Killing your characters

J.K. Rowling on Twitter:

“It’s the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. I’m having a moment’s silence over my keyboard. I hated killing some of those people.”

There was an article where the writer said “You guys! Despite cavalierly killing Lupin, Tonks, Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, Severus Snape and dozens more, she does have feelings!”

SO wrong. Rowling didn’t cavalierly kill those characters; characters she had spend years developing. But there couldn’t be a Battle of Hogwarts where only the bad guys died. The stakes at the. Battle of Hogwarts were high. For none of the good guys to die would have been shallow, artificial, and unconvincing.

Fair warning to you: I’m writing. I will write characters I hope you like, and then bad things will happen to some of them. I won’t want bad things to happen to them, but if you know some of the characters are the author’s little darlings, living charmed lives, there goes the suspense, the drama. It might still be interesting, but it won’t be as deeply engaging as it could be.