creative writing about a loss

37 Ways To Write About Grief

In this post, we have included 37 things for you to consider when you write about grief .

One of our most popular series of posts on Writers Write is ‘ways to write about different emotions’. We’ve written about these so far:

• 37 Ways To Write About Anger
• 32 Ways To Write About Fear
• 43 Ways To Write About Love
• 29 Ways To Write About Happiness
• 40 Ways To Write About Empathy

In today’s post, we look at ways to write about grief.

This is not necessarily a post about grief as a story, but about how the emotion of grief affects the characters and the plotting of a book.

How do we  write about grief  in an authentic way?

A) What Is Grief?

Grief is an intense sorrow, a feeling of deep and poignant distress, which is usually caused by someone’s death (including a pet’s). Grief can also be felt with the ending of a relationship, or the death of a dream or an idea around which a life has been built. It can be felt with the diagnosis of a terminal illness. It is an intense emotion and the pain can seem unbearable.

Words associated with grief include:

Use these words when you’re describing a grieving person.

People often describe grief as a process . There are generally five stages associated with grief:

These are based on On Death and Dying , the 1969 book by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Some people may experience them in this order, but they can occur in any sequence and you can revisit the stages at any time. Some people skip a stage and others can experience more than one at the same time. The length of grieving depends on the person. It may take weeks or months or years.

People have also added ‘shock’ and ‘guilt’ to these stages.

B) Body Language

In your body language,  signs of loss are important. You can:

• Curl into a foetal position.
• Cover your face with hands or a pillow or blanket.
• Stare unseeingly.
• Sob uncontrollably.
• Find it hard to swallow.
• Wrap your arms around yourself.
• Scratch your hands and arms.
• Push people away.

C) Ways To Create Conflict With Grief

• The loss of a loved one can spur your main character into action. Love interests in fiction are the most common way to create internal  and  external  conflict. A love interest does not have to be a romantic love interest. ‘It can be a friend, a pet, or a family member.’ ( source ) The loss of this loved one could create a need for revenge or simply for healing.
• The emotion of grief could cause the character to lose their job, or resign from it.
• The emotion of grief could change other important relationships that were dependant on the person who has died.

D)  The Importance Of Grief In Plotting

Grief is a powerful and debilitating emotion. Only use it if it serves your plot.

• If you want to write a book about grief, this will obviously be your main plot. You will show the pain and despair of your main character and how they find their way back to life again. A good way to do this is with the use of a motif that is derived from a hobby or an occupation. The grieving person could be building a boat, or breeding a rare species of birds – anything that gives them a tangible story goal. They must do something – or the book would be boring.
• If you want to use it as a sub-plot, the death of the love interest is the one to choose. The love interest  is the most useful and the most common of all  sub-plots .
• Use their loss to show us more about them.
• Use the loss and their grief to move the story forward. This works in a detective story where the main character vows revenge for their loss – or simply becomes more determined to make things that are wrong, right.

E) Exercises For  Writing About Grief

• Write about the moment your protagonist is told about someone they love dying. Use body language, dialogue, and the senses if you can.
• Write about the moment your antagonist is told about someone they love dying. Use body language, dialogue, and the senses if you can.
• Show how a grieving person is unable to stick to their daily routine. Let them wake up to the loss and then show how they go about trying to get ready for the day.
• Show a moment where a grieving person is pulled out of the well of despair by something that happens that gives them a story goal .
• Write 12 diary entries on the first day of each month after the character has lost their loved one. Show how they change over the year.

Top Tip : Use our  Character Creation Kit to create great characters for your stories.

If you liked this blogger’s writing, you may enjoy:

• 10 Perfect Writing Prompts For Thanksgiving
• The Romantic Hero
• Fictional Pillars For Writers
• The 4 Pillars Of A Memoir
• Banned Books Week – The 10 Most Challenged Titles Of 2020
• What Is Procrastination & How Do Writers Beat It?
• The 5 Pillars Of Police Procedurals
• Mystery, Horror, Thriller – What’s The Difference?
• 101 Words To Describe Weather
• How To Tell If You’re Writing About The Wrong Character

Top Tip : Find out more about our  workbooks  and  online courses  in our  shop .

• Body Language , Creating Characters , Description , Featured Post , Show Don't Tell , Writing Tips from Amanda Patterson

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Sometimes dealing with grief on our own can feel like we’re alone. Writing about loss, death, sadness, and grief can feel intimidating because we’re excavating our deepest vulnerabilities, and this means confronting buried emotions. It might be difficult to process the wide range of emotions that accompany loss—everything from sadness to anger to relief. However, finding a place to allow these feelings to land can be liberating—not only for one’s writing, but also cathartic personally.

In this personal essay course, we will learn how to tell the stories that impact us the most through creative writing about grief, pain, and loss. The objective of this course is to mine our feelings of loss and try to capture them onto the page. This course will give participants the permission and tools to become more comfortable about writing death and loss. Through the course of eight weeks, we will read other writers and their essays on the subject of loss, death, and grief, and delve into the stories that individual participants would like to explore.

Students will receive feedback on short writing exercises based on prompts, as well as the chance to workshop an essay with the instructor during the class. Participants will leave this class learning how to tackle death, loss, grief in the space of a personal essay. Students will learn how to make the personal universal. There will be also class discussion on the materials. Students will receive extensive feedback on two essays during the 8-week period.

I highly suggest this class, so much so, I’m gifting it to a friend. Don’t hesitate. Take this class! —Linda Ragsdale

Weekly Zoom Meeting Schedule

The course’s weekly Zoom meetings will take place  on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM Eastern time.  Meetings will be one hour to 90 minutes in length.

Creative Writing About Grief: Course Syllabus

Week 1: welcome and introductions/why write nonfiction essays stemming from loss or tragedy.

How do past journal or diary entries help you excavate the grief you’d like to write about in your essay? Work on in-class writing prompt on three pivotal moments that seem compelling for you to excavate in an essay.

Week 2: Different ways to brainstorm our grief to write our best essays.

Writing about grief is often difficult and sometimes it takes work to pen our most difficult feelings. In this session, students will learn techniques re: brainstorming on their essay topic. It will include information on mind mapping, traditional outline structure, and using photographs to generate story ideas.

Week 3: How to begin the grief essay?

Knowing where to start the grief essay is important. We will look at various essays and how they begin. How do we engage the reader with the very first sentence of our grief essay?

Week 4: Navigating the middle of our grief essay and the narrative arc.

For an essay to feel genuine to the reader and the writer, the narrative arc has to hit the right points. We will work through the middle of our essays to excavate the tension sometimes the middle poses when writing about grief.

Week 5: Giving ourselves room to breathe when writing grief essays.

Sometimes creative writing about grief raises difficult emotions/feelings. What to do when we feel stuck? How to forge forward as we navigate our emotions and confront sadness and truth in our writing. We will cover strategies on how to handle this grief in a way that will channel our best essay writing and focus on healing too.    

Week 6: Looking at endings in our essays.

Grief is something that doesn’t end and how do we capture that sentiment in our essays? This is tricky terrain, especially as we are trying to navigate our feelings in our endings even though the grief lingers outside the page.  

Week 7: Putting it all together.

How does they essay come across in terms of prose and lyricism? We will look at how the essay is elevated through metaphors and the use of craft.

Week 8: Looking at markets and the feeling after publication of our grief essays.

We will talk publication and markets and whether you’re in the right mental place to publish your essays. How do we navigate the questions that come after readers read our vulnerable pieces on grief?

Why Take a Creative Writing Course with Writers.com?

• We welcome writers of all backgrounds and experience levels, and we are here for one reason: to support you on your writing journey.
• Small groups keep our online writing classes lively and intimate.
• Work through your weekly written lectures, course materials, and writing assignments at your own pace.
• Share and discuss your work with classmates in a supportive class environment.
• Award-winning instructor Rudri Patel will offer you direct, personal feedback and suggestions on every assignment you submit.

Student Feedback for Rudri Patel:

I cannot recommend working with Rudri enough, she is one of the best writing teachers that I have ever had. Leena Trivedi-Grenier

Rudri is genuine and compassionate, sharing her stories and helping students find a way to hold their grief, and release some of its anchors. I highly suggest Writing Our Grief , so much so, I’m gifting it to a friend. Don’t hesitate. Take this class!  Linda Ragsdale

The course exceeded my expectations. Rudri's practical, supportive, and encouraging style is just what I needed to build confidence and practice in my writing. Rudri is exceptionally perceptive, warm, and generous as a teacher. Rudri helps you believe in yourself as a writer and to build long-term habits after the course.  Tom O'Shea

Rudri's teaching style is warm, personal, informed, generous, and comprehensive. She wants her students to have a safe place to dig into their grief and to give written voice to it, to learn the craft of writing about grief with an eye for publication. She challenged us to experiment with new forms, and set the tone for a supportive class partnership. I highly recommend this class.  Dianne King

Rudri created a wonderful workshop atmosphere. I received specific feedback on each of my writing assignments and felt supported and encouraged throughout the six-week course. I'm amazed at how much I learned in this short time period.  Theresa Connors

Rudri is a real gem. Her management of the class given the difficulty of the material was exceptional. She was always encouraging to all the students.  Larry Ricci

Rudri's combination of compassion and solid tangible technique furthered my continuing development as a writer. If you want to take an MFA level class with an instructor who cares enough to guide you kindly but sure-footedly to the edges of your comfort zones---then this class is for you. You will come out on the other side a much improved writer. Christina Cavallaro

Rudri is kind so she reads with her heart as well as her head. As well as providing editorial expertise, she reads with empathy. I found this mattered more than I thought it would. I am so thankful for this course and everything I learned in class and from the community of other writers within the class.  Sarah Harley

Rudri is intelligent and perceptive. Her lectures are well organized but not rigid. She is present to the individual students' needs, and her offering of a one-on-one meeting is the cherry on the cake. She is a very generous teacher, and I would and will certainly recommend her courses and take them again myself.  Barbara Moroncini

A must take course! Our instructor, Rudri Patel, led the course with such brilliance, commitment and sensitivity. Each lesson was well organized. Ms. Patel went above and beyond with weekly zoom classes, and she added her personal experiences as a writer so freely. Cynthia Slack

Rudri has a way of fostering discussion and motivating her students to produce more and better work. By the end of the first week alone, I’d completely revised my daily writing strategy, reduced procrastination, and felt better equipped to achieve some pretty ambitious writing goals. I’m confident that 2021 will be my best writing year to-date.  Jessica Fiorillo

This workshop was everything I wanted and more!  Not only is Rudri an excellent instructor and writer, but she is a wonderful human being. Rudri provided a safe place for everyone to freely express themselves, giving 200% of herself and modeling for students her courage and vulnerability.  Cynthia Bassett

Awesome! Rudri is a great teacher.  Natalie Ellis

This class, and Rudri’s compassion and ability to create a safe space, helped me work through levels of grief that I didn’t realize I still had. I made connections between past and present losses that I hadn’t made before, which has helped me to grieve at a deeper level. My writing has benefited from the exercises and Rudri’s encouragement to write my truth. This was an excellent class, and I hope to work with Rudri again in the future.  Andi Reed

I learned so much in Rudri's class, not just about bullet journaling but about setting goals and establishing habits that nurture and sustain the writing life. Rudri created a welcoming space to discuss not just the ins and outs of bullet journaling, but also how to build habits that nurture creativity and self-care. I highly recommend it for writers and everyone!  Daisy Florin

Rudri Bhatt Patel has been a mentor, coach, and editor for my writing projects for almost ten years. Under the skillful guidance of her expertise, candor, and gentle spirit, I have made great gains in refining and expanding my short stories to publication as well as completing a novel. In addition, as co-members of a critique group for several years, Rudri consistently offered in depth and valuable feedback to me and others on a biweekly basis. Her comprehensive written feedback was always delivered with a sensitivity and respect for each person’s creative expression, while authentically providing insight into strengths and areas that needed development. Trish Dolansinski

Rudri is the editor and teacher everyone wishes they would discover. Her warm engaging style meets spot-on feedback has done more for me in 6 weeks than I can begin to describe. Rudri's approach to giving feedback is supportive in a way that both inspires and lifts while being grounded in solid practical suggestions to help elevate your work.  Christina Cavallaro

I recommend Rudri Bhatt Patel without reservation. She is knowledgeable, articulate and experienced in all things writing and publishing. Her kindness as well as her professionalism and expertise make working with her a delight. Susan Pohlman

Rudri's knowledge and skills related to professional writing have also helped me with my own writing career many times in the past. Julie Vick

Over the past ten years I have had numerous opportunities to interact with Rudri Batt Patel during writing classes, book critiques, and writer networking sessions. She has a profound ability to engage as a learner, presenter, and facilitator. Her own writing skills are exceptional and her variety of published works enable her to assist developing writers in multiple ways. Phyllis Schwartz

Rudri Patel is an organized and seasoned presenter with years of writing and publishing experience. I’ve been lucky enough to have Rudri in my critique circle for over a decade and I’m a stronger writer because of it. Windy Lynn Harris

Rudri has a wonderful way of bringing out the best in her colleagues without criticism - a skill I appreciate as a veteran of the classroom myself. Jenn Morson

“I loved Rudri Patel. She helped me take my writing to another level. She was full of knowledge, encouragement, constructive criticism and quickly identified my strengths. I highly recommend her.” —Nancy Wynn

About Rudri Patel

Rudri Patel is a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at  Literary Mama  and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal,  The Sunlight Press , her essays and reported work have appeared in  The Washington Post, Business Insider, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, ESPN, Parents  and elsewhere. Rudri is currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces.

Rudri's Courses

These Fragments: From Journal Pages to Personal Essays Six Flash Essays in Six Weeks Writing About Family *Private Class | Writing Our Grief: How to Channel Loss into Creative Expression *Private Class | Using Bullet Journaling to Achieve Writing Goals *Private Class | From Pitch to Publication: Writing Narrative Journalism *Private Class | Write Your World: Express Your Creativity through Article Writing, Blogging, and Essays Writing Our Grief: How to Channel Loss into Creative Expression Using Bullet Journaling to Achieve Writing Goals From Pitch to Publication: Writing Narrative Journalism Write Your World: Express Your Creativity through Article Writing, Blogging, and Essays (Live Workshop) Move Your Writing Forward: The Art of the Bullet Journal

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Show, Don’t Tell: How to Write the Stages of Grief

by Ruthanne Reid | 59 comments

How do you make your readers cry?

I promise this post won't be a downer. What it will be (hopefully) is really useful advice on how to portray the stages grief—and in the process, maybe encourage you to continue creating even during your own personal sorrow.

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey,” said Kenji Miyazawa.

Well, my friends: it's time to break beautifully.

Breaking Beautifully

“When artists break, they try to break beautifully. Sit, smile, and enjoy the pieces of a shattered soul.” – quote from Tumblr

Most of us have read stories portraying grief so spectacularly that we felt  it as we read, weeping alongside fictitious graves.  Of course, most of us have also read stories with grief that utterly failed to move us, which (I think we can all agree) is something we'd prefer not  to write.

The power of story largely resides in its power to evoke emotions. Our favorite works all tend to follow that path. We read about a heroine who succeeds against impossible odds, and we are bolstered by her courage. We read about the ridiculous antics of a teenage boy who's too smart for his own good, and we share both his embarrassments and his triumphs.

Empathy is the ultimate form of “ show, don't tell .”

But in order to portray the stages grief effectively, we have to observe it. Grief is weird. It lingers. It colors everything and its symptoms change over time. Most importantly of all, grief leads to a particular kind of storytelling: finding the “why.”

To Write the Stages of Grief, Find the Why

“He who has a why can bear any how.” – Dr. Viktor Frank, a psychologist and holocaust survivor

At our hearts, we are all storytellers. It's part of the human condition to explain the world to ourselves in a way we'll accept. We rationalize. We imagine scenarios to help ourselves understand.

If your character has experienced past grief, then one of two things happens over time:

• They find a “why” of some kind and make peace with it (even if that “why” is “bad stuff happens and I accept that”).
• Or they have no “why,” and cannot shed the weight of the grief they carry.

That “why” can be anything. Religious, scientific, poetic—we are terrific storytellers, down to our core. Here's a royal, real-life example:

“Grief is the price we pay for love.” – Queen Elizabeth II

There's reasoning in there, a why. 

The story your character tells herself gives your character direction. Does she blame the deceased for his death? Does she blame someone else, or hold to a faith in cruel fate that could strike again at any time?

The story she tells herself can grow hope or prevent it from blooming. It determines the choices she makes in the wake of her grief.

Homework Assignment: what story is your character telling himself? 

BONUS: By the way, this can give birth to a really great plot-twist. If a decade after the fact, evidence comes to light that blows the survivor's rationalization to bits, then that survivor has a whole new set of motivations to carry your plot along. Boom: story.

How to Write the Stages of Grief

Along with that story, there will be symptoms of grief. These symptoms vary over the various stages of grief, and you should be aware of them as you describe your character's grief.

Immediate Grief

• Physical sensations (throat thickening, lack of appetite or increased appetite, nausea, a weight in the chest, trembling hands, swollen eyes, stuffed nose)
• Thought patterns (denial, what if, if only, I didn't get to say goodbye, I wish I hadn't/had said That Thing, why-why-why-why-why)
• Stress symptoms (inability to sleep, lack of desire to take part in once-loved activities)
• Social symptoms (the insistence everything is fine, or the inability to hide grief in public; withdrawal from activities; irritability; over-booking activities to keep busy)

During the initial stages of grief, some or all of these might be present. Your character will not necessarily verbalize them; they could be happening “off-screen.” However, they will be happening, and that should make a difference how your character behaves – and how your readers empathize.

Homework Assignment: how does your character handle immediate grief? Socially? Physically? 

Long-Term Grief

Long-term grief is very different from immediate grief. Even this short list is a little baffling:

• Denial . Boy, can this take a lot of forms. Denial of the cause of death, of culpability, of grief itself – which leads to stress physically and emotionally, not to mention living in such a way as to prove that denial true.
• Corollary: Gut-punch sorrow upon remembering that loss. It feels a little like losing the person all over again.
• Corollary: Resulting gut-punch of guilt, as if  remembering were a sacred duty that must not be shirked. This isn't as weird as it might seem. There's a reason most ancient cultures cherished numerous festivals and sacrifices to and for the dead. Remembering matters.
• Living for the person . His mom was gonna be a dancer? And hey, looky there: twenty years later, he owns a dance studio, and he may not have even realized he's carrying on her dream.
• The deceased made a statement or held a belief that the survivor feels is absolutely untrue.
• Death prevented any kind of satisfactory conclusion to their disagreement.
• The survivor then attempts to live in such a way that it proves that naysayer wrong. (“Oh, I can't be a great archeologist as a woman, huh? Well, now I'm the best in my field!”)
• Rationalization . Remember that story we tell ourselves? Over the long term, that story usually gets set in stone. If you know what your character's story is, you will know WHY they do a lot of the things they do. It's a powerful writing tool.
• Irrational fear of whatever it was that killed that person. (e.g., run over by a garbage truck, and therefore it is Horse And Buggy Time Forever).
• Embracing whatever it was that killed that person. (e.g., run over by a garbage truck, and therefore the survivor now drives a truck to conquer that fear.)
• Continued Physical Symptoms of Stress.  High blood pressure. Ulcers. Poor sleep. Refusal to let anyone too close. If the bereavement was not dealt with and the “why” does not suffice, your character can go through a whole host of horrible symptoms.

Homework Assignment: How does your character handle grief in the long term? Do they embrace the cause of death, or run away from it? Has it shaped career choices?

Conclusion: Show Grief, Don't Tell It

If you want your character's grief to be powerful, you must learn to show it, not tell it .

You could say , “She cried,” or you could show that her nose is stuffed, that her eyes are simultaneously dry and leaking, and that her voice is hoarse.

You could  say,  “He had crazy thoughts of joining her,” or you could  show by having him ask himself, “What if I'd been in the car with her? What if I had begged her not to drive while drinking? If only I'd taken her keys!”

When Grieving, Write On

Permit me to get personal before practice time.

