Why It's Never Easy to Kill, But Writers Do It Anyway

I guess I can honestly only speak for myself, but I've been killing people for years--characters, that is--and I always have a good reason for it. It's usually not easy, but it's always well- thought out and purposeful.

Don't fear the reaper.

I wrote my first book when I was fifteen. It has yet to be published because I can only imagine what sort of a train wreck it truly is, but I killed off an important character in that one. Not a lot of people have read it, but all of them were floored that I'd killed him--especially my high school lit teacher.
I've published four fiction texts in the last eleven months and am working on my fifth.  Every single one of them loses a character I had grown attached to. Why? Because if I am attached to these people, hopefully the reader is, too. For me, writing is about evoking emotions. Nothing quite gets a reader invested like making them love someone and then snuffing out the light from a character they love the most.
That being said, I have yet to kill a main character.
Perhaps, the fact that I have personally lost so many supporting characters in my own life plays into the reality I am trying to establish for my main characters. People die--it sucks--but it happens. If it happens in life, it must happen in books.
I know some readers hate books where important characters die. Who hasn't cried over Beth in Little Women? I hope the deaths that occur in my works are meaningful enough that, by the end of the book, the reader is saying. "I hate that so-and-so died, but if s/he hadn't then... wouldn't have happened."
Death in books is a lot easier to explain than death in real life.
Tonight, I killed a character I absolutely love. Based on a real-life person I also have an affinity for, it was one of the toughest scenes I've ever written. But it had a purpose and I think this demise will make my story stronger and more interesting in the end.
Writers--have you ever killed someone off?
Readers--what do you think about the death sentence for fictional characters?
Please leave a comment and look for The Clandestine Saga Book Three: Repercussion soon.
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