ‘life vs death’. The person either lives or dies with nothing in the middle. Again, the simplicity is key and helps to get readers to connect to the overall concept. Going beyond that is another conflict theme that we’ll get into on Wednesday, so please don’t jump ahead.
As someone who writes adventure and action stories, I can see a lot of ‘life vs death’ themes in my work. I do enjoy having my heroes come through scathed, but they still survive. This theme doesn’t mean a hero won’t be touched by violence or harm, but they will simply be alive at the end. So, I feel that you can do just about anything to them as long as they don’t die or end up in a state that prevents them from completing their adventure. Doing so can extend the tension because a hero who is weakened as time goes on will have a higher chance of dying. Increasing the likelihood of death in an adventure is difficult, but pays off better than decreasing the chances.
One of the downsides to this theme is that it ends with more finality than the others. You can’t really go back after death has been achieved. Sure, fantasy has resurrection spells, but that’s a genre thing. It’s also something that shouldn’t be abused unless you’re an epic anime/manga series involving 7 magic orbs. Seriously though, most stories are over when the main character dies or have to create a replacement. This makes ‘life vs death’ a fairly limited theme when compared to others. There is none, or at least very little, gray area to this finale. At best, you can have the death be ambiguous, but that requires sacrificing some closure.
Overall, this will always be one of my favorite story types to write. I like the simplicity even if I’m covering it with complicated machinations. The heroes either live to see another adventure or die. Well, they can retire too, but that’s still living. Either way, I always enjoyed these survival adventures because of the tension they gave me. Then again, I read a lot of books with groups of heroes, which allows you to have the theme end in different ways for each character. That’s another way to skew and expand on this conflict.
So, what do you think of the ‘life vs death’ theme?