The years of 2011 to 2012 were rough. One of my best friends died, followed by my grandmother, then the college professor who was basically a surrogate father, and finally, my own mother.

The causes varied wildly (aneurysm; age; hit-and-run; drowning).  The timing was insane (February 2011; June 2011; December 2011; June 2012). It seemed I'd barely recovered from one loss when another would cut the corner to hit me head-on. To say it took a lot out of me is analogous to saying there are a lot of cats on the internet.

The thing is, I had a debut book to finish.  The Sundered was due to go public June, 2012. I couldn't afford to take time off creatively. I had to write through it, and I did that by focusing on what I experienced and pouring it into the page.

I wrote like a madwoman. Was everything I wrote good? Heck, no. No one will ever see most of what I wrote during that period (and believe me, you would thank me if you knew).

But am I glad I kept writing? Yes. A thousand times yes.

If you take nothing else from this article, take this: if you continue to create while you are grieving, you will survive it better. 

It's not a “why.” It doesn't make the loss less bad; but creation, like growth, only happens when we are living.

Keep writing. Keep creating. If you must break, break beautifully – and then your characters can break beautifully, too.

Has your character experienced grief? Have you?  Let us know in the comments section .

It's time to practice writing your character through grief. Take fifteen minutes  and dive into the story they're telling themselves about this loss (the why), then post it in the comments section . If you share a practice, please comment on the stories of others.

Ruthanne Reid

Best-Selling author Ruthanne Reid has led a convention panel on world-building, taught courses on plot and character development, and was keynote speaker for The Write Practice 2021 Spring Retreat.

Author of two series with five books and fifty short stories, Ruthanne has lived in her head since childhood, when she wrote her first story about a pony princess and a genocidal snake-kingdom, using up her mom’s red typewriter ribbon.

When she isn’t reading, writing, or reading about writing, Ruthanne enjoys old cartoons with her husband and two cats, and dreams of living on an island beach far, far away.

P.S. Red is still her favorite color.

59 Comments

She closed the door after she offered one last expression of gratitude, and he returned one last sentiment of condolence. She didn’t know what she had expected to happen next. Perhaps she thought she would slump down against the door, and sob helplessly, but instead, she found herself walking automatically back to the kitchen table. After all, she had been interrupted halfway through a meal, and they’d have wanted her to finish it. Starving children in Africa and all that. She took a bite of the leftover chicken breast, but didn’t taste it. Leftover chicken doesn’t usually have much of a taste, but today she probably could have chewed a fresh jalapeño without tasting it. She swallowed mechanically and picked up the next bite, her mind refusing to grasp anything consciously, until it seized upon a word. “Tragedy.” That was what the officer had said – it was a tragedy, her parents being killed in a hostage taking gone bad. Years of theatre training tumbled in her head as she thought about that one word. In a tragedy, the protagonist is tripped up by a tragic flaw. They have some character defect that inevitably leads to their downfall. Her parents aren’t tragic figures, they are – were – heroes. Philanthropists. They never had an unkind word to say to anyone, and had gone to the bank today to endow a scholarship. In fact, the only flaw that her parents could be said to have was her. She had applied to several colleges for theatre studies and dance, and her father had chided her softly about how she would change the world. She had heard the unspoken implication that she could be doing more, and had resented the guilt trip that she felt he was trying to place on her. Why shouldn’t she do what made her happy? Now, as she shoved another dollop of reheated mashed potatoes in her mouth, she felt the guilt anew. If this was a tragedy, she was the one with the tragic flaw. All of her parents’ kindness and money, and she was going to spend her days prancing gracefully around a stage, instead of doing something meaningful. Her eyes lit upon the business card upon the table; she had tossed it there carelessly after the officer had handed it to her, but now she studied it: the logo and name bringing back the image of the officer who had been given the unenviable task of bringing her the news, of his uniform, the haunted look behind his eyes of some tragedy of his own. Her parents were right. She could make a difference, and she knew how. She knew what she wanted to become. The difference between a comedy and a tragedy is that a comedy celebrates life, while tragedy highlights its futility. Her parents’ lives would not end as a tragedy, and certainly not through her own tragic flaws: her self-centeredness, her lack of ambition. Instead, she would take what her parents had given her and become a different sort of hero: one who could prevent evil from claiming innocent lives, like those of her parents.

I really like the little detail about her not tasting anything, and that she wouldn’t taste anything that day, I found the very effective. It’s also a nicely different take, having someone sit down and eat instead of throwing up or refusing food for days after the fact. Really well done, love it 🙂

Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for reading!

What a powerful piece! You leave me wanting to know more about what happened after this.

Once the diagnosis of cancer was made, he quit calling home. I didn’t have any communication with him after May 25, 2011. That was it. No more talks, no more reaching out, we were receiving texts once in a while.

It hurt. It hurt, more than anything else, to be shut out. I tried to tell myself; he was trying to protect me. But was he? I’m not sure. Four years later, as I write this, I wonder. When he stopped talking to us, my husband said something that has haunted me since. Roger said “Get on a plane before it’s too late.” I didn’t get on a plane. And, I regret it so much. I asked Christopher, “Could I come to take care of him?” He said “no.” Maybe, I shouldn’t have asked him. Maybe, I should have went without asking. These questions circulated my mind for years. They still do sometimes. There is no answer. In my mind by not being there at his bedside, and letting him die alone. I was a bad mother. Knowing that a good mother would have been at his side, I knew I was not a good mother. I was not there. After Christopher’s death, these thoughts were torturous. “How could a good mother not want to be there when their child is sick?” A mother is the first one to the aid of a sick child. A mother holds their hand, comforts them, and protects them. Knowing that Christopher died, and I was not present made me a bad mother. The good mother code had been broken. “How was I going to face my husband, my younger son, and myself knowing he died alone?” As a mother, I would have been watching over him. I know I would have noticed when he stopped breathing. As it unfolded, he stopped breathing, and was dead for a period of time. Before Britney came back into the room to find him dead in the hospital bed. Throughout this time, Bob and Jane, his friends, were watching over him while Britney was gone. They were in the room when he died. They never even noticed he was not breathing. It is inconceivable that they could be in a room with a dead body, and not know it. “Honestly, who does that?’ After his death, I chose to bury Christopher in South Dakota. His friends didn’t take this news well. I tried to explain away their behavior as being a part of their grief. Yet, the pain their behavior caused stays with me. The day after he died. Bob and Jane, the same two friends, who were in the room when he died, went to Christopher’s apartment. They told the landlord Christopher did not have any relatives. They requested the keys to his apartment. The landlord gave them the keys. They went into his apartment, and helped themselves to whatever they wanted. I found out days afterward, when I called the landlord, who told me what happened. I was devastated, and angry. “No relatives”, were they serious? He had a mother, a father, a step mother, a step father and two brothers, who cared about him deeply. He had grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles, who cared about him. It was a punch to the gut. When confronted, Jane said, “I was going to pack up his stuff and keep it in my garage.” I was furious, “how dare they mess with his stuff?” I wasn’t ready to say he was never coming back to his apartment. It had only been two days. Christopher wasn’t even in the ground yet. My husband said it best. He said, “Don’t mess with the baby bears stuff unless you want mama bear breathing down your neck.” The worst was yet to come, for his friends said, Christopher told them; I had not been a good mother. “I had not been there to support him except at graduation.” Another friend said, “Christopher had told her he hoped I was a better grandmother than I was mother.” “How did they know that was my weak point? How could they have known?” I told no one. It was a secret being a bad mother, I kept it to myself, and cried alone at night about it. Christopher’s “so-called” friend posted a message on my Facebook saying “Don’t think just because you came to his graduation that you were a good mother.” This message was left on my Facebook page for the whole world to see. I was exposed to be the bad mother, I was. A constant struggle from the time Christopher was born was making sure, I was a good mother. One hint, or one word that I was not a good mother would send me into a depression consistently throughout his life. My thoughts would race, my heart would pound, and I was exposed to be the bad mother, I was. After a few days, the loathing of myself would subside. Life interrupted forcing me to go forward. The perceived mistake, which had prompted the depression, would go underground to be relived in those moments of questioning: “Am I a good mother?” This fear of not being a good mother came, as most things do, through the interactions with one’s own parents. The relationship between my mother, and I has been rocky for most of my life. She is petite, blonde, and beautiful. I, however, am a carbon copy of my biological father. I have muddy blonde hair, blue eyes, with a stocky build. Not only were we different in appearances; we were different in personalities. Her every day interactions with the people around her always had a bite to it. I, on the other hand, was well liked, and personable including a strong sense of independence with a strong will. Interactions between us were clashes of dominance, which continue today. The strong will is both a strength, and a curse for submission is not allowed. In any interaction with my mother, submission was imperative for survival. My hypercritical mother was the one, who set the standards for parenting for everyone else except her. She insisted, she knew what a good mother was. “A good mother according to her never made mistakes” The problem being in her eyes, I was a giant, walking, mistake. Growing up, she often stated “Cristi, you have to live with me until you are 21 years. You are too stupid to make your own decisions.” Having Christopher when I was unmarried, and 19 years old did nothing to convince her; she was wrong. With the death of my son these images, and words came back to haunt me. Immediately, the old programming kicks in with the thought “I am a bad mother.” I had left my son in Louisiana. He had died alone without me by his side. The guilt kicked in convincing me, I was a bad person, a bad mother that is why he died. Every mistake I had made in my life came back to haunt me. My mother’s voice echoed through my head. “You are a bad mother. I need to take Christopher away from you” Always that fear was there, that she would follow through on her threats of taking him away. “Was I being punished for this mistake?” Or, maybe it was my biggest mistake of all; which was practicing an alternative religion which did not believe in Jesus Christ. “What was it?” “What made me so different than the other mothers who got to see their children grow up, get married, and grow old?” “How come me?” It was ever present in my mind, and never really left. “What did I do so wrong that I lost a child?” Having been a counselor for over 10 years, I saw many mothers, who did not necessarily like being a parent. These mothers were more interested in men, drugs, alcohol, or work. “How could they get to keep their children, and I could not?” It was a war between you are not being punished for your mistakes and you are being punished for your mistakes. This fear of not being a good mother is a major crisis surrounding the loss of a child. It is the fear, and the pain we keep in our souls. It is never shown the light, or shared for someone may say “you are a bad mother that is why your child died?”In retrospect, when I think about what would have happened if I had been 3,000 miles away from home, and lost my mind, what would have happened?” It scares me to think about it. I would have been wailing on the floor like a crazy banshee in a hospital; or I could have saved him by noticing he was not breathing. It is easy to look behind us into the past to do the “would have? Could have? And, should have? I judged myself more harshly than anyone else. But, this is what mothers’ do. We protect our children from the bad. We make them better when they are hurt, sad, or mad. Me as a mother, was supposed to make it better. I was supposed to be there to hold his hand as he died. I wasn’t there, and I failed him. Somehow in my irrational thinking process, I began to make a connection between my practices of an alternate religion with being a bad mother. The thought process became “I am a bad mother because I helped someone in the circle pray.” My friends endured endless questions asking the same thing. “Did I cause his death?” Over, and over again, I would ask. Despite the answer, I continued to ask. “Did I cause his death?” Alone at 2 or 3 am, this question raced through my mind. The logical mind would try to intervene. This emotion, this fear ran so deep; it could not be controlled with logic. This fear made his dying within my control. If it was within my control, I could have changed my behavior so he wouldn’t die. The unexpectedness, and uncontrollability of death, and its effects created havoc on my sense of self, my emotions, and my soul. If I could control death, then I could have prevented Christopher from dying.It looks like an easy process on paper, it was not. For months, this question was never far from my mind. I could be working. It would be a wiggle in the back of the brain. It woke me up most nights, and kept me awake for hours. I stopped asking others after a while. I finely figured out only I could answer the question. “Did I cause Christopher’s death?”The pain is an ache which never went away. It felt the same day or night, no matter what I was doing. Your brain doesn’t work right either when you have so much pain, and emotion inside of you. In order to think, I had to cut through these emotions, and pain to get to a place where thought would happen. Some days I didn’t have the energy to even try. My coping skills were overwhelmed when Christopher died. The emotional energy needed to cope with the thoughts of being a bad mother, or the emotions, and pain of death did not exist. Interestingly, it has been almost four years since Christopher died, and the intensity of my feelings are quite low compared to before he died. I tended to have powerful emotions that were difficult to control for years before Christopher died. Now, I don’t care about most things. The reality is I don’t have the emotional energy to care. I am completed drained of emotional energy. It does not seem to be coming back. In many ways, this is a blessing. Life is easier when the things you care about become a precious few. In some ways, it is a curse. There are days when I feel dead inside. I keep wondering “How come my give a dam is not working?” “When will it be fixed?” My “good mother crisis” has lessened over the years. “Do I still question myself about my parenting skills?” “Yes, I do” “I always will, because Christopher is not here to say, “You were a good mother” What has changed is the loathing, and self-hate, I flogged myself with which has been healed. I don’t have a formula that I can share which will help you heal. What I want to tell you, is you can heal. It takes time. It takes work. It takes believing in yourself. It is not something someone else can do for you. I can promise you, the journey will be worth it.

This is a combination of excerpts from a chapter in a book I am set to publish on July 1, called the Solitary Journey through the loss of a child. It took me 149 pages to answer your 15 minutes practice. There is so much more to grief.

Wow. This was incredibly emotionally raw. It got to the point, about halfway through, where I started to wince every time I read the words “bad mother.” In most things I read, I’d criticize such a repetition of two phrases (“good mother”/”bad mother”), but it was incredibly effective here, because that’s what grief and guilt do – they drive that same message into your head over and over. It was very moving. I would suggest you have someone go through it and proofread it before you publish it. There are a few minor typos (“give a dam” instead of “damn”, “baby bears”-missing an apostrophe, etc.) and I don’t know if it’s an artifact of it being a combination of excerpts, but you may want to improve the paragraphing, for readability’s sake. That stream-of-consciousness, one-thought-running-into-another effect works well here for a monologue on motherhood, but if it’s the same kind of paragraphing over 149 pages, that might get tedious. Once again, this was heart-wrenching, and it so powerfully answered the prompt and showed real grief. Thank you for showing us your beating heart (unless that was fiction, in which case, holy crap, that is even more impressive).

Thanks. I am having a friend edit for me. I started with a professional editor. It changed the story when she did that. I wanted it to be my words. Thanks for the edits. And not fiction that is my heart. There is less emotional content between those paragraphs. I left them out because it did not answer the prompt.

A professional editor shouldn’t change your words, they should make suggestions for how you might change your words and help you to change them, should you both decide it’s needed. The only words editors should change are ones that are simply incorrect – you’ve used an incorrect version of the same word, or affect instead of effect, inquiry instead enquiry etc. I say this as an editor myself – if the person you were working with was changing your words, they weren’t doing their job correctly. Don’t let it put you off working with someone else in future, you just have to find the right fit for you. Someone specific to your genre who has a track record of editing books you love is always a good start 🙂

Good points, Hazel. Also a good editor will do a sample edit so you can decide if they are the right fit. I had the opposite problem. I kept asking my editor for suggestions which he refused to do as he said he was not the author and that was not his place! Luckily he did two passes (for the price of one) so I finally accepted that I need to “find the right words” myself. That was my biggest fear when looking for an editor: that they would change my words. It’s ironic that I then turned around and was asking for suggestions. Sherrie Do you know a/b my debut novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador”? A young American woman goes to war-torn El Salvador: http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y

I would also recommend a test section being done before you commit to anything for the sake of both author and editor – both need to know they are happy to work with the other and that they are a good fit, and the editor needs to know the MS is something they are comfortable working with and can do a good job on – a good editor will not accept anything that’s outside their remit. I’m happy to make suggestions regarding how to reformat a sentence, or restructure something if i’m copy-editing, but I’ll go no further than that. It really depends on what form of editing I’m doing – if I’m doing Line by Line or developmental editing I will make suggestions on word choice if I feel it’s necessary, or if the author asks for help, but under the strict understanding that I’m doing so as an EXAMPLE of what needs to be done in order smooth out that section. The Author should then re-work the section in their own words, bearing in mind what I’ve said. It’s not always easy for two different people to understand an explanation of the weaknesses of a particular aspect of a work without actually demonstrating it.

“Your brain doesn’t work right either when you have so much pain, and emotion inside of you.”

I LOVE this line! It’s so true, and something that people who’ve never been there often don’t quite grasp. I really like the fixation on blame and whether or not it was her fault – that, again, is a thing that often happens. Grief turns to obsession so easily, I’ve often wondered if it’s actually a coping mechanism – by pouring all your energy into wondering if (say) you were a bad mother and it was your fault, you don’t actually have to deal with the greater trauma. You’re too busy worrying over a relatively small concern to actually face the fact you’ve lost a child.

Really enjoyed this (if enjoyed is the right word), thanks for sharing!

Thanks Hazel. I am never quite sure if someone will get it. Yes, it is a coping mechanism I believe too.

It seems that God is trying to break through your doubt, if you will open your heart to him. I really admire that you were able to share this, and even more that you can write a book describing that worst moment in your life. I wish you all the best with your writing! “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men” -Reagan

Oh my, the what-ifs. I know them very well. My wife decided on a Sunday in 2008, when I was gone to end her life. I have spent the years since playing that what-if, and so many variations of that, game. What if I had not been gone? What if I had gotten her more involved in whatever? What if this, maybe that, but in the end I realized if not then, it would have been another time. In the end I realized I gave her twenty good years that most likely she would not have had. I loved her then, I love her now, and there are still bubbles of grief that inundate me over the loss, but I have moved on.

Cristi, I wasn’t able to read this for a while because of real-life grief. It’s evocative; you’ve tapped into the real regrets and questions we all do in situations like this. Thank you for sharing such a raw and powerful piece!

We were taking an intersection down Route 54 when this truck turned up on our left. The semi-trailer kept swerving closer to use with each turn so I punched the horn and honked the hell out of ’em. Nearly forced us into the barrier. Jimmy was in the passenger. Our aunt Kelly preffered the backseat with charlie. He was swell little pup–was to be a birthday gift for the nephew. But anyway, Jimmy started hollaring:

“Just slow down and wait for the douche to pass.”

“No way,” I affirmed, “I’m not letting this guy get ahead just ’cause he wants to. I follow the rules why-why can’t he, huh?”

“Sis, take a deep breath. We’ll make it to the party on time. Better safe than sorry,”–

“Sorry my ass! That fucker ain’t getting away with this.”

I don’t really remember the rest of the argument but Jimmy wouldn’t back down. Aunt Kelly eventually thought to bud in and said something stupid so I told her to, “Shut up! This is my car–my rules. What makes you think you can,”–

And then Jimmy called me an arragant fuck and that I ought to never talk to aunt Kelly like that, “Because she loves you! Get you’re head out of your ass!”

I think started to shut them out and just listen to Bastille play, ‘Pompeii,’ on the radio. Jimmy asked me to turn it down, so I turned it up. That might be why I didn’t hear the crash happen up ahead.

The nurse told me the report a little after I woke up in the hospital. The truck that tried to get ahead of me was blocking the road for some other dumb fuck, so they decided to speed ahead and fly-by a few others. They hit some minivan off course and then the whole highway turned into a wreck. Jimmy was right, that trucker was a duche. ‘Course, his vehical was largest so he was already pretty safe. I kept looking around the room to find Jimmy or Kelly in the bed next to me, but they weren’t, so I called for a nurse to ask where they were. It took a minute or two for her to spout, “They didn’t make it,” becuase before that she kept coming up with some stupid anology or metaphore to say that they were dead and I don’t like stupid sentimental shit like that- I like things real and punishing. I like the rain to hit my face, not blocked by some goddam unbrella and–and . . . and. *Sniff And now it’s not just my legs and heart that hurts, but my eyes are all red and sore so I can’t see straight. Waiting on my nephew to show up. Every time he sees me he perks up and says, “hey, you pretty thing!” And I smile and hug him tight. I just want to smile, you know?

Wow, Yitzchak – what a sad piece. Thank you so much for sharing it. This sounds like the jump-off for a bigger story of living with everthing that happened. Wow.

