by Whitney Carter
Putting grief into words is futile. And trying to do so would bankrupt the vocabulary of all languages. -Mark Twain
Grief is a heavy and relatively ever-present part of life. Just as surely as we are born, we have to die too. While it’s true you and I, by virtue of sitting here, are still alive, we’ve all had to say goodbye to someone, and regardless of how deeply felt that loss might have been, grief changes who we are on a fundamental level. It makes us question our existence, how we function on a daily basis and what we really want for the short time left to us.
Characters dealing with a recent loss is not generally something you read in the scope of fiction, where there’s a plot to get about. And it stands to reason; it’s hard to write about things for which our languages all fall short, and that much intense emotion tends to overtake the other plot elements. Don’t get me wrong: getting grief to play along with the other plot elements can be done, it just takes a lot of finesse and careful respect.
Here are seven things to keep in mind when creating a character in grief:
Don’t create grief lightly – It’s like creating a character death – it can’t just be a plot point, and it has to be earned through the storytelling. A character who has recently experienced a loss is going to have grief at the forefront, and it’s probably going to be unwieldy to work with because of how poisoning and unreasonable it can be. If you need a loss to play more subtly into the character, consider putting some time between your story’s present and the death.
Grief colors everything – There’s a quote: Your absence has gone through me like a thread; everything I do it colored with it. And it’s true. Literally every other thought will be tied with the loss and the tiniest things will start your character down long and winding roads they might not want to wander. You have to consider too that that constant thinking and remembering becomes exhausting and isolating. Until your character is able and willing to break the grief cycle, it can be a lot like have a drug addiction.
Others continually remind the grieving that they don’t quite understand– Speaking of feeling isolated, your character WILL frequently walk away from many experiences feeling alone and isolated. Everyone’s in a different place in their lives and a lot of the people around your character are unlikely to be actively grieving. Even small things like a slightly insensitive joke can have your grieving character throwing up mental walls and pulling away. Sometimes there might be one person they can lean on, but even then their first instinct might not be to do so.
Grief doesn’t always make sense – Sometimes it’s panic at an everyday, ordinary noise. Sometimes it’s irrational rage at a social media post. And sometimes it’s just the cumulation of so much stress and sadness that mental breakdowns make sense, at least from where your grieving character is standing. But that doesn’t mean that those around him/her will understand, relate or even know how to react.
The grieving really do think of things in terms of before and after the loss– In terms of everything.
There are always secondary losses – Losing friends is the most common; there will always be someone who at some points basically says “Gosh, it’s been a month already. Can you just move on? Or at least stop talking about it?” Even if it appears to be a reasonable request, a grieving individual is already dealing with a lot, so when this situation happens, it’s easier to simply back away and cut ties than put up a pretense and pretend to be “okay” or even try to educate the person about how grief works. Another thing to note that could be a somewhat useful plot device is that the secondary losses will keep coming long after your character thinks they’ve stopped.
Physical symptoms – It’s not a wonder that prolonged sadness has physical tolls, but it can be difficult to write them into the language of a story. Things like exhaustion and depression are much more convincing when woven bit by bit into a sentence here or there, while others like loss of appetite, suicidal thoughts or rage can be more effectively communicated in an overt manner.
Guest post contributed by Whitney Carter. Whitney is an avid fantasy writer and blogger currently working on her debut novel, Alpha Female. When not writing, she can be found either under a large pile of purring cats or amid collapsed bookshelves.
Reblogging this piece. It’s excellent, from Ryan Lanz’s blog. I know in my novel, my character grieves at one point & this can be difficult to ‘show’ vs. just ‘telling’ the reader. So, I thought the article would be extremely helpful to you other novel/short story writers out there too, especially with NaNoWriMo coming up. Cheers #amwritingfiction #NaNoWriMo #
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Thanks for sharing!
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You’re welcome
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Oops sorry Ryan. Great piece, but. Meant to reblog that.😅
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Reblogged this on Mandibelle16 and commented:
Reblogging this piece. It’s excellent, from Ryan Lanz’s blog. I know in my novel, my character grieves at one point & this can be difficult to ‘show’ vs. just ‘telling’ the reader. So, I thought the article would be extremely helpful to you other novel/short story writers out there too, especially with NaNoWriMo coming up. Cheers #amwritingfiction #NaNoWriMo #
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Amazing post and as another reader has mentioned, with nano around the corner, getting some deep emotion into my scenes is going to be my biggest test. Because who wants to read an instruction manual 😂🙈
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Reblogged this on Cynthia Hilston – Author & Blogger.
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For the most part this is excellent, but it needs the caveat that it is American-centric. Most cultures around the world, even most English-speaking cultures, don’t expect people to have assimilated the loss after a short amount of time.
The same goes for historical grieving, which was much more formal and had prescribed time periods. No-one was going to tell someone in full mourning to “get over it”.
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I agree with you, Kat. And I would like to add, “You work through the grief but you do not get over it.”
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This is an excellent piece of writing advice. I also read a lot and refer to written fiction involving grief to understand the best ways to write it into my fiction., Thanks!
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Reblogged this on Kim's Author Support Blog.
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Reblogged this on quirkywritingcorner.
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Great blog. Really interesting look at how you handle grief in writing.
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Grief is a raw emotion and how you describe it can be very important. One of my readers found the main character of my novel The Hartnetts too emotional, but I think that someone would be emotional if they had been in his situation.
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Reblogged this on WILDsound Festival.
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Reblogged this on Where Genres Collide.
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Excellent advice. As a budding writer I will consider this in building character depth and I especially like the idea of using past and present. Thanks and hoping you will also like my blog 🙂
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Such a relatable post. My boyfriend lost his father this year and I feel like I can relate to this so much just by seeing the way he’s been handling that loss.
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Whitney, this post came at just the right time for me. The first plot point of my current WiP is the death of a loved one. Your seven points are going to be so helpful to me.
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I’ve been dealing with grief lately (thankfully it’s been lessening) and this is very accurate. It’s hard to write grief when you haven’t been through it recently. It’s easy to forget and these tips are wonderful.
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These valid advises do really counts 👍 nicely described ..please have a check on my blog too it would be really gratifying 😊
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This will help me with my novel in progress. Thank you!
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Very useful insights. Thank you.
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Fantastic post, Whitney! I lost my sister in 2017 so this hit rather hard, even 3 years later. I finally lost the anger part but no so much the others. In any case, thank you.
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Thank you for reading.
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