If you’ve been here for a bit, you know that this topic is incredibly close to my heart. When it comes to grief, I’m a very honest person. I don’t hide that this is the emotion that has shaped me the most.
But what you may not know is that I’m obsessed with writing about different kinds of grief. It may sound like a weird thing to obsess over, but it’s the one constant in all of my writing. My very first (good) short story was about the grief of losing your best friend. In my other stories, I touch on the loss of a family member, childhood and innocence, dreams, love, and even hope.
I’m not an expert in grief, and I’m not medically qualified to talk about grief. But, through my experiences with grief and the years of writing about it, I’ve noticed what works for me. And I thought I’d share some of those tips today.
*This post will focus predominantely on the grief that comes when someone you know, and love, dies. However, I could attempt a part 2 where I discuss how to write other types of grief. Let me know in the comments if you’d be interested in that.
Don’t try to tackle all five stages of grief at once.
The first time I wrote about grief, I pretty much disregarded the five stages of grief altogether. I knew that if I did a bunch of research into them and tried to integrate them, the pacing would be ruined and the story would feel wrong. You might think this is a bad idea, but it worked because my story wasn’t meant to capture all of the stages of grief.
All I wanted to do was capture the first twenty-four hours.
Another important consideration is length. If you’re writing a short story, I do not recommend trying to capture more than one stage of grief. The final draft of my short story is just over 5,000 words, so there isn’t enough time for my protagonist to clearly go through all five stages. Did I accidentally make some pretty obvious connections to each stage? Yes. But I didn’t go into the story with the goal of condensing grief into a twenty-four hour timeline. It happened more naturally, and in a way that feels realistic for the character.
Healing isn’t linear.
When you write about grief, it’s absolutely crucial for your character to have take steps forward AND backward. Grief is unlike any other human experience, but just like healing, it’s a process. You don’t just wake up one day healed. It’s an agonizing process of waking up each day and finding reasons to get out of bed.
Grief is a constant back-and-forth between acting normal and just trying to survive each passing moment.
So, please don’t just let your character get better. Have her feel like she’s finally getting back to normal and then see a flat-bill hat that he always wore and suddenly she’s crying again. Have him finally go back to work only to pass someone on the way there who looks exactly like her. Give your characters steps forward as well as massive steps back.
Establish a baseline.
This is something I’ve learned more recently. To help explain, I’m going to pull an excerpt from my review of You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao:
“I’ve seen a lot of reviews from people who didn’t like the characters, especially Julie. But I think their reasons for disliking her are the exact reasons that I loved her. We meet her in the midst of her grief when she is literally at her worst. In fact, none of the characters in this story are portrayed in their best moments. Everyone in this story is completely broken. They are trying to make it through each day while learning how to live again, which is never a pleasant journey. In my mind, Julie is not meant to be an overly loveable character—she’s meant to be a realistic character. So, while I understand the argument that Julie is an unlikeable character, I think that just enhances her arc because nobody going through grief is fun to be around. When you are in that dark place, you aren’t thinking about being nice—you’re trying to think of reasons to stay alive and keep waking up because you truly don’t know if there will ever be a day that feels normal or complete ever again. And I think the author captured that really well.”
If you’re okay with having a potentially unlikeable protagonist, you don’t have to do this. But, for those of you who want to have a likeable character who’s in the trenches of grief, you need to establish a baseline. What is the normal for this character? What is a normal attitude/personality for this character? For us to like your protagonist, we have to know who they were before grief stepped into the picture.
Once we understand who this person was before grief, we can better understand how drastically different they are now. And that makes us more empathetic to them. It makes us more likely not to hate them for being a jerk to the people around us.
Understand your protagonist’s grief triggers
After my friend died, I was triggered by what felt like everything because so much made me remember him. These things were, of course, unique to who he was as a person. Some examples for my own personal grief triggers included:
- Flat-bills baseball caps
- Divergent
- Brandon Sanderson
- Ender’s Game
- Newsboys (the old band group)
- Plaid flannels
All of these things reflect different aspects of who he was and what made him, well, him. It should be the same for your character. What about the person does your protagonist miss the most? What things did that person love or obsess over that could trigger your protagonist? Do they see a lot of people who look like the person they lost?
Show what makes their grief unique
Nobody experiences grief the same way. Grief is a uniquely intimate and personal experience that is different for everybody. What makes your character’s experience different? It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering or new, but it should be different than the way other characters feel, think, and act. Additionally, these could be things that you don’t often see in depictions and portrayals of grief.
This one can be a little tricky, so I’m going to list some examples below. These are all things that I experienced myself or saw in other people after my friend died. If one of them resonates with your character’s grief journey, please feel free to incorporate it into your story.
- Feeling guilty for having days when it doesn’t hurt as bad or you don’t cry.
- The way your chest hurts and it feels like someone punched you in the gut every time you see someone who looks like them.
- The way you always wish you’d had more time with them.
- Feeling like a part of you died along with them.
- Feeling like you want to shut down and not open up to people anymore.
- Being afraid of forgetting little things about them, like the sound of their voice.
- How hard it can be to start talking about them in the past tense.
- How hard it is to want to live when all you want is for them to be alive.
- The pain of achieving milestones that they never will.
- How hard it is to finally let go.
- Feeling like others are trying to invalidate your grief.
Create a playlist that puts you into the same mindset as your character
The novel I’m currently writing is mainly about grief and the protagonist’s healing journey. As such, I’ve created multiple playlists to help me get into her headspace. This can be painful and open old wounds, but I think immersing yourself in the emotions of your protagonist is the best way to write authentically and honestly.
To help you get started, here are some of my favorite songs about grief/loss:
- Beautiful Remains by Beth Crowley
- Eyelids by PVRIS
- Anthem of the Angels by Breaking Benjamin
- In The Stars by Bensen Boone
- How Do I Say Goodbye by Dean Lewis
- Paralyzed by NF
- Bigger Than The Whole Sky by Taylor Swift
- Give Me a Sign by Breaking Benjamin
- The Other Side by Ruelle
- Hurts Like Hell by Fleurie
- Lost Without You by Freya Ridings
- Don’t Forget About Me by CLOVES
- Already Gone by Sleeping at Last
- Winter Bear by V
- Marjorie by Taylor Swift
Let’s Talk!
How do you write grief into your stories? Do these tips resonate with you and your characters? Are you a writer who uses music to connect to your character’s emotions? Would you like a part two for how to write non-death related grief themes? Let’s talk all things grief in the comments down below!
The Long Voyage 