A very interesting article, with some excellent advice. I write about death, dying and grief an awful lot, so I thought I’d add my own thoughts on this one – I won’t add a practice as this is going to be too long already (sorry! do skip it if you’re uninterested!). Grief is perhaps the most devastating emotion a person can ever feel, yet no two people ever experience it in the same way, even if they’ve lost the same person, and were both there to witness it happen. They saw the same events, smelled the same things, heard the same things, perhaps even touched the same things, but their individual experiences will have been entirely different. Their reactions will be completely different. In my experience a well written scene about grief has little to do with the details of what is happening – the scene itself, the external senses – and everything to do with the internal. The bizarre way the world is suddenly muffled, as if you were in a soundproof room with the door open a crack. You can just about hear that there’s something being said on the other side of that door, but you can’t understand it, and even if you could you wouldn’t care. Your insides seem to have vanished, leaving nothing but a void within you, and its pulling at you and dragging you in. You can’t breathe, you can’t think, you can’t comprehend what is happening because it’s so unfathomable that you could continue to exist in the world when this person you loved is suddenly absent. Perhaps you cry, perhaps you scream, perhaps you grow so angry you kick the crap out of anyone else who happens to be in that soundproof room with you, but you’re not aware you’re doing it. Not really. It’s all happening to someone else, and you’re kind of watching it happen, but your getting sucked into this awful void, and pulled apart from the inside out, so it’s a little difficult to concentrate. I’ve known people not react at all for days, weeks, sometimes years, then suddenly they start crying and screaming that such and such is dead. It could have happened a month ago, it could have happened a year ago, it doesn’t matter. Grief has no rules. Your body and mind deal with it in whatever way they can, and if they can’t deal with it, if it’s just too much for them to bear, they block it out until they’re capable of handling it, or until something else happens that pushes you so far it all ends up coming out anyway. That’s the kind of grief that leaves people mad. Maybe not forever, maybe only for a little while, but grief can drive you insane. And there are no rules when it comes to insanity. Everyone experiences it in their own way and everyone deals with it in their own way. I’m incredibly sorry to hear of your losses, Ruthanne, but I can very much relate to your need to write through it – although in my case I kept writing because it was the only way to keep myself from going mad. The result of that was my debut novel. It’s perhaps not surprising that the main themes are death, suicide, and grief. That was what I was when I was writing it. It wasn’t what I was feeling, or seeing, or experiencing, it was what I had become, body, heart and soul. I like to think that the only good thing to come out of it is that I at least managed to write a character to whom people can relate, and a character people can understand even if they’ve never actually experienced what she had been through. Her husband had killed himself, she spends the majority of the books suicidal herself due to her grief over his death, and her friends – who were also his friends – are dealing with their own grief at the loss in their own ways. Thank you very much for the tips – I am always looking to improve on writing grief credibly.

Your words are so familiar. Reached in and pulled them out. Let me know about your book. I would like to read. So healing writing the story isn’t !

Thank you, Cristi. The book is available on Amazon, it’s called Chasing Azrael. I’d post a link, but I’m not sure what the policies are on posting links to our own work. Be sure to let me know when yours is finished too, as I’d love to read the full thing.

Well said! What a beautifully honest post. Yes, people do respond to grief in unique ways. My sister and I were both present when our mother passed, yet have dealt with her passing in remarkably different ways. The foundational belief system is challenged especially by death, affirmed for some, found insufficient for some. Writing about grief for a character to experience has given me opportunities to explore different reactions that keep the character’s response true to that character. Your story no doubt expresses the raw emotions of grief for your character and that honesty is what your readers respond to. Congratulations on completing what must have been a difficult work.

Thanks for this, Hazel. I had to cut a lot of it down; there’s so much that the grieving experience which reach outside “normal” everyday life. Everyone’s experience is different, but those things which are part of simple human grief are what make this relatable.

This is based on the characters of the novel I’m working on. The backstory is that he’s a doctor, and he lost his sister and both his parents 7 years ago. The girl he’s mad at is a patient at the hospital who is a Christian, and was injured in an accident.

Jacob placed a death grip on the railing, his palms sweaty. His pounding heart refused to slow its pace, despite his trying to logically calm himself down. How could seven years of struggling have been brought down so easily? He stared down eight stories to the street below, keeping his eyes open as wide as he could to prevent any tears from appearing. He didn’t see the street, though, and he didn’t hear the noise, despite how loud it was in metro Boston. He saw that fateful night, and he heard the phone call.

How long he had struggled to forget it. How many nights he had sat in his cold, lonely apartment, and how many longs days and hours working at the hospital had it taken to get to this point, only to be brought down in an instant, by that girl. That girl. That pious Alyssa Brenton, who thought the whole world was okay. Who didn’t even have the sense to know when she was beaten. You’d think that girl going through so many problems in her own life wouldn’t be so chipper. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but that was what got to him the most. There was no way a person could be so happy, not when he hadn’t even smiled since that tragic night. Why should he have to live through this agony, while she went happily through life like nothing had happened

But things happened. They happened to him. He breathed heavily in and out as the pain started to overtake him, and as he started to fight it. He leaned against the railing, weary. He would give anything to have taken their places. If he had only been there. If he had only told them how much he had loved them. But now, there was nothing. Not even work could distract him from this. There was no point to life, to living another minute. Slowly, he slid his body down the railing and sat against it. If seven years had done nothing to lessen his grief, nothing would. Nothing.

Hi, Reagan! I have to disagree with the idea that you’re not very good at this. 🙂 I found this scene really interesting, and I’m very curious to know more.

Thanks! I’m still learning, and ‘show don’t tell’ has always been something I’ve struggled with. This is from my current WIP, a Christian romance novel. He and the girl he’s thinking about (and hating) fall in love. I’m so glad you liked this scene!

‘whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men’ Reagan http://www.fiction4hisglory.com

Whoa! Good one, Ruthanne. I’m saving this over to my special “writers stuff” file. You could make a good short book out of this material. Serendipitously, not 20 minutes ago I posted a piece about sorrow on my blog. But yours is seriously comprehensive. Pardon me while I check out your website.

Thanks, PJ! I’m really trying to share the things I’ve learned, and if any of it is helping others, then I call it a success. 🙂

My Mother Betty was like all others moms but the type of family living through my fathers harsh and abusive ways for all of my child hood , and everything mom took from her Husband was so horrific from the Alcohol and the beatings and the molestation she new dad with her own daughters and nothing she could do , father had gotten away with all of his ruthless ways on her seven children, and mom still stayed with her Husband.

But through all these years of fear ,I was so scared to even tell the truth or even tell a lie

so while I was being Molested by 12 Different men till I was old enough to run away from all of the above, I headed to the streets of Toronto Ontario trying to find love of some kind from someone,

My mind was full of distorted ways I could not even be a normal Teenager like others ,could not Communicate to any normal person , but on the streets everyone understood me just like my Mother, she would always tell me how Special I really was and mom also told me its not how many that Love you Robbie it is who Loves you, I could never Understand this until 55 years Later.

My mother took ill and I would take the Greyhound every weekend to see my mother at the Hospital and then she was sent home because Cancer set in , My mother suffered for 5 years , but one day I got a call mom is worse , I had no Money at this time so I decide to start walking from London to Brantford Ontario.

I proceed to walk on the 401 and walked all the way to Brantford and took me 17 hours to get to moms house, when I went in she grab my little face with two hands and tells me Robbie i love you so much , I see in her eyes like never before and she past away soon after , I watched her last breath with my father and that was it,

I could not even cry but loved her so dearly as we all did, but as I had to go back home I was given bus fare to get the greyhound back home , I sat on the bus and the tears came rolling down all the way to London , and for some reason I found peace I never ever Felt , I just hope you all understand this in some way Thanks

Wow, Robert. I can’t even begin to understand what this must have been like. Thank you for sharing such a painful, vulnerable piece.

This is intriguing, and now bookmarked. My main character, Carter Blake, has one more stage of grief when his beloved is killed: The unleashing of his Super-Powered Evil Side ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperpoweredEvilSide ). That comes first and is the main driver of the sequel, Rise of the DarkWalker: The Chronicles of Carter Blake, Book II .

However, once the SPES is conquered, I’m gonna need these tips for the rest of the story. Thank you.

I wanted to try this one again. I got lost in my first attempt and didn’t follow the advice of the blog.

Now when Ruth walked the beach, the once-soft sand that cushioned her feet and squeezed through her toes felt hard; she could feel each little grain of sand attempt to slice through her skin. The sea’s breezes no longer made her feel refreshed, but punched her in the face and gut. Her once-proud gait was now slumped and slow; Ruth left long, shallow ditches behind her as she dragged along the beach.

Ruth’s beach walks were getting longer and longer as she tried to force herself to keep moving ahead. But she never got very far. She felt she was searching for something and hoped she might walk out of this nightmare back to the world she once knew when she walked the beach with Chloe. But whenever thoughts of Chloe entered her mind she began walking faster, pushing more and more sand behind. “She’s here,” she thought. “Just a few more steps.” And then would come the inevitable realization that she could never walk backwards, to the past. Then would come the inevitable collapse into the sand, her chest heaving, her wails deep and long.

She lost it all when she lost Chloe. She was no longer a mother, father, teacher, life-coach, friend. Now she was simply a repository for scattered memories that were too painful to relive for very long.

On a bright, sunny day, a little boy saw Ruth shuffling along the beach. He approached Ruth.

“Are you looking for something?”

Ruth looked at the little boy, his innocence evident in his open, shining smile. She wondered how to make the little boy leave her alone without being mean.

After a while Ruth answered. “Yes, I’m looking for something.”

The little boy looked up at Ruth, shielding his freckled face from the sun. “Is it your smile? My Aunt Dot said that when my mommy died, she lost her smile.”

Ruth looked out to sea, fighting desperately to stifle a scream churning up inside her.

Finally Ruth looked back to the little boy. “Yes, that’s what I’m looking for…my smile.”

“I’ll help you look.”

The little boy took Ruth’s hand.

Ruth’s throat tightened and she was unable to speak. She didn’t have enough heart remaining to have it ripped open again.

But the little boy gave a tug on Ruth’s hand, and Ruth began moving forward, putting one foot ahead of the other.

A good story of showing and not telling grief. I felt I was walking along the beach with Ruth. The end is perfect, of the little boy offering to help Ruth find her smile and taking her hand to lead her. Thanks for sharing.

Okay, now I’m reaching for tissue. So innocent this little boy. Going through my own grief myself this touched me deeply- wise beyond his years this one. Love reading pieces like this.

I love your use of imagery, great showing, not telling! Great story!

Wow, what a powerful scene! This really moved me. Thank you for sharing it!

Dear Ruthanne, this is a fabulous post. I ‘ll bookmark it right away to read over and over of the ways of ‘showing’ not ‘telling’ about grief. I’m writing a true story of a couple who immigrated to America. Your article comes in handy to help me ‘show’ the grief they encountered. Thank you so much.

Yes, the grieving of leaving everything behind. That has to be huge. Then to come to a country where people often don’t even know their neighbors? Whew, wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Though, of course, it happens all the time. Sherrie Do you know a/b my debut novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador”? A young American woman goes to war-torn El Salvador: http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y

Thanks for your comment, Sherpeace. I’m looking up your novel as soon as I post this. If a person is forced to immigrate, he/she will not integrate fully. If a person chooses to immigrate, I think they will eventually fit into the new country and enjoy it.

Thanks, Lilian! That sounds like a really solid use of this. Wow – to have left everything behind, even one’s native tongue… wow. That’s a lot of grief.

I re-posted this on A Page A Day https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Page-A-Day-Lets-all-write-just-one-page-a-day/103970129720405?fref=ts I can’t imagine what you went through but I do know that losing my mother-in-law, then my mother made my novel much richer. Since my protagonist was encountering death at ever turn, the deaths in the novel were better understood and felt by the protagonist. Sherrie Do you know a/b my debut novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador”? A young American woman goes to war-torn El Salvador: http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y

Wow, I didn’t know about your novel! Thank you for sharing it, Sherrie. I don’t think anyone can understand grief until they’ve been there, but eventually, everyone DOES get to that place. It means this is important to write about. Thanks for sharing!

It’s actually quite intressting how you mentioned the forgetting the person point. In the story I’m planning, a character actually went through that. I was somehow worried it didn’t sound realistic or anything, but thanks!

You’re welcome, Aala!

I myself have experienced grief a few times with my dad and more recently my grandad – I suppose that’s one of the main reasons why my character has a minor storyline that revolves around her parents and the “replacement dad” she had as a teenager. But the grief that she has to go through in the main story is over a man that she was going to marry. I tried writing what it would be like for her, but I just don’t think I’m ready to go there, yet :/

I hear you, Forth’Wyn. Take your time. The story takes shape at the pace it needs to.

My father was from the first world war he was a gunner there was a self portrait of him a painted photograph that was sitting on the mantle piece I was cherished where I was seated there was always a reminder of him I missed the fact that there wasnt any attachment any more like sending me to school no more talks or any love . I had hunger pains in my gut and thirsted of the horrors he must have gone through when he was at war it made me sick to the stomach of how the man would have felt I wished that I could have said more when he was alive the guilt I felt at this moment time ticked on and on 15 years had passed since he died it was another hour that passed as I was getting tired for a afternoon nap I lay rested and realised that there was nobody to put me in bed

I especially like the very physical responses to grief. “…hunger pains in my gut…” The last line is especially poignant.

That’s powerful, Kim. Thank you for sharing such brutal and powerful thoughts.

Great article! I especially love the questions. They really help me identify the core issue for several characters in my works in progress. This particular practice is a early teen boy protag who has lost, not a person, but his way of life.

This place stinks. The cows stink. The chickens stink. The pigs stink. I am not one of the farm kids. I did not grow up on a farm. Never touched a cow. Never drove a tractor. Just because I’m here now, that doesn’t change anything. It’s temporary. Soon as Grandpa is better, we’ll go home. There’s no place to even walk to around here. No basketball court, no theater, no arcade games, no stores, no friends. There’s nothing but pasture fields surrounded by trees and narrow roads that lead to more farms, and snotty, stinking cows behind every fence. Even the school is dumb.

I’m so glad to hear that, Cathy! I can feel this kikd’s frustration. What a rough spot for your protagonist to be in!

Within 6 months time my brother’s wife died (on my anniversary) then my job was lost due to a merger, then my oldest son died in a fall at my home, and on the same day as my son’s death, another brother’s wife died. Although I didn’t write about my grief, I read countless other books about other peoples losses. As I digested the words about their great grief; their pain reflected my own pain. As their sorrow flowed across the page, I joined my hands and heart to them. Yes, we cried together. My tears wet the pages with such a deep ache for them and for myself. I was truly grateful for authors who shared their pain, which helped me to feel, cry and slowly come out of the darkness and into the light.

Oh, Marilyn; my heart aches for you. I can’t agree enough on the power of *grieving together* with others through their own written story. I hope someday you can write about your experiences, helping others to weep, too.

Did I never know pain before this moment?

Nothing can compare the hole that is within my chest right now. Not after everything that vile monster tried to do to me, the years of humiliation, fear and disgust. Not even after Marco and I discovered the truth behind my actual birth. Not even after I realized how much years I’ve lost, the pain I endured all to please the ego and pockets of a man who thought it was his god-given right to toy with my life.

Agony doesn’t drown you. It burns the internal core of who you are. It leaves nothing but ashes, not even broken pieces to help you piece something of yourself together. I didn’t lie there quietly as he died. I clutched his hand and begged to whoever, whatever I could ask. Doctors and nurses left the room, unable to watch the scene unfolding before them.

For the first time in my life I truly prayed to whatever higher being there was, because at this point I was so desperate. I prayed to whatever, bargaining my soul. I was ready to give up anything, my limbs, my eyes, my hearing, my own life just to give Marco another chance. From begging to bargaining, to complete threats I literally swore to myself that when I met God I’d punch him was because of the lie God told us he was, that he was so ‘almighty’ but at this moment when I can promise you, he could hear me right now and chose to do nothing.

What was worse was the silence that greeted me. The inevitable knowledge that you are going to be separated from someone you loved. That no amount of praying, begging or bargaining was going to keep them from leaving you. I wonder if this was what it felt like to have your soul ripped out while you were still alive. Physical pain cannot compare to emotional pain because at least you can see the wounds, assess and take painkillers, escape to some sort of high. But emotional pain is when you are killing yourself, and is inescapable.

Because agony doesn’t make you just cry. It makes you scream, and I swear the screams left me sounded so terrible that it seemed unreal. It wasn’t a small, feminine scream or moan. It was the animalistic, gut-wrenching roar that left my throat. The scream that you make when you feel as though you lost everything. That was what it felt like. A long, antagonized, never ending scream of grief that no words could ever describe.

My only light was extinguished from the world.

Oh, Salwa! This is written so well. I find myself weeping along with it; the desperation and pain are shown exceedingly well, and I find it impossible not to relate and empathize. Thank you for sharing this.

Thanks for the comment Ruthanne. Looking back at this after two months I do feel a bit mortified, it seemed a bit melodramatic, no?

Thank you for this blog and for the opportunity to learn and share.

Thank you for writing such an inspiring article, both from a writer’s point of view and person!

Hello, Ruthanne Reid, you have well described about grief. And we have described about stages of grief ( https://thewellnesscorner.com/Article/StayHappy/Seven-stages-of-grief ). All individuals dealing with loss go through these stages, not necessarily in the same order.

This is SO helpful! Thank you so much.

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How to Write About Grief in a Story or Novel

Writing about happy moments is easier than writing about grief. Writing about grief gets even more challenging in fictional writing. Many writers feel that they have it all figured out with writing about grief in a stor y or a novel, but there is a lot they do wrong. Putting grief adds a twist to your plot, which is why you need to get it right always. Join us as we take you through how to write about grief in your story or novel like an experienced person in writing business. However, before that, you need to consider what will make the reader tick on reading grief in your plot.

You need to be real in demonstrating grief. The best way to do it is by pouring out your heart. At least each of us has grieved in their life or has seen someone grief. Therefore, the image of the character shows how the character truthfully did it.    

You need to cry on the page because that is what people do when they are grieving.  Use your keyboard to rain tears, and your readers will find themselves also weeping. Such emotion is memorable to the reader. If you do a good job, the reader should remember that emotion to the end. A human writer can most certainly do this, but artificial intelligence cannot.  Demonstrate grief in your writing through different sets of emotions. Love, pain, hope, and sorrow are some of the emotions that play out during grief. Use them subtly and make the reader believe. 

3. Vulnerability

Death makes most, if not all, vulnerable. When people lose a loved one, they become weak. Remember that you are the one writing and ask yourself to what extent you are willing to demonstrate a sense of vulnerability truthfully. When you are hurt and feel the pain but are not sure whether to accept that it hurts, you are in your most vulnerable state. If you can do this with your character and make the reader feel the vulnerability, then you have partially succeeded in selling grief to them.

Now that you know what makes the reader at the mention of grief.  Below is how you can write about grief.

1. Make the Reader Care

You may be tempted to capture grief at the early stages of your writing, but let us face it your reader might sail through the grief section without notice. A good example is going to the funeral of a person and relatives you do not know. The truth is that you may go to bed that night, not have felt somber unless you cared. Grief writing takes the same shape.

You need to make your reader care about the character. When they love or care about the character, then you might surprise them with a loss or celebration of life.  However, how do you do this? Acquaint your reader with the character. Let the reader know and connect with their persona. When you are sure the reader cares, break their heart with grief.      

2. Avoid Making the Characters Isolated

One thing that makes people grief is their relationship to one another.  Grief in your writing will only work if the people are connected in some way.  Grief writing is even with a moment of uncertainty. When a character is isolated, a good reader can predict how the plot could end up. Whereas in a real-life situation, when a life is lost, people could want to separate from others, the opposite works best when writing grief in fiction.              

3. Keep Nudging Forward

When your character is grieving, you have the chance to move the story in a different direction than as planned. Do not allow the character to heal; remember the story needs to keep moving and that there is an end to it all. Control the way the character griefs because grief takes long and that it is always an unexpected occurrence.

