Unpleasant Choice

I've mentioned the recent plot twist. The problem is, I couldn't see exactly where it would take me.

So on Saturday I asked my 21-year old. He's not a writer and he doesn't like to write but he does read and watch movies. He knows plots.

I went through the story with him, exploring every turn. In the end he persuaded me I had only one choice. I was trying to avoid that. Innocent people will die, in a literary sense. But it was the only one I could go ahead with the story.
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This choice will lend additional drama to the plot. But I want my readers to remember that when writers kill our characters, whether major or minor, it's often a difficult decision. (The movie, Stranger Than Fiction, definitely resonated with me.) But whether we like it or not, sometimes it must be done for the good of the story.

I killed one of my favorite characters in Echoes. I didn't mean to kill him, but he simply became too sick to live. That was my introduction to character death. In Silence, as in Turbulence, death will be one of the themes. And I feel that I don't have any other way.

P.S.--I am a literary killer, but of course that is as far as it goes. How do other writers feel about fictional murder?