Yay for contest submitting, erika!

Susan, what I'm feeling here is that maybe you're not totally invested in this guy's death yet. What you're describing to me sounds very ... thinky. To sell the death of a character your readers are loving, you have to have a damn good reason, and one *you* believe in, one that really compels you, I think.

Does that help?

Heh. If I sound thinky, it's because I'm trying to disguise my irrational annoyance at someone who, after all, is a figment of my own imagination! It's a relief to realize I can kill him and not have to deal with him for the entire series.

Has he been any type of a love interest for another character? If not, can the death be his choice in a "taking the bullet" for another character kind of way?

I'm trying to think of times when characters have been killed off in stories that I stuck with - characters that I cared about, that is - and foremost in my head is Doyle. TV rather than literature but still a very similar situation. I was bummed that he was killed off but I was also ok with it because he did such a Doyle thing and it was his choice. I don't know if that helps at all.

That's a good example, Nicole. You have to make it meaningful in some way, even if it's meaning*less*ness makes *another* character take action later.

Hm. Early in the story, he's traumatized by being in an ambush where he and my protagonist are the only survivors. He's guilty because he hid instead of fought, unlike his friends and family, who fought and died, or the protagonist, who fought well before deciding to attempt a strategic retreat to live and fight another day. But in my next action scene, he freezes up again and even fakes an injury to explain why unlike the protagonist he doesn't go charging off toward the sound of gunfire. So he sees himself as a coward. I was thinking I'd allow him to fight in the final battle, maybe do a heroic deed of some sort, saving the life of the protagonist or another important secondary character (no love interest whose life would be at risk at this point) or doing something critical to his side's victory, but dying in the process. So he dies, but at peace and having overcome his besetting demon.

"I've seen a young boy pull a spear from his own body to defend a dying horse."

He doesn't have to die defending someone more heroic. In fact, it can be more poignant if he dies protecting a bully, a half-wit boot boy, someone inconsequential.

He could die protecting a cowardly character who's as cowardly as he is/was. Sort of showing that even though he was a coward, he was worth protecting.

Or die protecting someone who felt compelled by the sacrifice to do something with their life.

Fighting instead of hiding is heroism in itself.

Spontaneous Human Combustion.

I know it's not really helpful. I just always wanted a character in a story to spontaneously combust for no good reason whatsoever and have it be completely unexplained. Just so the other characters could go, variously, "Huh." "Whoa." and "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!"