4. Demonstrate a Transition in Dealing With Grief

Choosing to entrench grief is a long shot. Make the reader travel with the character through the grieving period. Emotions such as anger, denial, shock, fear, guilt, and betrayal are a sign that the character is moving through grief. These emotions also give some pace to your story. If well done, your reader will involuntarily heal together with the character.    

  5. Find an Outlet for Grief

The most common reaction for a grieving person is the fact that they may want to isolate themselves. You do not want the character to lose value. This means that your writing should allow the character to leave grief. An example could be your character develops a new liking or new skill, maybe dancing or swimming, something that sets them on their journey. This new liking or ability should help the character feel better and even get a better understanding of the world through when there is grief. Something about the character needs to change after an instance of death.   

6. Mind the Ending of Grief

Once the character has left a moment of grief, the ending of your story needs to be exhaust grief. The character may not heal, but you need to show an end to it conclusively. Show whether the person agrees to change after the death of someone they cared about and show the strength of character after a loss. Moreover, what is the character's plan after a loss? Finally, whether the character’s need to love or be loved increases.

You have known that the reader needs to see emotion, feel your honesty, and feel the person's vulnerability. Knowing what goes on in the mind of a reader opens you up to writing about grief naturally and gets you the organic reaction you want from them. You only need to make your reader care about the character, avoid Isolating the character, nudge forward by controlling the character’s moment of grief, show a transition in character dealing with grief, leave the moment of grief and satisfactorily end the moment of grief .

A writer and editor who has a Master degree in Marketing. She combines her passion for writing with her interest in research and creates thought-provoking content in various fields. Besides working as a contributor writer for TrustMyPaper  and  Studicus , Diana also a part of the editorial team at SupremeDissertations . What inspires her the most in her writing is traveling and meeting new people. Follow her on Twitter .  

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How to Write Your Way Through Loss and Grief

by Beth Castrodale

In late 2014 and early 2015, both of my elderly parents died within four months.

Although their deaths were far from unexpected, I found myself unable to forge ahead on the novel I’d been working on over the previous two years. Against the loss of my parents, the novel felt trivial. Furthermore, grief diminished my ability to concentrate and to devote to the novel the close attention it required. So I set it aside.

Yet writing was, and still is, an important part of my life; in fact, when it’s going well I feel most fully alive. I wanted to give myself opportunities to re-experience that feeling, however fleetingly.

Thus, instead of allowing grief to get in the way of my writing, I let it become a subject of my writing, exploring loss through short works of fiction and nonfiction.

Over the months that followed, this strategy helped me cope with the emotions surrounding the deaths of my parents, allowing me to get back on track with my novel.

Writing About Difficult Life Events Helps Us Cope

Studies have found that writing about traumatic, stressful, or emotional events can improve physical and mental health. Compared with control subjects, those who wrote about difficult life events experienced such benefits as fewer stress-related visits to the doctor, improved mood, and a feeling of greater psychological well-being (Baikie and Wilhelm).

Studies also indicate that writing about dead friends or loved ones, in particular, is a way by which we can maintain a bond with them, helping us cope with their loss (Pennington).

Writing about loss can also allow us to make meaning—even art—from something we are struggling to come to terms with. As writer Tara DaPra eloquently observes in her essay “Writing Memoir and Writing for Therapy:”

“Perhaps the only recompense for tragedy—for death and loss of innocence—is the chance to create some measure of beauty. The marvel of a well-crafted sentence—finding just the right diction and syntax—is a small triumph over pain, a way to create order in the world.”

A dear friend of mine, poet Beth Gylys, described to me how important writing has been in helping her cope with loss:

“I likely became a writer in order to process grief.  A sensitive, introspective child, I needed a mechanism to understand complication and difficulty. Though writing didn’t necessarily offer answers, it at least enabled me to tease out some of the messier dimensions of living:  loss of life, ends of relationships, complicated love dynamics. When I feel writing percolate, often that urge stems from either a lack of understanding or a wish to wrangle meaning out of the inexplicable. Though my subjects aren’t always directly about grieving, an element of grief often compels me to write.”

Strategies for Writing About Loss and Grief

You might prefer to reflect on your loss privately in a journal, unrestrained by your internal editor or by concerns about what others might think of your writing. Or you might feel the need to express yourself publicly—for example, through a Facebook post or through a more formal piece of writing that you revise based on outside feedback.

Sometimes, you might use both approaches. For instance, after composing journal entries, you might eventually turn a critical eye to them, looking for larger points to make in a blog post or essay.

In the following sections, I’ll discuss both strategies, starting with the more private ones then moving toward public forms of expression.

1. Keeping a journal, but “directing” your entries.

Journaling can offer an opportunity to freely express emotions about loss, and it may provide a cathartic form of relief. Psychologists Wendy G. Lichtenthal and Robert A. Neimeyer have found, though, that for those who are struggling to make meaning from loss, directed journaling is more effective in helping them make sense of their emotions and experiences, and it can reduce symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress.

Lichtenthal and Neimeyer explain that, in contrast to open-ended journaling, directed journaling focuses on one or both of the following purposes: sense making and benefit finding.

Sense-making journaling involves answering such questions as, “How did you make sense of the death or loss at the time?” and “How do you interpret the loss now?”

In benefit-finding journaling, writers look for positive aspects of the loss, reflecting on questions like, “In your view, have you found any unsought gifts in grief?” and “What lessons about loving or living has this person or this loss taught you?”

According to Lichtenthal and Neimeyer, such reflective writing “can help us make sense of a world that doesn’t.”

2. Writing a letter to someone you lost.

When the absence of a loved one feels especially acute, or if you are feeling regrets about something you did or didn’t say to him or her, writing a letter can provide comfort and insight.

According to Neimeyer, “The most therapeutic letters appear to be those in which the griever speaks deeply from the heart about what is important as he or she attempts to reopen contact with the deceased, rather than seek ‘closure’ of the relationship.”

He offers several prompts as possible starting points for letters, among them: What I have always wanted to tell you is …, What I now realize is …, and The one question I have wanted to ask is ….

As Neimeyer and other researchers have noted, social media can offer a forum for sending messages to lost loved ones. For example, some people post their thoughts, feelings, and tributes to the Facebook pages of deceased friends or family members. Though these methods can be helpful too, letters allow for more in-depth reflection, in privacy.

One resource, AfterTalk.com, provides a kind of bridge between the analog and online ways of expressing thoughts and feelings to lost loved ones. The site offers a Private Conversations space, in which people can write to deceased loved ones in total privacy or opt to share their writing with family, friends, or therapists. The site provides a list of “conversation starters” as prompts for such writing.

3. Writing a memoir.

You may wish to share your thoughts or reflections on loss publicly, but in a more extended and polished form than a social media post would allow. This is another way to make meaning from grief and to maintain connections to deceased loved ones.

Tara DaPra has shared strategies for composing an “emotionally driven” memoir, such as one dealing with loss. Her advice is relevant for both book-length memoirs and essay- or blog-length ones (the type I’ve composed).

The first draft, DaPra suggests, may involve just getting events, emotions, and impressions down on paper without critically analyzing them, a process that can offer catharsis. Eventually, however, thoughtful reflection will be essential, she notes.

She also says, “Generating, which sometimes comes easily, other times painfully, is only the first step in the writing process. The real work is in workshop, revision, and polishing the completed work.” DaPra’s observation is a good reminder of the importance of getting feedback on any piece of writing one hopes to make public.

In my mother’s case, the memories concerned her experiences on the farm that she grew up on and that has been in our family for many years, connecting generations. In a sense, her experiences became my experiences. (Read the post about my mom here .)

In my blog about my father, I reflected on his audio recordings of his memories, which preserved both his stories and the sound of his voice. (I included clips from the recordings in the post.) Both posts honored and strengthened my bonds with my parents and helped me feel less alone with my grief. (Read the post about my father here .)

4. Addressing loss through fiction or poetry.

For me, fiction has offered a way to transcend my personal experiences with loss and, in that way, come to terms with them.

In the last year of my parents’ lives, my mother was physically disabled and suffering from worsening dementia, and my father’s increasing frailty made it harder and harder for him to care for her at the home they’d shared for many years. Hoping to address these challenges, my brothers and I got them into an assisted-living facility.

The result was a complicated brew of outcomes and emotions. My parents got exceptional care from genuinely compassionate staff. At the same time, my father grieved the loss of the independence he’d held onto for so long, and he continued to mourn the loss of my mother as he’d once known her.

As illogical as this may sound, I couldn’t fight the feeling that uprooting my parents from their old life hastened their declines: nine months after moving into the assisted-living facility, my father was gone, and four months later, my mother followed him.

After their deaths, I couldn’t get their final days and hours out of my mind, and part of all of these memories—sometimes in the shadows, other times at my parents’ bedsides—were kind and caring nurses and their assistants, in their maroon scrubs.

I found myself asking questions about these caregivers: What were they thinking about as my parents’ lives wound down? How were they able to remain so present for my folks, and for my brothers and me, during such a difficult time? In a larger sense, how did they manage to carry on with a job that required them to face, fairly regularly, the loss of people to whom they’d grown attached?

My reflections on these questions led me to write a short story told from the point of view of a nursing assistant at a facility much like the one where my parents spent their final days. The story explores how the assistant deals with the loss of a patient much like my father, and how—even while dealing with personal difficulties—she continues to show compassion for his wife and for other patients.

By assuming the nursing assistant’s point of view, I got just enough distance from my own experience to achieve a new perspective on it. I felt less alone with my grief and my sense of guilt, and I found another way to give thanks for the compassion that my parents, and my brothers and me, received at a difficult time. (The story was recently published by Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine . )

Poetry can also offer a way of coming to grips with loss. My friend Beth Gylys described how composing a sonnet sequence helped her process her emotions around a death that deeply affected her and someone close to her:

“This past year, I was visiting a close friend—to celebrate the positive end of her battle with breast cancer—when her husband died of a heart attack. Though I didn’t write about it immediately (I wasn’t able to write anything for nearly a month), eventually, the poems I wrote were singularly elegiac. The poems made something…perhaps not positive, but at the least something concrete…of the profound and terrible suffering of that moment. Writing allowed me to order (at least a little bit) the chaos of that untenable time out of time when nothing made sense and when my friend’s world became consumed with unbearable pain.”

Writing About Loss Can Give You a Small Triumph Over Pain

Through writing that draws on our experiences with loss, Beth and I have been able to achieve, in DaPra’s words, “a small triumph over pain.”

In the end, this writing also freed me up to finish my novel, which was just accepted for publication, as was the story based on my parents’ final days at the assisted-living facility.

I am deeply grateful I was able to write my way through a difficult time.

Beth has published short stories in such journals as Printer’s Devil Review, Marathon Literary Review, and Mulberry Fork Review. The story referenced in “Writing Your Way Through Loss and Grief” will appear in the fall/winter issue of the Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine (due out in September).

For more on Beth and her work, please see her website , or connect with her on Twitter .

In February of 1931, Marion Hatley steps off a train and into the small town of Cooper’s Ford, hoping she s left her big-city problems behind. She plans to trade the bustling hubbub of a Pittsburgh lingerie shop for the orderly life of a village schoolteacher. More significantly, she believes she’ll be trading her reputation-tainting affair with a married man for the dutiful quiet of tending to her sick aunt. Underpinning her hopes for Cooper s Ford is Marion’s dream of bringing the daily, private trials of all corset-wearing women especially working women to an end, and a beautiful one at that.

Instead, she confronts new challenges: a mysteriously troubled student; frustrations in attempts to create a truly comfortable corset; and, most daunting, her ailing aunt. Once a virtual stranger to Marion, her aunt holds the key to old secrets whose revelation could change the way Marion sees her family and herself.

As her problems from Pittsburgh threaten to resurface in Cooper’s Ford, Marion finds herself racing against time to learn the truth behind these secrets and to get to the bottom of her student s troubles. Meanwhile, Marion forms a bond with a local war veteran. But her past, and his, may be too much to sustain a second chance at happiness.

Available at Amazon .

Kit soon becomes entangled in the history of the riverside town, where she’s first seen as the ghost of Helen Wheeler, a young woman killed there years before. With the help of an old friend of Helen’s who is still haunted by her loss, Kit begins to unravel the mystery behind her mother’s disappearance. Ultimately, she discovers unsettling powers that connect her to the town’s “original water healer,” the leader of a controversial nineteenth-century commune founded at Gold River.

Get your free copy here !

References Baikie, Karen A., and Kay Wilhelm, “Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing,” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment , August 2005, 11 (5) 338-346; DOI: 10.1192/apt.11.5.338.

DaPra, Tara, “Writing Memoir and Writing for Therapy: An Inquiry on the Functions of Reflection,” Creative Nonfiction , Issue 48, spring 2013, creativenonfiction.org.

Lichtenthal, Wendy G., and Robert A. Neimeyer, “Directed Journaling to Facilitate Meaning-Making.” Chapter 42 of Techniques of Grief Therapy: Creative Practices for Counseling the Bereaved , edited by Robert A. Neimeyer (Routledge, 2012).

Neimeyer, Robert A., “Correspondence with the Deceased.” Chapter 67 of Mediating and Remediating Death , edited by Dorthe Refslund Christensen and Kjetil Sandvik (Routledge, 2016).

Pennington, Natalie, “Grieving for a (Facebook) Friend: Understanding the Impact of Social Network Sites and the Remediation of the Grieving Process.” Chapter 12 of Mediating and Remediating Death , edited by Dorthe Refslund Christensen and Kjetil Sandvik (Routledge, 2016).

Rkvry Quarterly Literary Journal

A literary journal that explores recovery., “tips for writing about loss” by jessica handler.

**Excerpted with permission from Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss  by Jessica Handler. St. Martins Press/Griffin, 2014.

“I don’t know yet” was my sister Sarah’s de facto motto. She didn’t know when a set of lab tests would come back or what new information they might show. The unpredictable nature of her illness kept her from ever being sure she could attend a class, go to a movie with friends, or if a minor discomfort meant something greater. In a larger sense, our whole family didn’t know yet what would happen to any of us. Write whatever you like in those early brain-spark sessions, and as you do, remind yourself that you don’t know yet what shape your story will take.

TIP: Perhaps no one asked you or encouraged you to tell your story. Go ahead now and give yourself permission: invite yourself to tell your story. Just as there is no “right” way to grieve, there is no “right” way to remember. Your memories are your own. Writing your story is just that – your story.

If your story matters to you, then that’s more than enough reason to write. Writing from your perspective is your privilege. Writing through your grief and loss allows you to claim the way the things happened for you. If you write with honesty and attention to character, imagery, plot, and theme, your memoir will resonate with your family, your friends, and if you choose to write for a wider readership, your story will matter to people you don’t yet know.

Early in the process of writing my memoir about my sisters, our mother gave me a box of Sarah’s journals, calendars, and school notebooks. Mom wanted me to have all the material I might need to tell our family’s story. I had lost my two sisters, and she had lost her two youngest daughters. Our stories were similar, but they were profoundly different.

“I have Sarah’s writing,” Mom told me. My husband helped her carry in a battered cardboard crate. The box was piled high with folders and notebooks. Although my mother is traditionally organized down to the last file folder and rubber band, this box wasn’t labeled with her usual black marker pen and taped-on index cards. The box wasn’t labeled at all.

The crate lurked on the floor of my writing room for more than a month while I debated with myself. I wasn’t sure that I had the right to read the contents or if I even wanted to. Sarah’s diaries, yearbooks, creative writing assignments from high school, her entrance essay for college, and submissions for a writing workshop she was ultimately too sick to attend would have put me in close touch with her most intimate thoughts. Her words would tell me in her voice exactly what had been on her mind and in her heart.

I couldn’t deny that I had the rare opportunity to see into my beloved sister’s heart and mind. She was no longer here to answer my questions in person, and I missed her terribly. Maybe the answers would be on those pages, in her deliberate, rounded, cursive handwriting, but I couldn’t shake the mental image of my little sister not-so-playfully slapping my hand and laughing, telling me, “that’s private!” She wouldn’t have let me read her diaries if she were alive.

Ultimately, I read her death certificate and a few writing-class essays, knowing that those items had already been seen by others; the death certificate by the Suffolk County, Massachusetts medical examiner, the essays by writing teachers and classmates. But I chose to respect Sarah’s personal diaries by not reading them. I put the box in my attic, because the story I wanted to write was the story of the sister who survived. That is my story. My sisters lives and deaths are central to who I am. Their illnesses and deaths shaped our family, and that was what shaped my memoir’s plot.

Permission to write meant not reading Sarah’s diaries, and not pretending to see the world through Susie’s eyes. Permission meant agreeing with myself that this would be my story, told the way I saw it.

Jessica Handler (Tips for Writing About Loss) is the author of two books of non-fiction, Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss and the memoir Invisible Sisters. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte and her essays and features have appeared on NPR, in Tin House, Drunken Boat, Full Grown People, Brevity, Newsweek, The Washington Post , and More Magazine . Jessica lives in Atlanta, but frequently travels to teach workshops and give readings. She is techsavvy—tweeting @jessicahandler and ready to Skype with book groups, bloggers and journalists. Learn more at JessicaHandler.com .

Read an interview with Jessica here .

Describing Sadness in Creative Writing: 33 Ways to Capture the Blues

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on August 25, 2023

Categories Creative Writing , Writing

Describing sadness in creative writing can be a challenging task for any writer.

Sadness is an emotion that can be felt in different ways, and it’s important to be able to convey it in a way that is authentic and relatable to readers. Whether you’re writing a novel, short story, or even a poem, the ability to describe sadness can make or break a story.

Understanding sadness in writing is essential to creating a believable character or scene. Sadness is a complex emotion that can be caused by a variety of factors, such as loss, disappointment, or loneliness. It’s important to consider the context in which the sadness is occurring, as this can influence the way it is expressed.

By exploring the emotional spectrum of characters and the physical manifestations of sadness, writers can create a more authentic portrayal of the emotion.

In this article, we will explore the different ways to describe sadness in creative writing. We will discuss the emotional spectrum of characters, the physical manifestations of sadness, and the language and dialogue used to express it. We’ll also look at expert views on emotion and provide unique examples of describing sadness.

By the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of how to authentically convey sadness in your writing.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding the emotional spectrum of characters is essential to creating a believable portrayal of sadness.
• Physical manifestations of sadness can be used to convey the emotion in a more authentic way.
• Authenticity in describing sadness can be achieved through language and dialogue, as well as expert views on emotion.

33 Ways to Express Sadness in Creative Writing

Let’s start with some concrete examples of sadness metaphors and similes:

Here are 33 ways to express sadness in creative writing:

• A heavy sigh escaped her lips as a tear rolled down her cheek.
• His eyes glistened with unleashed tears that he quickly blinked away.
• Her heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold, metal fist.
• A profound emptiness opened up inside him, threatening to swallow him whole.
• An avalanche of sorrow crashed over her without warning.
• His spirit sank like a stone in water.
• A dark cloud of grief descended on her.
• Waves of sadness washed over him, pulling him under.
• She felt like she was drowning in an ocean of melancholy.
• His eyes darkened with sadness like a gathering storm.
• Grief enveloped her like a wet blanket, heavy and smothering.
• The light in his eyes dimmed to a flicker behind tears.
• Sadness seeped through her veins like icy slush.
• The corners of his mouth drooped like a wilting flower.
• Her breath came in short, ragged gasps between sobs.
• A profound melancholy oozed from his pores.
• The weight of despair crushed her like a vice.
• A haunted, hollow look glazed over his eyes.
• An invisible hand squeezed her heart, wringing out all joy.
• His soul curdled like spoiled milk.
• A silent scream lodged in her throat.
• He was consumed by a fathomless gloom.
• Sorrow pulsed through her veins with every beat of her heart.
• Grief blanketed him like new-fallen snow, numbing and icy.
• Tears stung her eyes like shards of glass.
• A cold, dark abyss of sadness swallowed him.
• Melancholy seeped from her like rain from a leaky roof.
• His spirit shriveled and sank like a deflating balloon.
• A sick, hollow ache blossomed inside her.
• Rivulets of anguish trickled down his cheeks.
• Sadness smothered her like a poisonous fog.
• Gloom settled on his shoulders like a black shroud.
• Her sorrow poured out in a river of tears.

