I know that writers joke about killing off characters. If a character annoys the author (as Arthur Conan Doyle felt about Sherlock Holmes), then the simplest way to get rid of them is to kill them. It can also be the other way around. If a character is well loved by everyone, then a devious author may kill them off to create a stirring reaction. Certainly, the deaths of beloved Sherlock (in any of his incarnations) or the Harry Potter characters has readers reaching for the tissues and starting rants on social media. We can't all have a Reichenbach Falls moment or a Battle of Hogwarts, but it's important that we make the character's death mean something.
This can be accomplished in different ways.
When killing off a character, it is important to know why - and not your personal vendetta, but why is it important and necessary for the story. You could just have a meaningless death thrown in, but impact is the lifeblood of stories and readers will value how you handle a character's death.
Some readers think that authors only kill off characters to make it seem more realistic, because a story where no one dies (but there are wars and villains and oodles of other dangerous things) is too much of a 4-leaf clover, gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow story which can feel stagnant or boring (because there are no stakes). This can certainly be true. An author may want authenticity in their story, thus they include deaths of major and minor characters. Still they have to choose who to kill and that brings us back to "what does their death mean."
It is also important to consider who it impacts. This can bleed into the meaning of the death, because those who survive (especially people that are close to the deceased) will have to live with the consequences. An author can then explore what the characters' lives are like without the deceased and how the characters mourn the deceased. The realistic elements that we prize in a death can be shown through the grieving process. If someone important and valued to your main characters dies, then they are going to change - isolation, anger (you could probably explore the 5 stages of grief, Kubler-Ross model). How they interact with others might change. Or they might go into deep reflection which could cause an inner awakening of some forgotten part of themselves (anything could happen - you just have to write it).
Another factor to consider is how the person (or people) died. There is a huge difference between dying of old age or dying young, dying of cancer or a bullet wound. Part of this is expectation - do you know, does the reader know, do the characters know? If we expect something, then we can prepare for it, and although we may feel unprepared - it is a different kind of shock than something unexpected. The other part is how traumatic the death is. Violence leaves a mark and can change the grieving process, because it might mean that someone will be wanting revenge. There have been so many movies and stories about revenge - it's a prime motivating factor (albeit a negative and unhealthy one). This is why you as a writer have to decide if you want to use it.
This kind of falls in the same vein, but terminal illnesses are another way to create an impact. If a character is a ticking time bomb so to speak, then you know that at some point, you will lose them and it will have an effect on others. Depending on the illness this could have a marked effect on their ability to do certain things, bodily actions in particular. Tuesdays with Morrie shows the decline of Morrie's health and how the people around him deal with it. Certain positive characteristics of his personality stuck out more, about how he liked being touched and he always made time for people.
Death is transformation and so much more than just an end, which is why a writer must wield the scythe with care. The Grim Reaper may come to collect, but only the souls meant to move on.
We can never be prepared for every eventuality, but as writers, it's important to understand the impact of our writing and how the story changes when we use destructive elements and decide to send characters to an early grave.
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