As an X post recently put it: it’s certain to add some spice if you’re writing an autobiography. In which case there is something to be said for publishing posthumously…

That said, it’s a grim necessity sometimes, and one I am not very good at. You can probably pick out my red-shirt characters at 500 yards, even if you are color-blind. It is the nature of some stories that some characters are going to die. The best we can give our darlings, sometimes, is a death that at least has some value, even if it merely to provide motive for the other characters to take action. I’m not much on gratuitous death for the sake of a body or gore count. My problem is I have seen a bit of it in real life, and it takes me to places I don’t really want to go back to. But it has its fans – and if that your market, I guess it needs be done.

What I actually wanted to write about was the opposite: where you become so fond of your red-shirt, you save them miraculously. Hey. Guilty as charged. But seriously, it is a mistake. Sometimes: if it’s not an autobiography… those are necessary deaths