Understanding Sadness in Writing

Describing sadness in writing can be a challenging task.

Sadness is a complex emotion that can manifest in different ways. It can be expressed through tears, sighs, silence, or even a simple change in posture. As a writer, you need to be able to convey sadness effectively to your readers, while also avoiding cliches and melodrama.

One way to approach describing sadness is to focus on the physical sensations and reactions that accompany it. For example, you might describe the feeling of a lump in your throat, or the tightness in your chest. You could also describe the way your eyes become watery, or the way your hands tremble.

These physical descriptions can help your readers to empathize with your characters and feel the same emotions.

Another important aspect of describing sadness is the tone of your writing. You want to strike a balance between conveying the depth of the emotion and avoiding excessive sentimentality.

One way to achieve this is to use simple, direct language that conveys the emotion without resorting to flowery language or overwrought metaphors.

When describing sadness, it’s also important to consider the context in which it occurs. Sadness can be a response to many different situations, such as loss, disappointment, or rejection. It can also be accompanied by other emotions, such as anger, confusion, or melancholy.

By considering the context and accompanying emotions, you can create a more nuanced and realistic portrayal of sadness in your writing.

Finally, it can be helpful to draw on examples of how other writers have successfully described sadness. By studying the techniques and descriptions used by other writers, you can gain a better understanding of how to effectively convey sadness in your own writing.

In conclusion, describing sadness in writing requires a careful balance of physical descriptions, tone, context, and examples. By focusing on these elements, you can create a more nuanced and effective portrayal of this complex emotion.

Emotional Spectrum in Characters

In creative writing, it’s important to create characters that are multi-dimensional and have a wide range of emotions. When it comes to describing sadness, it’s essential to understand the emotional spectrum of characters and how they respond to different situations.

Characters can experience a variety of emotions, including love, happiness, surprise, anger, fear, nervousness, and more.

Each character has a unique personality that influences their emotional responses. For example, a protagonist might respond to sadness with a broken heart, dismay, or feeling desolate.

On the other hand, a character might respond with anger, contempt, or apathy.

When describing sadness, it’s important to consider the emotional response of the character. For example, a haunted character might respond to sadness with exhaustion or a sense of being drained. A crestfallen character might respond with a sense of defeat or disappointment.

It’s also important to consider how sadness affects the character’s personality. Some characters might become withdrawn or depressed, while others might become more emotional or volatile. When describing sadness, it’s important to show how it affects the character’s behavior and interactions with others.

Overall, the emotional spectrum of characters is an important aspect of creative writing. By understanding how characters respond to different emotions, you can create more realistic and relatable characters. When describing sadness, it’s important to consider the character’s emotional response, personality, and behavior.

Physical Manifestations of Sadness

When you’re feeling sad, it’s not just an emotion that you experience mentally. It can also manifest physically. Here are some physical manifestations of sadness that you can use in your creative writing to make your characters more believable.

Tears are one of the most common physical manifestations of sadness. When you’re feeling sad, your eyes may start to water, and tears may fall down your cheeks. Tears can be used to show that a character is feeling overwhelmed with emotion.

Crying is another physical manifestation of sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may cry. Crying can be used to show that a character is feeling deeply hurt or upset.

Numbness is a physical sensation that can accompany sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may feel emotionally numb. This can be used to show that a character is feeling disconnected from their emotions.

Facial Expressions

Facial expressions can also be used to show sadness. When you’re feeling sad, your face may droop, and your eyes may look downcast. This can be used to show that a character is feeling down or depressed.

Gestures can also be used to show sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may slump your shoulders or hang your head. This can be used to show that a character is feeling defeated or hopeless.

Body Language

Body language can also be used to show sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may cross your arms or hunch over. This can be used to show that a character is feeling closed off or defensive.

Cold and Heat

Sadness can also affect your body temperature. When you’re feeling sad, you may feel cold or hot. This can be used to show that a character is feeling uncomfortable or out of place.

Sobbing is another physical manifestation of sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may sob uncontrollably. This can be used to show that a character is feeling overwhelmed with emotion.

Sweating is another physical manifestation of sadness. When you’re feeling sad, you may sweat profusely. This can be used to show that a character is feeling anxious or nervous.

By using these physical manifestations of sadness in your writing, you can make your characters more realistic and relatable. Remember to use them sparingly and only when they are relevant to the story.

Authenticity in Describing Sadness

When it comes to describing sadness in creative writing, authenticity is key. Readers can tell when an author is not being genuine, and it can make the story feel less impactful. In order to authentically describe sadness, it’s important to tap into your own emotions and experiences.

Think about a time when you felt truly sad. What did it feel like? What physical sensations did you experience? How did your thoughts and emotions change? By tapping into your own experiences, you can better convey the emotions of your characters.

It’s also important to remember that sadness can manifest in different ways for different people. Some people may cry, while others may become withdrawn or angry. By understanding the unique ways that sadness can present itself, you can create more authentic and realistic characters.

If you’re struggling to authentically describe sadness, consider talking to a loved one or best friend about their experiences. Hearing firsthand accounts can help you better understand the nuances of the emotion.

Ultimately, the key to authentically describing sadness is to approach it with empathy and understanding. By putting yourself in the shoes of your characters and readers, you can create a powerful and impactful story that resonates with your audience.

Language and Dialogue in Expressing Sadness

When writing about sadness, the language you use can make a big difference in how your readers will perceive the emotions of your characters.

Consider using metaphors and similes to create vivid images that will help your readers connect with the emotions of your characters.

For example, you might describe the sadness as a heavy weight on the character’s chest or a dark cloud hanging over their head.

In addition to using metaphors, you can also use adjectives to describe the character’s emotions. Be careful not to overuse adjectives, as this can detract from the impact of your writing. Instead, choose a few powerful adjectives that will help your readers understand the depth of the character’s sadness.

For example, you might describe the sadness as overwhelming, suffocating, or unbearable.

When it comes to dialogue, it’s important to remember that people don’t always express their emotions directly. In fact, sometimes what isn’t said is just as important as what is said.

Consider using subtext to convey the character’s sadness indirectly. For example, a character might say “I’m fine,” when in reality they are struggling with intense sadness.

Another way to use dialogue to convey sadness is through the use of behaviors. For example, a character might withdraw from social situations, stop eating or sleeping properly, or engage in self-destructive behaviors as a result of their sadness.

By showing these behaviors, you can help your readers understand the depth of the character’s emotions.

Finally, when describing sadness, it’s important to consider the overall mood of the scene. Use sensory details to create a somber atmosphere that will help your readers connect with the emotions of your characters.

For example, you might describe the rain falling heavily outside, the silence of an empty room, or the dim lighting of a funeral home.

Overall, when writing about sadness, it’s important to choose your words carefully and use a variety of techniques to convey the depth of your character’s emotions.

By using metaphors, adjectives, dialogue, behaviors, and sensory details, you can create a powerful and emotionally resonant story that will stay with your readers long after they’ve finished reading.

Expert Views on Emotion

When it comes to writing about emotions, it’s important to have a deep understanding of how they work and how they can be conveyed effectively through writing. Here are some expert views on emotion that can help you write about sadness in a more effective and engaging way.

Dr. Paul Ekman

Dr. Paul Ekman is a renowned psychologist who has spent decades studying emotions and their expressions. According to Dr. Ekman, there are six basic emotions that are universally recognized across cultures: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust.

When it comes to writing about sadness, Dr. Ekman suggests focusing on the physical sensations that accompany the emotion.

For example, you might describe the heaviness in your chest, the lump in your throat, or the tears that well up in your eyes. By focusing on these physical sensations, you can help your readers connect with the emotion on a deeper level.

While sadness is often seen as a “negative” emotion, it’s important to remember that all emotions have their place in creative writing. Disgust, for example, can be a powerful tool for conveying a character’s revulsion or aversion to something.

When writing about disgust, it’s important to be specific about what is causing the emotion. For example, you might describe the smell of rotting garbage, the sight of maggots wriggling in a pile of food, or the texture of slimy, raw meat.

By being specific, you can help your readers feel the full force of the emotion and understand why your character is feeling it.

Overall, when it comes to writing about emotions, it’s important to be both specific and authentic. By drawing on your own experiences and using concrete details to describe the physical sensations and causes of emotions, you can create a more engaging and emotionally resonant piece of writing.

Unique Examples of Describing Sadness

When it comes to describing sadness in creative writing, there are many unique ways to convey this emotion to your readers. Here are some examples that can help you create a powerful and moving scene:

• The crying scene : One of the most common ways to show sadness is through tears. However, instead of just saying “she cried,” try to describe the crying scene in detail. For instance, you could describe how her tears fell like raindrops on the floor, or how her sobs shook her body like a violent storm. This will help your readers visualize the scene and feel the character’s pain.
• The socks : Another way to show sadness is through symbolism. For example, you could describe how the character is wearing mismatched socks, which represents how her life is falling apart and nothing seems to fit together anymore. This can be a subtle yet effective way to convey sadness without being too obvious.
• John : If your character is named John, you can use his name to create a sense of melancholy. For example, you could describe how the raindrops fell on John’s shoulders, weighing him down like the burdens of his life. This can be a creative way to convey sadness while also adding depth to your character.

Remember, when describing sadness in creative writing, it’s important to be specific and use vivid language. This will help your readers connect with your character on a deeper level and feel their pain.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some effective ways to describe a person’s sadness without using the word ‘sad’.

When describing sadness, it’s important to avoid using the word “sad” as it can come across as cliché and lackluster. Instead, try using more descriptive words that evoke a sense of sadness in the reader. For example, you could use words like “heartbroken,” “bereft,” “devastated,” “despondent,” or “forlorn.” These words help to create a more vivid and emotional description of sadness that readers can connect with.

How can you describe the physical manifestations of sadness on a person’s face?

When describing the physical manifestations of sadness on a person’s face, it’s important to pay attention to the small details. For example, you could describe the way their eyes become red and swollen from crying, or how their mouth trembles as they try to hold back tears. You could also describe the way their shoulders slump or how they withdraw into themselves. By focusing on these small but telling details, you can create a more realistic and relatable portrayal of sadness.

What are some examples of using metaphor and simile to convey sadness in creative writing?

Metaphors and similes can be powerful tools for conveying sadness in creative writing. For example, you could compare a person’s sadness to a heavy weight that they’re carrying on their shoulders, or to a storm cloud that follows them wherever they go. You could also use metaphors and similes to describe the way sadness feels, such as a “gnawing ache” in the pit of their stomach or a “cold, empty void” inside their chest.

How can you effectively convey the emotional weight of sadness through dialogue?

When writing dialogue for a character who is experiencing sadness, it’s important to focus on the emotions and feelings that they’re experiencing. Use short, simple sentences to convey the character’s sadness, and avoid using overly complex language or metaphors. You could also use pauses and silences to create a sense of emotional weight and tension in the scene.

What are some techniques for describing a character’s inner sadness in a way that is relatable to the reader?

One effective technique for describing a character’s inner sadness is to focus on their thoughts and feelings. Use introspection to delve into the character’s emotions and describe how they’re feeling in a way that is relatable to the reader. You could also use flashbacks or memories to show why the character is feeling sad, and how it’s affecting their current actions and decisions.

How can you use sensory language to create a vivid portrayal of sadness in a poem or story?

Sensory language is an effective way to create a vivid portrayal of sadness in a poem or story. Use descriptive words that evoke the senses, such as the smell of rain on a sad day or the sound of a distant train whistle. You could also use sensory language to describe the physical sensations of sadness, such as the weight of a heavy heart or the taste of tears on the tongue. By using sensory language, you can create a more immersive and emotional reading experience for your audience.

Creative ways to process grief

Although our name is Let’s Talk About Loss, we know that talking isn’t for everyone! There are lots of ways to process grief in the way that works for you.

Join our creative writing group

Bridget facilitates our creative writing about loss group, with regular Zoom meetings to share inspiration and writing, and a Facebook group to swap tips and techniques.

Using art to tell your story

In 2018, we put an art exhibition and invited grievers from across the UK to tell their grief story through a creative medium. We had a huge range of submissions and it was a powerful exhibition.

Get creative with our workshops

If you’d like to explore different ways of processing your grief, check out our workshops and podcasts page – there are lots of amazing grief resources there!

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Creative Writing - Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep.

Feeling so the loss, i cannot choose but ever weep the friend. Shoulders slumped under the weight of Death's hand, i stood in the cemetry in silence. The tears came thick and fast, as the men lowered her casket into the ground, the mouth of Mother Earth swallowing her child. Eyes swollen with saturated grief, i looked up at the sky, at the dark clouds that shrouded it, and at the crows that sung our loss too the trees, who rustled softly in a sombre sway. The clouds wept a silent rain among the mournful souls that gathered that day, the rain matched the tear stained faces, and left the flowers looking as dead as the body they were decorating.

     Deep realisation swept through me in sharp waves of pain, and my heart pounded in my chest, reminding me that the hands of time were still moving. This was so hard, so painful. There was no way out, i didnt know anymore. Everyone close too me was gone, i had nobody, and i wished with all my heart that it was me being put into the ground, instead of my beautiful wife, the elderly eighty three year old so many adored.

     I could feel my sanity crumbling. Death must be so beautiful, to lie in the soft brown earth, knowing that there will be no more pain tomorrow. How i wished she was here, her soft, wrinkled hand enclosed in mine, and this was some other unfortunate souls funeral, i wished that Death wasnt so cruel, that He would reconsider, and bring my loved one back.

This is a preview of the whole essay

        Slowly, my legs began too tremble, and i fell to my knees, my head in my hands. Quick, painful breaths got caught in my throat, making me choke. Tears fell onto her grave, smudging the careful ink of a letter addressed too her, wishing her peace in death. The mud on the ground soaked into my trousers, making two patches of grassy moisture on my knees. Carefully, i traced the letters engraved in the white marble stone;

 V I O L E T   G R E E N, R. I. P.

 She always had a beautiful name, and it was so peculiar. Completly opposite. Violets were purple, and our last name was Green. When she married me, she said she wanted a purple and green dress. I told her too stop being silly, she would wear her mothers long ivory silk gown. She snorted, telling me that shes not wearing that pile of cloth. She did, though.

Our wedding day was enchanting. Despite the hundreds of guests present, she was the only one there. Beautiful, she was, floating around the grounds, kissing old friends on the cheek, shaking hands with new friends. She looked at me every few seconds, and we spoke with our eyes, both saying the same thing. I cant wait too get out of here. We couldnt wait too be alone.

Shes only been gone for a few days. To me, years. I miss her incredibly. Looking up from her headstone, the sky begins to clear. People wander awkwardly in my direction, patting my shoulder, offering condolences. They file out the graveyard, returning too their cars, prepared too put the days events behind them. I couldnt.

    I was alone. Violet was my hope, my butterfly, my four leaved clover, and now she was no more. Mermories of her flooded my mind, her smell lingered in the graveyard, reminding me of her presence. I felt a cold wind sweep across my wrinkled cheek, which sent a shiver down my spine. I shuddered. Was she here? Could she see how much my heart longed for her? I hoped with all my strength she knew.

Now that i was alone, the silence closed in on me. There was nothing. Not even the faint cry of a bird, the rustling of leaves. Just my shallow breaths, my pounding heart, and the cry of sorrow drowing my brain. I rose, took a few steps back, and stared wistfully at her grave. Id do anything too be lying there with you, my love. I said a silent goodbye, and walked towards the cemetry gates. The groaning of old metal pierced the silence, as i shut the gate on my wife.

Document Details

• Author Type Student
• Word Count 730
• Page Count 1
• Subject English
• Type of work Controlled assessment

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“Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love”, CS Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed (1966) and no time of year offers a greater sense of this than Christmas, with its traditions and jollity and its focus on family and friends. Losing a family member at such a time can bring with it an added level of grief. From then on, Christmas is coloured with their loss.

This makes subsequent Christmases particularly fraught. Walking into a brightly lit and decorated shop, with Christmas carols on a loop, can be an emotional minefield; a cruel reminder of a joy from which you now feel excluded.

When my father was dying in hospital at Christmas a few decades ago, I was struck by how kindly the staff had decorated his ward. There was a tree and most of the beds were decked with tinsel. Staff wore Santa hats and offered visitors mince pies and Christmas cake. Despite their efforts, it was very bleak. Never had Christmas jollity seemed so hollow.

As a writer I also found myself gathering these contradictory moments of joy and sorrow for future reference. It seemed a logical approach. Managing the awful realisation that my father had only days left, meant also observing everything closely – the way the tinsel moved with the ward’s heating, the presents we opened with my father even though he was unconscious and unable to enjoy them.

This sense of letting someone go while the rest of the world was partying was both horrible and, yet, creative. I decided that this scene would at some point find its way into a future novel or story. Managing grief in this creative way is not unusual and is healthy, according to the Harvard Medical School who suggest that “disclosing deep emotions through writing can boost immune function as well as mood and wellbeing”.

I also think that we write to understand and to convey that understanding to our readers. “It is when faced with death that we turn most bookish”, French author Jules Renard wrote in 1925, and not much has changed since then – well, certainly not for me anyway. But people, like me, who love reading search for meaning in books and we also seek to understand our own emotional journey through grief by writing about it.

Writing grief

But writing your grief requires a specific kind of skill.

When writing from raw emotion it’s best not to self-censor or over fret about the work’s quality; not initially anyway. Getting your emotions down on the page is a good way to assuage your grief because it requires courage and honesty to pay homage to a lost loved one and also to your personal loss.

The writer Joan Didion fearlessly chronicled her grief at the loss of her family in books like The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights , though not everyone is comfortable reading them. The Australian reviewer, Andrew Reimer, wrote of how he felt like “an intruder into a very private sorrow” after reading Didion’s Blue Night.

Reading or writing about grief is not for the faint-hearted. Like all writing, it’s best not to edit too early. Let the work rest and come back to it when ready. Save that first raw draft and create a new version when you feel you’ve moved on to another, more objective stage.

Edit it slowly, allowing the meaning to rise while removing anything that no longer feels right. Use photo prompts to inspire reflection and memorialising. Think too of those small details – a swathe of tinsel moving in time with a respirator or a carol on an audio loop.

The right time

A decade after my father’s death, each Christmas afterwards transformed into something joyous but melancholy, rich with family and friends but also the absence of him. At that point, I wrote the poem below. The time seemed right:

A birth, a death

We remember you when the Christmas lights are hung, bright globules of optimism against the early dark, and shop windows fill with reindeers, elves, beribboned boxes. Your hospital celebrated Christmas too, the coloured lights strung between ward stations, drips and defibrillators. The nurses made a good show of it, though you were too far gone for presents so we opened yours for you. We celebrate a new life while remembering the end of yours, tinsel bright, star light. When Christmas is over you linger, of course, into the new year, then Easter, mid-summer, and in the falling of the leaves, as you must, whatever the season.

The creative writing academic, Brooke Davis, wrote : “Grief is not neat like a narrative arc. It does not end; it is not ‘resolved’. It does not follow a checklist of emotions from beginning to end. It is not one thing, or the other thing; it is lots of things.”

That seems the way to approach both the emotion and the art that comes from it.

It’s a season of storytelling and memories. Whatever we do at Christmas, we share it with the living and the dead. Grief and happiness are perfect creative partners in bringing us back together.

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5 moving, beautiful essays about death and dying

by Sarah Kliff

It is never easy to contemplate the end-of-life, whether its own our experience or that of a loved one.

This has made a recent swath of beautiful essays a surprise. In different publications over the past few weeks, I've stumbled upon writers who were contemplating final days. These are, no doubt, hard stories to read. I had to take breaks as I read about Paul Kalanithi's experience facing metastatic lung cancer while parenting a toddler, and was devastated as I followed Liz Lopatto's contemplations on how to give her ailing cat the best death possible. But I also learned so much from reading these essays, too, about what it means to have a good death versus a difficult endfrom those forced to grapple with the issue. These are four stories that have stood out to me recently, alongside one essay from a few years ago that sticks with me today.

