| The death of a character can be either a well-placed plot device, a catalyst for story development, a great ending/beginning, or...a totally unnecessary way to piss off readers and kill your story, in my opinion.
I mean, if it's done well and for the right reasons in a story, death can really pack a literary punch, but if it's poorly executed or needless it really bothers me, personally. Of course, I'm one of those readers who get pretty attached to characters and to see them die is always hard, but when it's pointless or done just to elicit some sort of emotion with no other purpose, it makes me downright angry.
As a writer, I'm not very good at killing off characters that I've spent so much time developing and grooming into who I want them to be; it actually makes me a little sad to do so. I'll do it if I must to further a plot or to illustrate a point, but since I'm a big sucker for happy, or at least hopeful, endings (as unrealistic as they may be) I'll usually only do that kind of thing in the middle of a story. That way, I have time to make things at least a little bit better by the end.
All of the above is null and void, if the character I'm killing off happens to be an evil asshole, or something similar. Then I take great joy and go to great lengths to torture them before I end their sorry "lives." (Of course, I even enjoy torturing my main characters. >.>; ) Unless it's more fitting to keep them alive and make them suffer; then I do that. >D;
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