[Prestidigitweeze]

I tend to feel more like the dying character than some god who's condemned them.

If I'm writing an important female character's death, for example, I don't just picture and hear her. I also try to become her -- to understand how it feels to be her -- so that her demise isn't reducible to a message, plot point or side effect of my male gaze. If her death is supposed to matter to the reader, then I have to be able to channel her point of view. It isn't enough to use style and tone to convey the loss, or to have other characters emote over the sadness of her passing.