My Own Life | Oliver Sacks

As recently as last month, popular author and neurologist Oliver Sacks was in great health, even swimming a mile every day. Then, everything changed: the 81-year-old was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. In a beautiful op-ed , published in late February in the New York Times, he describes his state of mind and how he'll face his final moments. What I liked about this essay is how Sacks describes how his world view shifts as he sees his time on earth getting shorter, and how he thinks about the value of his time.

Before I go | Paul Kalanithi

Kalanthi began noticing symptoms — "weight loss, fevers, night sweats, unremitting back pain, cough" — during his sixth year of residency as a neurologist at Stanford. A CT scan revealed metastatic lung cancer. Kalanthi writes about his daughter, Cady and how he "probably won't live long enough for her to have a memory of me." Much of his essay focuses on an interesting discussion of time, how it's become a double-edged sword. Each day, he sees his daughter grow older, a joy. But every day is also one that brings him closer to his likely death from cancer.

As I lay dying | Laurie Becklund

Becklund's essay was published posthumonously after her death on February 8 of this year. One of the unique issues she grapples with is how to discuss her terminal diagnosis with others and the challenge of not becoming defined by a disease. "Who would ever sign another book contract with a dying woman?" she writes. "Or remember Laurie Becklund, valedictorian, Fulbright scholar, former Times staff writer who exposed the Salvadoran death squads and helped The Times win a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 1992 L.A. riots? More important, and more honest, who would ever again look at me just as Laurie?"

Everything I know about a good death I learned from my cat | Liz Lopatto

Dorothy Parker was Lopatto's cat, a stray adopted from a local vet. And Dorothy Parker, known mostly as Dottie, died peacefullywhen she passed away earlier this month. Lopatto's essay is, in part, about what she learned about end-of-life care for humans from her cat. But perhaps more than that, it's also about the limitations of how much her experience caring for a pet can transfer to caring for another person.

Yes, Lopatto's essay is about a cat rather than a human being. No, it does not make it any easier to read. She describes in searing detail about the experience of caring for another being at the end of life. "Dottie used to weigh almost 20 pounds; she now weighs six," Lopatto writes. "My vet is right about Dottie being close to death, that it’s probably a matter of weeks rather than months."

Letting Go | Atul Gawande

"Letting Go" is a beautiful, difficult true story of death. You know from the very first sentence — "Sara Thomas Monopoli was pregnant with her first child when her doctors learned that she was going to die" — that it is going to be tragic. This story has long been one of my favorite pieces of health care journalism because it grapples so starkly with the difficult realities of end-of-life care.

In the story, Monopoli is diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, a surprise for a non-smoking young woman. It's a devastating death sentence: doctors know that lung cancer that advanced is terminal. Gawande knew this too — Monpoli was his patient. But actually discussing this fact with a young patient with a newborn baby seemed impossible.

"Having any sort of discussion where you begin to say, 'look you probably only have a few months to live. How do we make the best of that time without giving up on the options that you have?' That was a conversation I wasn't ready to have," Gawande recounts of the case in a new Frontline documentary .

What's tragic about Monopoli's case was, of course, her death at an early age, in her 30s. But the tragedy that Gawande hones in on — the type of tragedy we talk about much less — is how terribly Monopoli's last days played out.

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How to describe deep loss?

So, recently one of my characters lost someone very dear to her. Some background:

The character has a controlling, cold family that doesn't care about her. This one person is a friend, a guide, and a mysterious person that will come in moments to comfort her. He knows everything about her, but she knows nothing of him.Then one day, he is killed.

I'm not sure how to describe deep grief, never having felt it myself. No one really close to me has died or had anything serious happen to them, and I know trauma and grief are multilayered, confusing feelings.

• creative-writing

2 Answers 2

Edit: I reread your post and noticed you wrote that she knew nothing about him. That makes it kind of hard to grieve for a person. Grieving, at least in my opinion, presupposes some kind of connection. But it's hard to have a connection if the other person is completely closed towards you. What I wrote below still applies though. However, rather than grieving for the actual person, the feeling would probably center more around the ideas and speculations that your character had about this mysterious helper and about being alone again. Now she'll never find out about his true feelings for her or about who he really is. It's easy to build up an idealized fantasy about someone you lost. She would (could) then mourn the life she wished they would have had but that's gone now, forever. The thoughts are more along the lines of "how will I handle this without him?" "I wonder what he would think about this" "I wonder if he would be proud of me", something like that. But still, it's much harder to have someone feel deep loss and grief about someone they didn't really know.

Original answer:

Well, everybody grieves differently, I guess, so there is likely no universally True Way.

That said, it's generally better to rely on your own feelings for descriptions rather than following some recipe that someone posts here.

Maybe try to relate it to a less intense form of grief or pain that you have felt. The loss of a pet or a really good friend who moved away. A break up. Something like that. Than really dig into that feeling. Get lost in it for a while. Try to intensity it in your mind, concentrate on the bodily sensation of it and the self talk that happens inside your mind. Then try to relate to that loss that your character is feeling.

Then again, plain old imagination might do the trick. Close your eyes and imagine the person (or animal) that means the most to you. Make it really vivid. Sight, sound, smell, touch, the whole thing. Ten imagine that person being killed, right before your eyes. Again, make it vivid. Stay with the feeling. It's not going to be nice but that's the point. Then imagine what your ordinary life would be like. All the situations where you would notice that they are not there. When you come home and they are not there to greet you. The place where they always liked to sit, now empty. The places you loved to go to together. Things you liked to do together. Mutual friends. Seeing their favorite food somewhere. Seeing someone in the street who reminds you of them. That sort of thing.

Anyways, if none of that helps: here's my take, based on my experiences. The pain is almost physical, somewhere in the middle of the torso. You want it to go away but you can't. The initial shock can be disorienting, you might feel dizzy, your sight might go blurry, your knees might grow weak. You might be at a loss of words. Maybe you'll feel empty inside, unable to accept or even process the situation. You'll probably be unable to do anything at the same level that you used to be able to. You won't be able to enjoy anything at all for a few days.

However, the initial pain will pass after a day or two, especially when you have someone to talk to and when you give in to the pain. If not it can take considerably longer. The worst thing though is the emptiness that this person left behind. You'll be reminded of them by the most innocent and banal of things. As I already wrote: places where you've been together, their favorite food, stuff they used to hate, stuff they used to like, etc. And every time it stings. Every time the pain comes back. Not as strong as in the beginning but bad enough.

This is a pretty pale description and might be hard to transfer into your story. As I said, it's best to draw upon your own experiences, even if you have to stretch yourself to get them.

• 1 Thank you. Sorry about not being clear on the girl knowing about the guy. I thought about that, and I understand about it being harder to grieve for him, but I figured that since he is the only one in her life who really cares, it would still be a pretty bad blow. –  AT2UI Commented Apr 24, 2016 at 20:39

Having lost people in my life before that I was not entirely close to, I would say writing the grieving might be a bit of a struggle. Also, depending on the type of person your character is will also affect how she grieves. For instance, not being super close to the deceased will probably not have much of a grief response. Most likely just a numb feeling or a lost sort of feeling. But not super drawn out.

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Writing Can Help Us Heal from Trauma

• Deborah Siegel-Acevedo

Three prompts to get started.

Why does a writing intervention work? While it may seem counterintuitive that writing about negative experiences has a positive effect, some have posited that narrating the story of a past negative event or an ongoing anxiety “frees up” cognitive resources. Research suggests that trauma damages brain tissue, but that when people translate their emotional experience into words, they may be changing the way it is organized in the brain. This matters, both personally and professionally. In a moment still permeated with epic stress and loss, we need to call in all possible supports. So, what does this look like in practice, and how can you put this powerful tool into effect? The author offers three practices, with prompts, to get you started.

Even as we inoculate our bodies and seemingly move out of the pandemic, psychologically we are still moving through it. We owe it to ourselves — and our coworkers — to make space for processing this individual and collective trauma. A recent op-ed in the New York Times Sunday Review affirms what I, as a writer and professor of writing, have witnessed repeatedly, up close: expressive writing can heal us.

• Deborah Siegel-Acevedo is an author , TEDx speaker, and founder of Bold Voice Collaborative , an organization fostering growth, resilience, and community through storytelling for individuals and organizations. An adjunct faculty member at DePaul University’s College of Communication, her writing has appeared in venues including The Washington Post, The Guardian, and CNN.com.

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How Writing & Creativity Can Help Us Process Our Feelings

It’s the third time this week that I’m sitting at my desk and staring at a blank screen. The cursor is impatient, persistently blinking while awaiting my words. Grief, alongside many other complex feelings , has woven itself through the past two years, meeting many of us head-on with the loss of loved ones, jobs, security, and stability. Paired with the grief and rage born from political tension and injustices—well, it has often felt too heavy to carry. Even as our experiences are individual, the felt trauma is shared. Our grief is collective. These heavier feelings run threads through us all.

When moving through these heavier feelings, I struggle to find any source of inspiration. As a creative, I am someone who processes my feelings through words. But in the last few months, I haven’t known how or what to write . Or maybe it’s that the writing feels inconsequential. Like so many others, I’m finding myself emotionally exhausted and unable to create. What does it look like to navigate grief by writing, by throwing some clay, by picking up a paintbrush? Is there a bridge that exists between despair and hope? Between sorrow and beauty?

“Like so many others, I’m finding myself emotionally exhausted and unable to create.”

Author David Kessler explains that meaning is how we mark loss. In a podcast interview with Brené Brown, he notes that creativity can assist us in finding meaning. I think of Homer’s Iliad and Picasso’s Guernica, Maya Angelou’s When Great Trees Fall, and Mary Oliver’s Heavy . These celebrated creations were born out of life’s darkest seasons. They serve as reminders that light dances with shadows. Throughout history, art has been a form of resilience, a way humanity has dealt with despair and moved through suffering. “There’s no way around the pain…Meaning will be the cushion, but you have to feel the pain,” laments Kessler. 

“Meaning will be the cushion, but you have to feel the pain.” — David Kessler

I’ve noticed that when I do find myself able to write, I write furiously because my body needs it. It seems that once my fingers find the keyboard, they take over. Strings of sentences refuse to be left unfinished, and so I keep writing and digging, allowing my feelings to work themselves out on the page in a cathartic undertaking. Even if I’m not writing about loss, it feels good to have intention. To be sailing on a familiar course. I guess that’s the secret: Creating while grieving is not about what you create, it’s about the act of creating itself.

“The meaning is not in the death,” explains Kessler. “The meaning is in what we do after. The meaning is in us. That’s where the meaning lies. That’s what we can create.” When I write amidst grief, I feel all of the emotions rising. My heart swells and begs me to stop, but also to keep going. Some doorways need to be opened, some wounds need to be exposed and flushed out.

“Some doorways need to be opened, some wounds need to be exposed and flushed out.”

Perhaps creative work can offer healing for those wounds. By confronting grief this way, we are not simply getting over our loss and heartache, we are moving through them. We are taking the hurt and trauma and doing our best to find meaning. Grief is the catalyst, inviting us to release all that we hold inside. Here, we create space for the continuation of our stories now informed by losses.

This, of course, requires much of us. It takes courage to open ourselves up and face heavier emotions head-on. Be gentle with yourself in your creative endeavors; this is a sensitive and fragile time. May we be kind to ourselves by not judging our creations harshly or critiquing our work the same way we do in non-grieving seasons.

Likewise, may we recognize our need for support. We owe this to ourselves—creators or not. We all need loved ones, rest, therapy, and self-care rituals to lean on when the loss feels too heavy to bear alone. These safety nets are useful for when grief carries us overboard. 

Remember that though we are not isolated in our losses, the grieving process is unique for everyone. At the risk of contradicting myself: you don’t have to be creative while grieving. You don’t need to turn your pain into art. While I’ve found it helpful for me, these heavier feelings show up differently for everyone, and the best thing we can do is honor that. 

“Grief and loss show up differently for everyone, and the best thing we can do is honor that.”

Kayti Christian (she/her) is the Managing Editor at The Good Trade. She has a Master’s in Nonfiction Writing from the University of London and is the creator of Feelings Not Aside , a newsletter for sensitive people.

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How Writing Can Help You Through Your Grief

Jennifer Xue

The death of a loved one can have a devastating effect on our well-being. Grief can be overwhelming and draining for months, or even years. However, we all have at our disposal an important tool to help us cope: writing. 

According to Harvard Medical School , writing while grieving boosts the immune system and increases the emotional and mental health. In the beginning, it might trigger strong emotions, like crying or feeling extremely upset, which can have therapeutic "letting off steam" benefits.

However, writing isn't a substitute for professional therapy, especially when dealing with a sudden or violent death.

Writing is an instrument of self-exploration, self-expression, and self-discovery that provides you with a safe space to simply be, without being judged. It's especially useful when there are things unsaid, emotions unshared, and no closure gained. 

In this article, we'll discuss why writing is powerful for healing, types of writing to express loss and grief, tips to fearless writing, and prompts to get you started.

The Healing Power of Writing

Types of writing for loss and grief, tips to fearless writing, prompts to get started, final thoughts.

Writing down thoughts and feelings after losing someone allows you to express yourself freely and safely, which is rare in this highly judgemental world. It also provides you with the tools to explore and discover within so that you can build your inner strength back up again. 

The healing power of writing comes from being a safe place to reflect on the meaning of life and death, to be relieved from shackling thoughts, and to release whatever burden you have in your chest.

It also provides you with the opportunities to:

• Sort through conflicting emotions
• Write down thoughts and feelings about yourself and the departed
• Share deeply what you want the dead person to know and acknowledge
• Express your regret and apology as a way to bring closure—perhaps through an apology letter
• See clearly the thoughts and feelings you have about death, yourself, and the departed
• Develop an understanding on things that have been suppressed inside
• Give yourself a fresh start or a new chapter
• Make room for other thoughts and feelings as a chapter has been closed
• Understand yourself in a new light
• Simply be yourself, as the writing will remain private and confidential and wouldn't be published for public consumption

While many mental health experts recommend journaling for its long-term therapeutic effects, there are other forms of writing with which you can write to feel, honor, express, apologize, say unsaid things, remember, or simply to be creative.

The key is to follow your heart in this trying time. Never judge yourself nor your writing. 

Some forms to consider:

You probably miss the person, or you have something to say. A letter dedicated to him or her that starts with "Dear ...." and is followed by "I've always wanted to tell you that... " or "Today I went to that place where we..." will read as if the person were still alive.

This type of writing can be the most therapeutic as the griever has the opportunity to speak out from the heart about what he or she wants to express. It can be especially helpful when the letter touches a sensitive issue. You will probably cry or smile when writing it, which is healthy, as it can tap into strong memories and emotions.  

Writing a memoir is usually for the public. However, you can choose to write it merely for grieving purposes, and it can be kept private. An emotionally charged memoir about your memories with a departed loved one allows you to revisit the good times, special events, and strong feelings. Sometimes, you can even feel his or her presence.

It serves as a tribute, which you can revisit from time to time. You can choose to share it with a select few relatives, keep it completely private, or publish it later. 

Poetry or Haiku

Through poetry or Haiku, you can express your deepest feelings without being too explicit. You can use alliteration, assonance, imagery, metaphor, rhyme, simile, or stanza to embellish your poems. You can even use a unique point-of-view, which isn't even your own.

Remember to be fearless when expressing feelings creatively. Don't let any pressure to perform become an obstacle. Once completed, you'll have a beautiful gift that you can recite and cherish for years to come.

A reflection can be based on your interpretation of life and death or about something that concerns the departed loved one and yourself. Feel free to contemplate and write down whatever that comes to mind. Combine it with snippets of memories. Most likely, during the process, you'll feel how precious life is.

What did the person say to you that sticks with you? Perhaps they were favorite quotes from others? Traditional sayings? Or stories? How did he or she tell it the last time? Take note of wise words or narratives as they can be your bridge to the departed's heart and spirit.

If you're the curious type, maybe you can start research on death, claims on life after death, the concept of heaven, and the possibility of reincarnation. Of course, the research can be as scientific or as religious as you like, depending on how you perceive the world, life, and death. The better your understanding of life and death, the less anxious you'll become.

If you're the imaginative type and are done with reflecting and contemplating, consider writing a fictional story about you and the departed. You can create a new world where both of you enjoy certain things and "live happily ever after." You can make up stories where both of you feel good and positive, instead of sad and grieving.

Therapeutic writing is meant to be a safe activity when dealing with grief, so it'd be best when done with fearlessness and spontaneity. However, for those who are used to thinking things through before writing them down, it requires practice to write freely .

Here are six ways to write as fearlessly as possible.

Don't Think, Just Feel and Do

You aren't writing for others to read. You're writing for yourself, so don't feel obliged to think and make the words coherent. Just feel whatever it is you're feeling and continue typing. 

Write in One Sweep

Type in one breath, one sweep. Don't pause to think. Give a chance for your feelings to flow effortlessly and let your fingers dance flowingly.

Keep Moving Forward

Whatever you've typed, keep typing. Don't stop to look back at what you've written and don't criticize yourself. This time, you're free from any self-criticism.

Don't Edit or Revise

Accept mistakes as they are, don't edit or revise. Nobody and nothing's perfect, so let things be. You're learning how to be more accepting of yourself and whatever life brings.

Let Mistakes Be, Let Things Be

By accepting your typing, spelling, and grammatical errors while staying focused on freewriting, you're growing as a person. It's a practice of embracing things that don't go as planned. 

Let Things Out

If you want to cry or shout, do so without feeling being watched by anyone. You're grieving, so you have the privilege to be different and not give a damn about the world.

You might need a bit of inspiration to start. Here are several ideas to write about:

• What you loved the most about the person and your relationship with him or her
• What you miss the most
• What you learned 
• What he or she influenced you the most
• What you wish he or she would do/know/say
• The best memory
• Things what you want to say
• Things you regret about
• Things you've wanted to do with him or her
• How you'd remember the person

At last, give yourself time to grieve. Everyone grieves differently and within their own timeframe. Let your heart and mind heal from this traumatic experience. Never judge yourself in the healing process. Whenever needed, just write freely. 

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Jennifer Xue is an award-winning e-book author with 2,500+ articles and 100+ e-books/reports published under her belt. She also taught 50+ college-level essay and paper writing classes. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, Fortune, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Business.com, Business2Community, Addicted2Success, Good Men Project, and others. Her blog is JenniferXue.com. Follow her on Twitter @jenxuewrites].

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Creative Ways of Dealing with the Loss of a Loved One

Are you finding your stress compounded by the loss of a loved one.

Posted December 8, 2019 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

There aren’t many guarantees in life, but we do know that birth and death are definitely part of the equation. Whether expected or unexpected, dealing with the loss of loved ones can be both shattering and disorienting.

I experienced my first loss at the age of 10 when my grandmother committed suicide in my childhood home. While I didn’t realize the significance of that loss at the time, looking back, I now understand how it scarred me. Since then, I’ve lost more than 10 significant figures, including my grandfather, father, friends, and mentors.

There is no perfect prescription for how to cope with the loss of a loved one, and we all have our own way of mourning and navigating challenging times such as these, but one thing is true: time does heal.

There are some days that might seem easier than others. Also, certain times of the year, such as holidays and birthdays, are often strong reminders of deceased loved ones. During those occasions, we need to do a little extra something to help ourselves cope.

Here are some things to remember about grief and dealing with the loss of a loved one:

• It’s okay to be scared.
• It’s okay to feel empty.
• It’s okay to be numb.
• It’s okay to be sad.
• It’s okay to cry.
• It’s okay to laugh.
• It’s okay to be selfish.
• It’s okay to allow yourself time to heal.
• It’s okay to allow friends to be there for you.

How to Cope with Loss

Losing a loved one changes us, so when going through challenging times such as these, some people seek the assistance of a psychotherapist. Others might call on a trusted friend or relative, and some individuals might decide to travel or turn to creative endeavors such as writing.

After a loved one dies, it’s common to ask many questions about the person’s life and death. Posing these questions and examining the answers through writing is a very effective way to deal with loss. It’s also a way to give a voice to one’s feelings and thoughts or to reclaim one’s voice after being silenced.

