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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29080
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29080
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

1) Might one ask why the character destined to die is named... Cancer? I'm just calling him "Charlie" for the rest of this discussion.

2) Does Charlie have any agency, life, personality, or background of his own, or is his purpose in the story to be fridged and provide manpain for the MC?

I'm actually not asking that idly. You are creating a character whose sole purpose is to die, _because_ that death will advance the rest of the plot. This is called (TV TROPES WARNING) [being Stuffed into the Fridge.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge)

You are struggling with where to put Charlie's death because it's a morteus ex machina, to mangle a phrase. Charlie's death is not a result of the plot, and it doesn't flow from the plot. You are inserting it into the plot.

Here's a parallel to your story:

In Mercedes Lackey's _Last Herald-Mage_ trilogy, Vanyel, the main character, falls in love with Tylendel, a mage student. They have a relationship. Tylendel has a twin, Staven, who is murdered by a rival noble house. Tylendel uses magic for revenge and tries to kill the entire noble house, including innocents and children, and the attempted slaughter causes his bonded familiar to break their bond. The breaking of the mental bond drives Tylendel insane, and he kills himself. For the entirety of book 2, Vanyel misses and grieves Tylendel. In book 3, he meets Stefen, and by halfway through the book he has eventually fallen in love with Stefen.

But Tylendel and Stefen are individual people, with their own backgrounds and storylines and lives and motivations and ambitions. Tylendel's death releases magic which makes Vanyel a powerful mage, and basically allows the rest of _his_ plot to happen, but Tylendel has his own life. He has his own story which exists outside his boyfriend.

Your Charlie is not Tylendel. You need to come up with a plot for book 1 and a life for Charlie, and then Charlie's death at the end is a terrible shock. It's fine if Charle's death affects your MC and other things happen because of Charlie's death, but you need a plot, in and of itself, where Charlie's death is the natural and unavoidable outcome.

And you must create Charlie as his own character _as if he were not going to die._ Make him as real and rounded and interesting as though you planned to spend five books with him.

If you want him not to be a lame insert, don't write him that way.

Original score: 13