To a writer, characters are in a way like kids. To writers like me, where characters take on a life of their own, that is particularly true. I assign them a certain set of traits, certain experiences and whatnot, but once I turn them loose, they control the action more than vice versa. In the cases of my novels, I don't generally know how precisely it's going to end until I am at least halfway through. That much is up to the characters.

So there are times I am angry at so-and-so for doing such-and-such, but I write them doing it anyway. Every now and again, my characters do die and it's sometimes, though not always, a quite tragic event. But in many ways, all their failures are a tragedy to me. They make me want to smack them over the heads, maul them, or just make me pity them.

So when Rawlings is crying over killing one of her characters, I can relate.

After writing the death scene, Rowling recalled, "I walked into the kitchen crying and Neil said to me, 'What on earth is wrong?' And I said, 'I've just killed the person.'"

You raise the characters as best ya can, but at some point you must set them free to face the world, or each other, or something conflicting that makes a story interesting.

"And he said, 'Well, don't do it then.'"

But... but... stories aren't interesting unless someone dies!!

No, this post has no point whatsoever, though Colby's does.