Grief journaling is another way to express yourself, and it offers the opportunity to freely express your emotions, which can provide a sense of relief. Journaling helps you keep a record and process your experience and grief. It’s also a way to connect your mind, body, and spirit. As you journal, it’s a good idea to note all the signals you’re hearing, feeling, and seeing. The journal is an outlet where you can express yourself and where you won’t be judged.

Some questions you can ask yourself in your journal are: What do I feel? What do I see? What do I hear? What do I sense? What do I smell? What touches me? Answering these questions is one way to tap into your emotional truth, which is writing that comes from your heart rather than entirely from your mind. Writing your emotional truth is all about honesty and expressing your feelings openly. When you’re writing with emotional truth, you’re recalling your loved ones and your experiences with them, and you’re also writing about your feelings and reactions to those experiences.

Memories and Memory

When thinking about memories you had with your loved ones, remember that for the most part, memory is fallible and unreliable. However, memory is our only tool to connect with what happened in the past. Sometimes details may get blurred or fuzzy, but one thing is for sure: what we usually remember is whether we felt good or bad in response to our experiences.

As you recall events from your past, you’ll discover certain emotional truths about yourself and your loved ones. Remember, you’re writing about your own feelings, not someone else’s.

Some Writing Prompts

• Write about a comforting memory related to your loved one.
• Write about a shared experience that brings tears to your eyes.

Storytelling

Storytelling is another excellent way to deal with grief, as it’s a way to re-create ourselves and our stories. Here are five steps to this process:

• Acknowledgment. It’s vital to acknowledge and experience grief and discomfort. Remember that grief is the process that helps us adjust to the loss.
• Break the silence. Releasing a painful, secretive, or untold story can be very healing.
• Acceptance. Accepting what happened is important for the healing process, and writing can help us explore and gain insight into the story.
• Making sense of the story. After writing the story, we should try to step back and see it more clearly as a way to integrate it into our lives. This facilitates healing and transformation.
• Rewriting our story and moving forward. In this stage, we recover our energy and are able to move ahead with our lives in fulfilling ways. This leads to personal transformation and reinventing ourselves in the new landscape.

Letter Writing

There’s no right or wrong way to write a letter. The most important thing to remember is that it should be written from your heart. The most therapeutic letters offer the opportunity to reopen contact with the deceased. It’s the contact that is important, rather than seeking “closure.” Here are some prompts:

• Write about what you love and appreciate about a loved one you’ve lost.
• Write about a special memory you shared.
• Tell the person how much you miss him or her.
• Explain how you’ve grown or changed.
• Share new revelations about yourself or your loved ones.
• Write down how you continue to honor the person’s memory.
• Start out by saying, “The one question I’ve always wanted to ask you is ..."

Since the individual you’re writing about is no longer alive, you might wonder what to do with the letter after you write it. Well, you can save it on your computer, seal it in an envelope and keep in a private place, share it with a friend, keep it in your wallet or by your bedside, or have a burning ceremony.

Remember that no matter how you choose to creatively heal from the loss of your loved one, it’s the right way for you. It’s whatever feels appropriate for you at a particular time.

Happy holidays to you and yours, and remember to honor those you’ve lost this past year.

Diana Raab, Ph.D., is an expert in helping others transform and become empowered through creativity, especially writing.

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At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that could derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face triggers with less reactivity and get on with our lives.

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• Coping With Grief

How to Write Through Grief or Loss: Tips + Prompts

Updated 06/6/2024

Published 05/7/2021

Dr. Alejandra Vasquez, JD, CT

Certified Grief Counselor

Cake values integrity and transparency. We follow a strict editorial process to provide you with the best content possible. We also may earn commission from purchases made through affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more in our affiliate disclosure .

Grief and loss can be isolating and lonely experiences. Many of us have an idea of what it's like to grieve but might not ever have experienced the loss of someone close to us. Finding out what's normal and what isn't can be hard to decipher.

Writing through loss can be as much a companion to your grief as a guide through your healing journey as you experience the grieving process.

Writing can open up your world to exploring questions about death and mourning, dealing with fear and anxiety, and helps you make sense of the profound anguish you'll face when a loved one dies.

Putting your thoughts down on paper can enable you to reflect on your love and loss, guiding you in an intimate expression of your healing journey. 

Jump ahead to these sections:

What are the different ways you can write through your grief, tips for writing through your grief, prompts and questions to help you write through your grief.

Starting a grief journal for the first year of grieving is healing and serves as a commemoration of your grief journey to look back at in time. Some creative outlets to explore as you sit down to write about your grief are:

• Short stories
• Participating in a grief forum  

There's no wrong way to write about your grief and loss. The experience can be entirely your own, and you don't have to share your work with anyone if you don't want to. Consider this a personal exploration of your grief journey to help you heal from your pain and loss.

There are no rules to your writing and no grammar or spelling mistakes to make. The process should be as easy and stress-free as you can make it. 

Expect to have many questions about grief that you’ll explore as part of your writing. You’ll get more comfortable with the process the more you sit down to do it and make it a part of your routine. The following tips will help you get started on your journey.

Get in writing mode

You can make your writing sessions a part of your daily ritual to heal from your grief. Consider your choices of where you’d like to sit and write that best honors your purpose and intentions.

Before you sit down to write, consider the following:

• Create a space that is welcoming, safe, and comfortable.
• Take time to explore and understand what's happened. You may not want to jump into your writing immediately.
• Make it a part of your writing commitment to spend a few minutes thinking and reflecting on your loss. You can expect the writing process to be painful yet healing.

Set a schedule

Although the writing process may trigger strong and unsettling emotions that you may try and avoid, sitting down to a set schedule each day will help keep you committed to your recovery. Try and see your writing sessions as a journey to the unexplored. One that you’ll need to commit yourself to reach a particular destination of healing on the other side.

Your commitment to your writing schedule will ensure that you sit down to write regardless of how uncomfortable you feel exploring your grief.

Gather all your tools

Get creative in your process. Ensure that before sitting down to write, you have all the proper tools you’ll need. Having to get up in the middle of your writing session can be distracting. You might want to have everything you’ll need at arm’s reach.

Think about what’ll make your writing process go more smoothly. Do you want to incorporate pencil drawings? Will you need tissues, some water, and soothing music playing in the background? Try to think of everything you’ll need ahead of time to keep you focused on your writing once you start. 

Truly let go

A grief writing session should take you through the painful process of reliving your loss and the experiences of profound pain you felt afterward.

When writing or journaling, allow yourself to write freely without censoring yourself. Writing is an exercise in not just coping with your loss but in healing from your grief. Permit yourself to truly let go and explore every aspect of your grieving as you write.

Talk to someone 

Sharing your grief writing experiences with a trusted friend or therapist will help you make sense of what you’re feeling and why.

Sometimes the journaling process can reveal repressed memories, feelings, and emotions you weren’t prepared to deal with. You may not understand why these came up in your writing. Getting a different perspective may help you piece together your grief with your reactions. 

Getting the writing flowing from your thoughts isn’t always easy. You can expect to sit there staring at a blank page from time to time. You know what and how you’re feeling, but you can’t seem to get the words down on paper. The following grief journal prompts will get your healing energy flowing and you to start writing.

If I had one more day...

We all wish we could have another day with our loved ones who've died. It's only natural to want to have them back. Many people spend their days lamenting and yearning over their lost loved ones. It's not unusual to feel that your time with him was cut short. Many of us think that if given one more day, things would be different. But, the reality is that we never know when tragedy will change our lives.

It helps the grieving process when you write down how things would be different if you had one more day. When done, continue writing about what if you had another day, and then another. This writing exercise should help calm some of your anxiety.

The last thing I wished I could’ve said...

One of the biggest regrets for those who’ve experienced the sudden and unexpected death of a loved one is not having an opportunity to say their final goodbyes.

An example of this is when someone dies alone in a car wreck or other type of tragedy. Writing about what you would’ve said to them given the opportunity can help release some of that regret you might have.

The happiest memory I have of you...

Remembering and writing about the happiest times with your loved one will help you focus on the good in times of deep despair.

Writing about happy memories after a loved one dies also helps bring back joy into your life after loss. It can bring you renewed hope and open the way to finding new happiness sources in your life following a tragedy.

I miss you the most when...

For all of the times you wished your loved one near telling them how much you miss them will release some of those feelings of deep yearning and longing for them. Write down about the times you felt most alone and what you do to help you cope.

Remember that it’s a natural and normal part of grief to miss a loved one who’s died profoundly. Tell them about it to help you feel better. 

Today, I’m having a hard time with...

Expect your emotions to ebb and flow from day to day. Some days will be more challenging than others, and that’s okay. As you progress through your grief, you’ll learn what triggers your suffering and how to get through it.

For the most demanding days to get through, sit down and write about what’s causing you the most pain that day. Ask your loved one to watch over you as you learn to cope with your grief.

These are the people who I consider my biggest supporters...

Writing down the list of people who've been the most incredible support to you during your grief journey reminds you that you're not alone. It's also very healing to share this information with your loved one who died to let them know how much you value their love and support.

Be specific when writing down the names of those who've been there for you. Elaborate on how they've helped you and how they've made you feel, and why you consider them your biggest supporters

This is how I can be more compassionate toward myself…

Having compassion for yourself can be expressed in many ways. One of those ways is to be easy on yourself, especially on your most challenging days. There's no definitive timeline to your grief and how it will play out. You can expect that there'll be some days where you feel that you're at your lowest.

When that happens, remember to give yourself that extra love and support that you'll need by taking care of yourself. Allow yourself to feel the pain of your suffering without judgment. Remember that you won't always feel this way, and things will get better.

I know that I’m healing when...

When you experience debilitating grief, all you can think about is how much it hurts to lose someone you love. You may feel stuck in your pain for weeks on end. However, as time goes by, you'll slowly start to feel better. The pain doesn't go away, but your suffering will lessen. 

Take note of every little milestone in your grief journey and write it down. You'll start to feel like a weight is slowly lifting off your shoulders. After a while, you should see the ebbs and flows of your journey. You'll be able to pinpoint subtle changes in your thoughts and feelings that let you know that you're slowly beginning to heal.

The Power of Healing Through Writing

The death of a loved one is an agonizing experience. The pain can be so debilitating that it makes it difficult to imagine how you'll survive. Often one of the most potent healing mechanisms for those who are suffering is writing through their grief. Although grieving can be profound, healing will follow. However, it's often a slow and painful journey.

Your loved one can inspire you to live a more productive and meaningful life through writing, find ways to build closer relationships, and understand yourself better. Healing your grief through writing will become one of your loved one's legacies to you.

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Grief Help , Grief Journaling & Writing

Grief Journaling Tips & Writing Prompts

By   Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT

Posted: October 24, 2022

When I was about 14 years old I started  writing  in a journal. I was a  grieving   child . My mom's brother, uncle Doug, died by suicide when I was just 7, and as I grew older some pretty big questions emerged.  My  family  didn't talk about it much, as you can imagine, so my journal became my confidant.  It was a way for me to wrap my head around what had happened, express what I was  feeling , and discern who I was becoming in the wake of it all.

Decades later I was asked by my publisher to write   From  Grief  to Peace  (June 2021), a guided journal designed to do exactly what the title says. Most people pick up a journal to cope with the pain of loss. But it can also help you honor your love, record memories, and get to know yourself better through the process.

Writing  To Process Your  Grief

In the  book   Lessons of Loss: A Guide to  Coping  , Dr. Robert Niemeyer explains:

"Especially when losses are traumatic, they may be difficult to discuss or even disclose to another. And yet the psychological and physical burden of harboring painful memories without the release of sharing can prove far more destructive in the long run."

There is no shortage of research to show that  writing  is a  good  grief  tool for a  bereaved  person . A key principle in  grief  therapy  is that reconstructing your personal narrative is critical for the  healing  process, and  journaling  will provide you with a venue for expression without fear of being judged.

Your journal will help you speak your truth without judgement, untangle confusing thoughts, honor your loved one, and explore your continuing narrative in your  life after loss.

If it feels right to you, your grief journal can continue your conversation with your loved one after their death . After all, the relationship you have never goes away-the nature of it simply changes. You can ask them questions and imagine their answer. Tell them about what is going wrong, and what is going right.

Styles of Journaling

Free writing vs. guided  grief journal prompts.

Most people associate journaling with freestyle or stream of consciousness writing. This is where you transcribe whatever crosses your mind. No editing. No spellcheck. You don't even need to make sense. You just write. 

This gives you a lot of space to write whatever you feel, and can be a great way to record your day to day experience.  The downside is that a blank page  can seem intimidating, and some people find that  writing  without direction can lead to a cycle of negative rumination. 

One  grief   journaling  study  found that directed  writing with writing prompts that  focused on meaning reconstruction was more helpful than freeform  grief   journaling  that focused on  emotion  and disclosure.  Grieving  participants who received the guided  grief  prompts experienced long-term improvement on prolonged  grief  disorder, depressive, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. They also saw improvement in physical health.

If you feel paralyzed when writing in a grief journal, or you feel like what you are writing is not serving your needs, writing prompts and guided journals  can get you unstuck.

You can write prompts yourself, search for them on the internet, or find a collection in a guided journal for grief like my own  From  Grief  to Peace .  Here are a few phrases to get you started:

• I remember when you and I....
• This is what I have to say to you....
• The first time I did _____ without you I....
• My happiest  memory  of you is...
• The greatest lesson I have learned is... A hybrid approach is also a good choice, combining grief journaling prompts with a traditional journal that affords you the space you need to process the nuanced experience of loss.

The Best  Grief  Journal  for You

Paper journals.

Paper options are plenty. Choose a small notebook or journal that will fit in your purse if you plan to write on the go or tote it back and forth to a counseling or group session. A spiral-bound notebook is a discreet option if you plan on writing at work or want to avoid prying eyes at home. A more formal journal or diary carefully selected in a bookstore or specialty shop can remind us of the significance of our words . There isn't a right or wrong choice.

Consider what you will write with. Any nearby pen or pencil will work, of course, but some writers find that a special pen with the "right feel" helps them get going more quickly. Different-colored writing instruments can help you designate mood or switch back and forth between questions and answers when engaged in dialogue or inquiry.

Don't forget that there are no rules-go beyond prose and add in illustrations, poetry , and even collages and photos if it helps you tell your story and explore your true feelings. You may reserve some of your journal pages to paste photos of special memories , sketch a personification of your mood, or a memory - book style collage.

My first journal was 3-hole-punched, lined notebook paper that I stuck in a folder with brads to hold it together. While it may vary depending on your preferences and lifestyle, a  good  grief  journal  will be easy for you to access when you want to record your thoughts. It will also be secure enough for you to confidentially explore a wide range of your feelings.

Remember my notebook paper journal? I wish I could share it with you, but my father found it, yelled at me, and promptly threw it out. It pains me that I cannot reread what adolescent Heather had to say about her uncle's  death , and I imagine there was a lot of commentary on  family  dynamics as well.

I don't say this to scare you off from  journaling . It is exactly these types of truths that can be  healing  when you transpose them from mind to paper. If you are concerned about prying eyes, a password-protected digital journal can come in handy.

Digital Journals

If you prefer journaling on your computer or smartphone, you, too, have plenty of options. Perhaps the simplest solution is an MS Word document on your hard drive. You can always password protect your file for privacy.

AfterTalk.com is my favorite digital solution, which offers a free, secure online grief journal . What you write is for your eyes only, and you also have the option to share select posts with friends, family , or even your therapist with the click of a button.

Additionally, the esteemed grief researcher Dr. Robert Neimeyer hosts the " Ask Dr. Neimeyer " page, which provides a wealth of inspiration and support. You can even ask your own questions about your grief journey .

Tips for  Journaling Through Grief

Grief journaling is not about writing perfectly. It is about expression. Here are five tips for writing in your grief journal I explore in the introduction of From Grief to Peace (April 2021):

• There are no right or wrong answers.
• Mindfully engage with your whole being.
• Approach familiar subjects as if it were the first time.
• Walk up to the edge, but don't fall over.
• Seek out physical and emotional support as needed.
• Go through the journal in order. Or don't. (Applicable if you choose a guided grief journal . )

Going Public

Personal blog sites, from Blogger.com to WordPress.org , are great places for journaling . Your content can easily be shared to inspire others, honor your loved one, and connect with loved ones who are also grieving . If you do take your grief journal public, however, consider the pros and cons.

Will your inner critic censor your thoughts in a way that will suppress your authenticity? Many of us struggle with this notion in our private grief journals . Inviting others in may stifle the therapeutic value-or it may help.

You may want to try a hybrid solution. First, write in a private space, and then choose what to share with the public. This approach will both allow you to write with raw honesty, and then choose what to share with the world at large.

Whatever medium you choose, write regularly and write with your whole heart. The healing power of writing can be profound.

Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT

About the author

Heather Stang, M.A. is the author of Living with Grief and the guided journal, From Grief To Peace . She is the creator of the Mindfulness & Grief System that is featured in the Handbook of Grief Therapies (2023) and is the founder of Awaken, a mindfulness-based online grief support group . Heather also hosts the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, and offers mindfulness-based grief support online through her organization, the Mindfulness & Grief Institute. She holds a Masters degree in Thanatology (Death, Dying, and Bereavement) from Hood College in Maryland, and is a certified Yoga Therapist. She currently lives in Falling Waters, WV.

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How grief and creativity work together

Some of our greatest cultural riches are the byproduct of grief: the pyramids at Giza were burial mounds. Homer’s “Iliad” is a tragedy. Christian texts begin with the loss of Eden. From a safe distance, we admire and appreciate the creative fruits grief has harvested over the course of millennia; collectively, humanity owes a whole lot to heartache. But what about when grief confronts us—head on, full force—as individuals?

Loss and creativity are two essential parts of the human experience, and when we experience loss personally, creativity might just be the best way out, says Dr. Shelley Carson , a lecturer at Harvard University and author of “Your Creative Brain, Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life.” Perhaps the first thing to keep in mind is that everyone has the capacity to be creative. “Some of us just express it more robustly,” Carson says, noting that there are two types of creativity: innovative creativity and expressive creativity. Carson adds that what she calls “innovative creativity” is best suited to problem-solving, while “expressive creativity” can use negative energy and channel it into creative work as a means to assist with loss or trauma. Clinical psychologist Henry Seiden, Ph.D., echoes Carson in his assessment: “Creativity is the essential response to grief.”

Your brain on grief

Research shows that experiencing sadness results in a deactivation of the left prefrontal areas of the brain relative to the right prefrontal areas, Carson says. While the left hemisphere specializes in positive emotions like joy and hope, the right hemisphere dispenses emotions like anxiety. Unsurprisingly, the right hemisphere is more active during periods of grief. Here’s the hitch: “The main problem during grieving seems to be the relative deactivation of the left hemisphere rather than the over-activation of the right hemisphere,” Carson says. So, even if creativity can help to heal and redirect, people don’t always feel like tapping into their creative sides following a loss or trauma—even if (and perhaps especially when) it’s their job. This was the case for Monique Malcolm , a creative coach and entrepreneur whose younger brother died unexpectedly at 26. “Initially, there wasn’t any creativity,” Malcolm says. “I just didn’t feel it anymore.” Not too long afterward, though, she says, a creative burst followed. “There are all these things I want to do creatively, and now’s the time to do it,” she says she remembers thinking. For Malcolm, her brother’s death was a wake-up call: time is precious, and it’s not guaranteed.

Nurturing her creativity was also a method of self-care, Malcolm says. “I had to set my feelings aside so that [my family] could be more OK and more comfortable—and I was angry,” she says. “It made me feel good to do that craft show or trade show or make things because it was something that I fully chose for myself.”

While grief is a natural and unavoidable part of the human experience, there is such a thing as “healthy mourning,” says Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler , author, theorist, and founder and executive director of the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. In fact, viewing mourning as an opportunity for personal growth can lead to boosted creativity and a renewed sense of purpose, she says. “When you open up mourning from the deep core of the self, not only is it extremely healing but also people can become more authentic and express themselves in a deeper way. They just become more compassionate human beings and can become more compassionate toward themselves—not just others,” she says. “People can be so persecutory toward themselves,” she adds. Moreover, she says, good intentions from others can hijack someone’s grieving process. “Often people are disrupted in their mourning from other people who don’t have an understanding of how long it takes,” she says, noting that although it’s an individual process, a single loss typically requires one year of recovery. Malcolm says she felt a derailment in grieving not only from her family but also at work. “In corporate, you get three days, and you come back, and you need to be fine,” she says. “But you’re not whole anymore.”

