Does your interest or disinterest about characters dying extend to watching movies, (randomly chosen titles: Dead Poets Society, In the Gloaming) and reading novels, or is that a different experience for you?
Yes and no. I've always been interested in illness, including serious illness, as a fiction topic, and that does to some extent extend to death scenes. I was a big fan of the Lurlene McDaniel books when I was younger, as well as the "Tough Stuff" section in the Chicken Soup For The Teenage Soul series. However, I never really had any kind of emotional reaction to any of those; they were just books/essays on a topic that interested me. As for movies, I will generally watch movies where characters die, but only because I don't know about it (I try to avoid spoilers for pro media; I want warnings in fanfiction because it's my "safe space"). And if I'm invested in the characters, I often can't watch the movie more than once, or at best, I'll watch it, but turn the movie off before the death scene. (For example, spoiler for a popular-in-fandom 2005 movie:I'll watch Serenity nearly any time it's on, but I'll always turn it off before Wash dies.) But for me, overall, the key is that I read or don't read deathfic in fanfiction expecting to be affected, whereas with books and movies, I'm usually surprised when I care that much. (Also, as I mentioned above, the big thing for me is separation, rather than physical death. So there are books and movies where a character's death breaks up a union, and that make me sob...but I don't cry at Little Womenwell, at least not at that part!)
For writers: can you write and read them? Do you prefer one or the other?
I can and do both read and write deathfics. I've written deathfics where the characters stay together, ones where they separate, and ones where I barely know what happens because I'm writing them on auto-pilot, as catharsis-fic. And, I have to admit...while I like reading well-written stories, including death stories, more than writing them...the fact that several of my death stories have been, IMHO, some of my best work makes me really enjoy writing them a bit more.
no subject
Yes and no. I've always been interested in illness, including serious illness, as a fiction topic, and that does to some extent extend to death scenes. I was a big fan of the Lurlene McDaniel books when I was younger, as well as the "Tough Stuff" section in the Chicken Soup For The Teenage Soul series. However, I never really had any kind of emotional reaction to any of those; they were just books/essays on a topic that interested me. As for movies, I will generally watch movies where characters die, but only because I don't know about it (I try to avoid spoilers for pro media; I want warnings in fanfiction because it's my "safe space"). And if I'm invested in the characters, I often can't watch the movie more than once, or at best, I'll watch it, but turn the movie off before the death scene. (For example, spoiler for a popular-in-fandom 2005 movie:I'll watch Serenity nearly any time it's on, but I'll always turn it off before Wash dies.) But for me, overall, the key is that I read or don't read deathfic in fanfiction expecting to be affected, whereas with books and movies, I'm usually surprised when I care that much. (Also, as I mentioned above, the big thing for me is separation, rather than physical death. So there are books and movies where a character's death breaks up a union, and that make me sob...but I don't cry at Little Women
well, at least not at that part!)For writers: can you write and read them? Do you prefer one or the other?
I can and do both read and write deathfics. I've written deathfics where the characters stay together, ones where they separate, and ones where I barely know what happens because I'm writing them on auto-pilot, as catharsis-fic. And, I have to admit...while I like reading well-written stories, including death stories, more than writing them...the fact that several of my death stories have been, IMHO, some of my best work makes me really enjoy writing them a bit more.