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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/36598
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The thing to consider is: why you are killing the character?

As stated in another answer you may be trying to show that your hero is a skillful fighter. If so, you probably just want to let the reader know that the victim is in some way a worthy opponent and had it coming to him/her. The same but in the opposite sense for the villain. Killing someone helpless and innocent makes the villain seem particularly evil. It may be counter productive to make a character like this anything more than a quick sketch because it could distract the reader from the main story. (Though maybe not.)

Maybe you want to kill someone in order to make life difficult for your main character. In this case you probably want to make the reader care about them so that they can sympathise with the main character's pain. Think about Simba's father in The Lion King or Obi Wan Kenobi in the first Star Wars movie. The main character is deprived of a wise guide and protector and is emotionally wounded at the same time. Clearly, this kind of character is very different from the cannon fodder in the previous example. A similar idea used often in romance novels is to kill the main character's first love interest leaving them devastated and at least temporarily unable to love again. In more serious literature, consider Dora in Dickens' _David Copperfield_ who fills this kind of role.

You might even want to kill off your main character. Many of Shakespeare's tragedies did this. In this case the usual thing is to make your character rounded and sympathetic (to engage the reader's sympathy) but with a tragic flaw (to justify their death). A bit of a variation on this is to make the main character a saintly character who by his death resolves the central plot question (Christ-like sacrifice).

It all depends on your story. What does the death accomplish in your story?

Original score: 4