Earning a Death Scene

I think it depends on the type of story, The X-wing novels had a lot of characters come and go because it would be unrealistic for a fighter squadron never to loose anyone, although they tended to be more Red shirts.

A character's death doesn't have to be "earned". It simply has to make some sort of sense, even if only in the "the world is fucked and we're all going to die" way. I did a SF story about former teen soldiers trying to flee the solar system wide civil war. Death was all around them. The key, to me, is not to care what the death does to the reader. It's what it does to the other characters. How THEY react. Let the reader feel however they feel.

This may not work in a TV series, where you want viewers to come back next week, as opposed to a book where they've already bought the whole thing

http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/novels- … the-waifs/

Depends on where you're taking the story. If it's necessary for character B to die to give character A incentive to go on, it makes sense. If you're killing character B to make room for more story and development for character A, you might be better off not including B at all in the story.

Let's say Villain cut a nasty gash on B during a fight. B is hospitalised, and it seems like it'll go smoothly, as B is one of our heroes. If B then dies, it gives A an incentive to further his/her battle against Villain, be it revenge or some other reason.

I agree that the death needs to make sense and have an effect on the story or the characters. A key thing too is to have an investment in the character that dies, ie, we should care enough (either negatively or postively) to feel something (and that can also happen indirectly through another character that has a strong connection to the deceased). I'd argue storytelling is entirely about playing on the emotions of the audience. When the evil witch is defenestrated by the hero in the finale, we cheer precisely because she's been so villainous up til then. When a hapless random guy is riddled with bullets on the street, we feel a tinge of sadness because we just saw him with his loving wife and he was awkwardly rushing out with the garbage.

What you don't want to do (IMO) is kill characters just so that you can prove the danger of a situation. When Redshirt 21 steps on an ancient booby trap and is blown to smithereens, you're not fooling anyone that Kirk is going to do the same.

Ever since I was a teen and read 'All Quiet on the Western Front', I've wanted to write a first person story where the narrator dies in the middle. You turn the page, and get "Um, hi. I'm not Dave. See, things didn't go well last night..."

Feel free to steal it or pass the idea on. The story I developed around that, done in the form of a diary that someone else would take over, morphed into The Waifs so I managed to get things out of my system. That book isn't first person, though

...leave that group.

well then friend those people in particular, leave the rest behind. That's the worst kind of group.

OK, I understand what some people mean by characters having a personality and, while free-writing, they can behave in ways that surprise the writer.

I get that this is shorthand for "the writer can surprise themselves", but some people go so far as to insist the characters can't be limited by the story. Which is psychotic. The writer created them in his/her head, and they are subject to whatever imagined situation the writer is scribing!
Characters are not people. If they aren't "behaving" then the writer can change them.
Yes, it's important to maintain consistency within a character, but that is the cognitive process of the writer at work.

I assume you mean "pay attention to internal consistency." Which I totally agree with.

The writers who bug me are those who seem to think characters are capable of doing things on their own.

Maybe I've taken too hard a stance on it, but it's the extremes that annoy me.
Or it's a difference of style? To me, well-developed characters are elements of the story, to be figured out as much as possible along with the plot, so there are fewer wrenches (there are always some) once the actual writing happens.
If the theme of my story is the dark side of loyalty, I had damn well better create characters who reflect that from the get go.

Or "from jump" as Teague would say

If you give characters proper motivations, then they should be driving toward whatever ending you have planned, surprising twists just adding color. If you haven't planned a good ending, you won't have a good ending, which is why most TV finales stink, even for the best shows.