When You Kill Cool Supporting Characters, Do You Feel Guilty?

I wrote more of my novel The Harvest, and I figured it was high time Ashley took a swipe at Dean Andreanna.  So stay tuned for that development.  You can read the rolling draft in The Harvest Draft section.

On a writer note, I briefly introduced a cool side character, and killed her a few scenes later.  She served her purpose and gave Ashley some empowering advice, but sometimes a few dead characters here and there help the plot move along.  My main issue with some writers is when authors needlessly kill a main character.  Not to spoil it, but Joe Hill did that with one of his more likeable main characters, and while I understand why he did it, as I am sure there was a Feminist reason for it, the death really pissed off my students who were reading the novel. 

Sometimes a death, though, doesn't have to be physical.  I think about The Hunger Games and how some characters died to us, the readers.  Peeta died to some extent, but he came back to a version of himself when Katniss had children.  Gale, on the other hand, just flat out died to me, when he made horrific choices and had a clear personality transformation, an unexpected one.  I think I prefer that, instead of flat out killing a character. 

Now, with that said, one of my students who gave feedback on "La Bruja del Barrio Loco" was really mad at me for killing Flor.  She had to die though.  The antagonist in that story was so powerful that nothing short of a human sacrifice would have stopped her.  Plus, just like the characters in fiction take a life of their own, sometimes they die of their own free will.  It just feels right.

And that is all I've got.  On a real note, I am still fighting this cold, and although it's only been a minor impediment to my writing process, I'm tired of being sick.  Ugh.  I have to ready myself for real union battles today and need to rest up and give myself some strategize.

Kill your main and supporting characters with maximum discretion.  #Resist

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