The Do's and Don'ts of Writing a Story

HOW TO: Sad character deaths

How to make your character deaths even sadder:

 - Don't have them die of old age after a long, fulfilling life. Many people don't think of this as sad, but this can sometimes still work if you have other factors. 

 - Leave one of their major goals unfinished. The more enthusiastic they are about completing the goal, the sadder. 

 - Give them strong relationships with other characters.

 - Make them fight against whatever is causing their death. their ultimate loss is sadder if they struggle. 

 - Kill them in the middle of their character arc, so we have time to like them and we will have time to let the loss settle in.

 - Don't describe their funeral in detail. Maybe it's just me, but I find that long descriptions of funerals kill sadness. 

 - Place surviving characters is a situation where having the deceased person there would help them out. You can choose whether you will point this fact out or if you want the audience to make the connection themselves. 

 - Make them die by sacrificing themselves to save someone they love from a danger created by the antagonist.

 - Have their loved one, broken hearted, tell their team to stop fighting because it's over. 

 - Have their pet come looking for them. 

 - Have their loved one perform a popular song at their funeral so it makes the fans cry whenever it's played.

 - Family witnessing the death and/or blaming themselves. 

 - Kill the characters in the middle of making a joke, smiling or expressing/experiencing joy/happiness. 

 - Make the character's death slow and painful, but make them unable to call for help even though they literally can see the other characters nearby. 

 - After killing the character, have others think the character betrayed them so they're always hate them and remember them as traitors and never say nice things about them... Give your readers no chance to have group therapy with other characters by making them the only ones who know the truth. 

 - Right before their death, show a side of them no-one else has seen. Someone who is always tough and brave being genuinely scared of dying alone; someone who is always laughing being in tears before dying etc.

 - Make them the only person who knows a big important secret that would help other characters in the story.

 - Have them being lied to before dying. Thinking they've been betrayed, thinking they weren't loved, thinking they've lost their loved ones etc.

 - Make the character very enthusiastic/passionate about a certain goal, constantly put stress on their goal, have them die unexpectedly before they can reach their goal.

 - Have them die by accident. Take the character the reader will love most, who has never been mundane throughout all the time the readers knew them. Take that special character, the leader, the fighter, let them die from something none of your characters could have prevented. A cotton bridge, a runaway carriage or drunk driver. Anything could happen to anyone. Let it happen to them

 - Have their beloved character kill them - better be a close friend to your character, one that absolutely nobody suspects, one that everyone can't help but love, one who is always enthusiastic about things and encourages you character. Then:

1.) Reveal the truth only later when its too late and the character has already escaped. 

2.) Have a cowardly character know the truth and never tell anyone else.

3.) Have another character find out the truth and have them die before revealing it to others.

4.)Have the said characters ^ not actually die, but go through something so they'd forget the friend of the deceased character is actually a traitor.

This way only your reader knows the truth, thus frustration would be most enjoyable for you.