K is for Killing Characters...

... and feeling bad about it.

I actually got this idea from my roommate. When this whole challenge started, I asked her for some help on prompts, so kudos to her.

I hate killing characters. Unless they deserve it.

OK, I take it back, I like killing characters, especially when they deserve it. Really, they only die when they deserve it. I don't kill cause I feel like it. They have to die for the plot.

Can you tell I don't kill characters often? Being a romance/attempted YA writer doesn't lead to much of that.

I think in total I've killed three characters. And I didn't feel bad about it at all. And I absolutely loved the way I killed them.

God I sound scary, don't I? I swear I'm not that bad!

There are somethings I don't understand though.

I was on Gaia in the writer's forums and I came across a thread about a person who felt bad about ending a story they had been working on for years and essentially "killing off their characters".

That's understandable. You do end up getting connected to your characters.

But there was one person who was like 'they're just tools. I don't feel bad about killing characters. They're just words on paper.' Now that I don't get. How do you spend so much time making these creations and not caring about them to some extent? I mean really?

People.

I know that everyone is different, but most writers I've talked to get attached to their characters.

So, how do you guys feel about killing off characters? How many have you killed off? And for those of you who are readers, how do you feel when characters are killed off?