This deep sense of loss requires hard work to fill, and while a person may not feel creatively inclined at first, Carson sees grief (and creative work during periods of grief) as an opportunity. “Grief provides some of the low notes of our lives that make it a richer symphony overall,” she says. That symphony might feel dissonant for a while, though. “People can lie down and give up or be energized. It’s really hard to know why some do it one way, some the other—both with perfect ad hoc justification,” Seiden says. Whenever people can rouse creativity, he says, “it’s a gift to be treasured.” Monique Malcolm, a creative coach, and Shelley Carson, Ph.D., agree that there are actionable tips that may help spur creativity during periods of grief. “Resting EEG and fMRI studies do not show a difference in the right-left ratios of creative people versus less creative people,” Carson says. In short, everyone is capable of creativity, whether they’re a photographer or a pharmacist. Malcolm suggests to “take an inventory of yourself.” Then, “figure out the bare minimum you can do that will make you feel OK with the rest of your day.” Some days, this might be nothing, she says. Carson points toward specific activities such as painting, writing, or playing music. If you’re not a trained musician, she suggests the bongos, noting that drumming is a powerful mood regulator. Painters—amateur or otherwise—need only a blank canvas and paints, and those who write can choose poetry, a journal entry, or a short story. Pick an activity, and aim to stick with it for three or four consecutive days for 20 minutes per day, Carson says. “Research shows that the mere expression of emotion in artistic form when you are hurting is beneficial,” she says.

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Pride and poetry, according to emilia phillips.

Posted on June 25, 2024

On a dreary Thursday night in February, a group gathered at Scuppernong Books in downtown Greensboro for a reading of a new collection of poetry by Emilia Phillips . Phillips had just released their fifth collection of poetry, entitled “Nonbinary Bird of Paradise,” but this was no typical book reading.  

Phillips gathered UNCG students and alumni to read original works and selected text that inspired their latest poems. All in attendance raved about how the reading was a celebration of voices and art and the flow of inspiration. For Phillips, all of this is intertwined.  

An Artist Spreads Their Wings  

A UNCG professor since 2017, Phillips is an associate professor of creative writing where they teach poetry workshops and serve as core poetry faculty for the Masters of Fine Art in Creative Writing . Phillips also has cross-appointments in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English departments teaching the Queer Poetry and Poetics class and the Women’s Health and Bodies class to undergraduates.  

Being a poet, a teacher, and a voice for the LGBTQIA+ community is all part of the creative process for Phillips. “I can’t teach poetry unless I’m writing it and vice versa,” she says. “My constant dialogue with students informs my work.”  

“Nonbinary Bird of Paradise” is a prime example of Phillips’ exploratory style of poetry, but this latest collection focuses on gender and the ways cultural, religious and mythological narratives support heterosexuality as “the norm”. 

In “Nonbinary Bird of Paradise,” Phillips’ challenge of compulsory heterosexuality cuts right to the chase. The first section includes twelve poems in the voice of Eve from the Bible. It imagines if Eve wasn’t born straight and was never desiring of Adam but had no other choices of partners. 

“My writing is definitely informed by my own worldview, experience, gender journey and sexuality,” says Phillips, who was raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “I couldn’t have written the Eve sequence without getting to a certain point of my own reflections and self-work, but I was nervous when the book came out because it does deal so explicitly with sex and gender and sexuality.”  

The poem that inspired the book’s title is also extremely personal. “It’s a love poem for my partner,” Phillips explains. “I imagined if I was a bird of paradise, how would I woo my partner without the fancy plumage.”  

Phillips admits that most of their poetry is part autobiographical and part creative, but its fiction label opens doors for creative freedom, a principle they encourage in the classroom as well.   

Birds of a Feather Writing Together  

Phillips’ classes provide a safe space for building art and students appreciate the sense of community they find at UNCG’s English department. 

“Emilia prioritizes community not only in the classroom but outside of it too,” second-year MFA student Liz Bruce explains. “We are constantly sharing resources and opportunities and celebrating each other.” 

Recent MFA graduate Kay Zeiss is a private practice therapist working with adults who have experienced trauma. They are particularly dialed into using writing to process trauma. Self-identifying as genderqueer and nonbinary, Zeiss was particularly interested in working under Phillips’ mentorship and thrived in the department. 

“My goal isn’t to become this famous writer,” Zeiss confesses. “I just hope my writing can be of service to someone. Folks are really interested in being able to articulate their experience and find language for something that they didn’t have before. There’s a community and compassion there that I want to help facilitate.” 

Attracting creative minds like this to UNCG is exactly what Phillips had in mind when they joined the English department in 2017. Establishing a close-knit community within a larger campus community, which serves minorities and has historically been a safe place for LGBTQIA+ youth, provided the perfect environment for Phillips’ poetry to take root. 

“Having representation in the classroom and also having representation in my work out in the world is very important to me,” Phillips says. 

Artistic Reflections   

This high regard for representation and community made it natural for Phillips to invite students to share inspirational text at their book reading. “My students are among the most important people in my life,” they said. “Including them made it really festive.”  

“I’ve been to multiple readings at Scuppernong and this one was definitely different in that there was a huge crowd of people there to celebrate,” said Bruce, who read “[Poem about Naomi; unsent]” by Rachel Mennies at Phillips’ book reading. 

Zeiss read an original poem publicly for the first time at Phillips’ reading. “Hymnal to Transqueer Futures” reflects on grief following the death of Nex Benedict and ponders hope for the future of nonbinary and transqueer children. Zeiss dedicated it to Maddie Poole, another writer in attendance.  “I was so honored to be a part of this group,” they said. “It was very tender and sweet to have other people in the MFA program that I care about in this line-up of incredible poets. Reading my poem felt like an offering to the community.”  

Bruce, and others who participated in the event, felt similarly grateful to be a part of Phillips’ unveiling of “Nonbinary Bird of Paradise.” 

“Because of Emilia’s decision to platform multiple voices and multiple authors, they recognize that writing isn’t created in a vacuum,” Bruce says. “It was a celebration of the community as much as the book, because the community influenced the making of the book in so many ways.” 

UNCG has nothing but pride for communities like Emilia Phillips’ that bring art into the world to spur curiosity and impart understanding. We celebrate this during Pride month, as we do throughout the year. 

Story by Becky Deakins, University Communications.   Photography courtesy of Felipe Troncoso  

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A writing room: the new marketplace of writer classes, retreats, and collectives.

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A Writing Room is one of the fast-growing writer collectives. The four co-founders (left to right): ... [+] Reese Zecchin, Director of Production; Jacob Nordby, Director of Writer Development; A. Ashe, Creative Director; Claire Giovino, Community Director.

The past decade has brought an explosion in the number of books published each year in the United States (an estimated three to four million annually). In turn, this explosion is bringing a growing and evolving marketplace of writer classes, retreats and collectives. It is a marketplace creating new jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities—both for mainstream tech, marketing and managerial workers, as well as for writer/artist denizens of America’s bohemia.

The Drivers of Growth in Book Publishing

The number of book sales in the United States remains healthy, though it has leveled off in the past four years. In 2020, 756.82 million book unit sales were made in the US alone. This number climbed to 837.66 million in 2021, before falling slightly to 787.65 million units in 2022 and 767.36 million units in 2023.

What has changed dramatically has been the number of books published. Steve Piersanti of Berrett-Koehler Publishers estimates that three million books were published in the US, up 10 times from the number only 16 years ago . Other estimates put the number of published books annually at closer to four million .

The main driver of this growth in books published has been self-publishing. According to Bowker , which provides tools for self-publishing, an estimated 2.3 million books were self-published in 2021. Up through the 1990s (now the distant past in publishing), writers of all types of books, fiction and nonfiction, were dependent on convincing publishing houses to publish their work. As the technology for self-publishing and print on demand grew in the early 2000s, writers could publish on their own, and a very large number of Americans began to do so.

Fueling growth also is the level of affluence and discretionary income that an increasing segment of American society is reaching. For centuries, theorists across the political spectrum have envisioned a society, freed from basic economic needs, pursuing creative activities, with writing as a primary activity. In The German Ideology , Karl Marx could write about the economy of abundance in which individuals pursue writing as one of a series of daily activities—hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, write criticism in the evening. John Maynard Keynes in a 1930 essay, “ Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” , envisions a time a hundred years forward (2030) in which writing is no longer the province of the upper classes. Contemporary theorists on the future of work, such as John Tamny, similarly see a blooming of creative and artistic activities by the average citizen.

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Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, a writing room, and the emerging marketplace of writer training.

A marketplace of writing coaches, classes and retreats expanded throughout the late twentieth century and first years of the twentieth century. Published authors and even recently-minted graduates of MFA programs hung out shingles for individual coaching and small classes. Colleges expanded their writing programs and certifications, and writer retreats multiplied. Co-working and literary event spaces were established in major cities ( The Writers Room in New York, The Writers Grotto in San Francisco). But the marketplace continued to bump up against geographic and logistical limitations.

Then, along the came the internet, and its evolution.

Today, hundreds of businesses throughout the country offer assistance to aspiring writers. Many continue to offer some in-person assistance through coaching, classes or retreats. But as in other fields, the internet has allowed for a nationwide (worldwide) reach that these businesses are taking advantage of to scale. The major pre-internet writer assistance companies, such as The Writers Studio , added online courses and instruction, and the early internet-based companies from the 1990s, such as Writers.com (a pioneer in the internet field), steadily expanded their offerings. New enterprises are springing up on a regular basis, including the writer collectives.

A Writing Room is one of the fastest growing of the writer collectives, and its suite of services illustrate the how the field is evolving.

A Writing Room has its roots in the writing classes that novelist Anne Lamott had been teaching for some years, and her interest by the early 2020s in creating a larger on-going community of writers. Lamott connected with a team of four entrepreneurs who had experience with previous start-ups and expertise in online tools. In early 2023 they set out to develop A Writing Room.

Novelist Anne Lamott, one of the partners in A Writing Room.

A Writing Room launched in June 2023, and followed a few months later with an inaugural writers retreat in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Though hastily arranged, the retreat attracted more than 400 in person attendees and over 1600 attendees online. In the first half of 2024, the company set up a membership structure of monthly and annual memberships. Within months, over 550 writers had joined.

The products that members can access are aimed in part at teaching the craft of writing. In a recent author discussion (with close to 400 participants joining online) Lamott discussed the craft of writing with novelist Donna Levin . Both started publishing in the 1980s. They noted how much publishing and the role of the writer have changed, but emphasized the fundamentals that have remained over their forty years, related to craft and the responsibility of the writer: the daily commitment, the careful development of plot and characters, the numerous rewrites (as many as you think you need, and one more).

A Writing Room offers a series of on-demand courses, online discussions with authors and publishing professionals, and daily writing prompts, built around writing as craft. It further offers instruction on the paths to and options for publication, building a following of readers.

At its center, A Writing Room is about being part of a community of writers, giving and receiving regular feedback from other members, as well as feedback from writing mentors and coaches. In an interview earlier this year, Lamott explained:

The great myth about writing is that it's an entirely solitary activity. This really isn't true. Every book I've ever written has been with a lot of help from my community. I wouldn't be the writer I am today — and wouldn't even want to write — without people to share the process and finished work. Writing is a process, but it doesn't have to (and really shouldn't be) done in total isolation.

The writing process can feel overwhelming. It often does for me. Believe me, a trusted writing friend is a secret to life.

Other emerging writing collectives also emphasize community and cooperation. Levin underscored this point in the recent online discussion: “Writing can be such an isolated activity, and to some extent needs to be. You want to seek out a community that can give you the support you need and also the honest feedback.”

How the New Marketplace Is Evolving And Jobs Created

The founders of A Writing Room know that the marketplace for writer assistance is fast changing, and they need to be quick to adapt to increased competition. Already, several developments are driving change in the field:

· The entrance of major online education companies (i.e. Masters Class , Coursera, Udemy ).

· Faculty recruitment of writers with built-in audiences of sizable twitter and other social media followings.

· Partnerships with the major publishers and agencies, who hold out the promise of publication to participants of the classes, retreats and collectives.

· Specializations by race and ethnicity, gender, geography and genre.

· Market segmentation, and attention to higher income consumers.

A number of these developments reflect the changes in the broader publishing world and are likely to continue. Overall, the marketplace itself will be expanding, as publishing technology advances, along with discretionary income.

The jobs being generated by this new marketplace are a mix of tech, administrative, and writing coach positions. At A Writing Room, recent hires include a community liaison, video editor, customer support, and a “beta reader” providing feedback to writers on their drafts. The hiring process is sweeping up into jobs not only workers who have been in the regular economy, but also residents of America’s bohemia: writers and artists who previously were outside of (and often scornful of) the market system. What can be better than that.

In his 2023 book, The Novel, Who Needs It , Joseph Epstein, former editor of American Scholar , offers a paean to fiction as above all other intellectual endeavors that seek to understand human behavior. But what he says of fiction is true of other writing (memoir, history, even forms of self-help) that arouses the mind.

Yes, there are way too many books published each year, and yes only a very small percentage of writers will earn any significant income from their writing. But who knows what individual book will succeed commercially or critically, or add to our shared knowledge or wisdom. And really, why not encourage the craft of writing. How much does America benefit from most of the paper-pushing, meetings and e-mails that now pass for work in our economy of affluence.

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Writing > 5 writing exercises you should try to improve your creativity

5 writing exercises you should try to improve your creativity

As we continue to develop our writing skills, occasionally we need to reacquaint ourselves with a creative boost. That’s where these five creative writing exercises can come in: they are designed to loosen up the blocks that might get in the way of our creative process. See what you can do to overcome the fear of the blank page with these fun ideas for getting the creative juices flowing.

What are creative writing exercises?

Sometimes, we can be stymied by our writing process: it is easy to fall into the all-or-nothing mentality that demands that we write a masterpiece right from the start. That’s why a creative writing exercise is a useful tool. They’re meant for writers to brainstorm and ideate potential new ideas for projects. Whether the ideas and words that we generate lead to something publishable is not the end goal: instead, they’re meant to provoke the improvisational skills that can lead to fun new ideas.

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Creative exercises to improve writing skills

Here are some ways to begin putting pen to paper:

Freewriting

Freewriting is the easiest creative writing exercise that can help with creative blocks. Simply write down anything that comes to your mind, without any attention paid to structure, form, or even grammar and spelling mistakes.

For example, if you’re working from a coffee shop, write based on what you notice around you: the potent smell of the barista’s latest batch of coffee… the furrowed eyebrows of the local students hard at work on their assignments.

Or, if you’re in your home office , perhaps you can observe the light that pours from your window in the morning hours as you start your 9 to 5. Or reminisce about the dusty, ill-used pens and paper clips sitting in the back of your desk drawer.

Do this for 10-15 minutes per session, uninterrupted: the Pomodoro technique can help with this.

Story starter prompts

Use an otherwise mundane phrase or sentence to kickstart a writing session and create a short story or character description. Try these sentences as story starters:

• The old man had a look of frustration.
• It felt like my husband had woken up angry.
• “Open a window,” Lucinda said, “it’s mighty hot in here.”

Letter to your younger self

This exercise asks the question: what would you say to your teenage self? Or a version of you 5, 10, or 20 years younger? In this exercise, you can recast your life in a different light and offer advice, reassurance, or reexperience a special moment again. Maybe you can write from a perspective of optimism: now that you are successful, for example, you can be excited to share your accomplishments. This highly personal exercise can help you tap into all manners of emotions that can then go into character development.

Take two characters from your work, or a book that you love and rewrite their experiences and plot points while switching their points of view. Perhaps one character knows something more than the other, or another character’s perspective and thoughts have been unwritten. Switching these POVs can help you see how a storyline shifts, taking on different tones and emotional beats.

Flash fiction

Flash fiction is a type of short fiction that is 500 words or less. The objective of this exercise is to craft a narrative or a character portrait all within a highly limited constraint. Flash fiction differs from freewriting in that you write with focus, aiming towards a fully-formed story that can include plot, conflict, and a character portrait. Writing flash fiction seems deceptively easy, but it can be a challenge—which is why literary magazines and writing contests often have opportunities to publish and award great flash fiction.

If you’re looking for more ways to tap into your creativity, check out more writing tips here .

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The Creative Writing Breakfast Club Sunday 7th July 2024

Join writer Laurie Bolger for Creative Writing Breakfast Club, a chance to get scribbling from the comfort of your own space via Zoom.

Date and time

Refund policy, about this event.

• Event lasts 1 hour

The Creative Writing Breakfast Club as featured in Time Out is a Free Flow Creative Writing hour with writer Laurie Bolger.

This session is about letting your creativity lead the way, generating new and exciting writing in your own unique style.

During this 60 minute workshop Laurie will take you through fast paced writing exercises to boost mindfulness. All you need is a pen and paper and somewhere chilled to sit and let your imagination do it’s thing.

Laurie Bolger is a London based writer & the founder of The Creative Writing Breakfast Club. Laurie’s work has been widely anthologised & has featured at Glastonbury, TATE & Sky Arts. Laurie’s first publication Box Rooms celebrated community & her W10 roots.

Laurie was the winner of The Moth Poetry Prize & was shortlisted for The Sylvia Plath, Bridport & Forward Poetry Prize. Her latest books include Makeover & Spin celebrating the resilience of working class women, autonomy & love.

Laurie has collaborated with global brands, charities & organisations such as Google, Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Liberty, Penhaligons, Nationwide, Glastonbury, Choose Love, Mind UK, TATE & Sky Arts.

Laurie has been teaching creative workshops for over a decade bringing people together to celebrate their own unique voices & scribbles.

“ If you ever want a cosy, creative, calming place to explore writing, Laurie's workshops are perfection…My heart is so full (I know what that means now)” Breakfast Clubber 2024

"My first workshop of Laurie's & definitely won’t be my last… ideas exploding all over the shop - thank you, loved it"

Writing: Water Participant 2023

“Laurie’s workshops are a safe & at the same time dangerous place for writing..."

Writing The Seven Deadly Sins Workshop Participant 2022

"Probably the best, most productive w/s I've ever attended. Fantastic. Thank you!"

Writing The Body Participant 2023

“If I could jump inside her poems I would…I imagine it’d be lovely & warm in there” Hollie McNish

Instagram @lauriebolger_ | Twitter @lauriebolger

www.lauriebolger.com

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CREATIVE. INSPIRED. HAPPY Mid-Career Writing Scholarship

Evelyn Skye used to be a corporate attorney whose days were unfulfilling. Then she discovered writing, and it completely changed her life. Now, Evelyn is a New York Times Bestselling novelist, #1 Netflix film/literary collaborator, and Founder of the CREATIVE.INSPIRED.HAPPY online writing community. She established this scholarship to kickstart a writing career for someone else, too.

The CREATIVE.INSPIRED.HAPPY Mid-Career Writing Scholarship is a scholarship for an aspiring writer not currently in a professional writing career, for use toward furthering their education in writing, such as continuing education or community college courses on writing.

This scholarship is open to aspiring writers in any field, including fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. Applicants must be at least 26 years old.

To apply, tell us what you love about writing and why you want to further your education in the field.

What do you love about writing? Why do you want to further your education?

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The application deadline is Dec 31, 2024. Winners will be announced on Jan 31, 2025.

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Award amounts per winner are designated by the donor. Check the award amount for a detailed breakdown.

The winner will be publicly announced on Jan 31, 2025. Prior to the announcement date, we may contact finalists with additional questions about their application. We will work with donors to review all applications according to the scholarship criteria. Winners will be chosen based on the merit of their application.

Award checks will be sent to the financial aid office of the winner's academic institution in their name to be applied to their tuition, and in the name of their institution (depending on the school's requirements). If the award is for a qualified educational non-tuition expense, we will work with the winner directly to distribute the award and make sure it goes towards qualified expenses.

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