Kill Your Darlings

I never understood why people would want to hurt or injure or otherwise maim their favorite characters. I never understood why they'd attack and threaten and cause their characters to cry, willingly.

I never thought about how, by not doing that, a character may be considered a Mary Sue.

At least, until I started acting myself. Until I saw that not only does putting a character through it, but causes that character to mean more. Causes them to develop behaviors and mindsets that would not have otherwise been there.

I'll only ever kill off original characters in my stories so far. I'm too much of a coward for anything else.