Every writer wants to master the art of crafting the most heart-wrenching scenes. Sadness is a powerful emotion, and powerful emotions tend to make the best parts of a story.
But sadness is also one of the hardest emotions to write about because most people don’t like feeling sad. So how can you make such an emotion enjoyable to read?
Tips on Writing Sad Scenes
Pain and sorrow are normal facts of life. As such, you can’t really avoid including them in your stories. Here’s how you can effectively write these complex emotions to better elicit a response from your audience.
1. Tone down the melodrama
No amount of melodrama will move your audience to tears. You can’t just substitute fancy words and cliches to replace real emotions.
Imagine reading a line that goes like this: “Oh woe is me and my misfortune. I could have loved him to the ends of the earth and back if not for my own weaknesses.” That is just cringy.
Your readers will know that you’re trying to make them sad. They will resist you—not just because you’re so obvious with your intent but also because you’re trapping them into a single choice.
Don’t tell them nor should you simply show them. Inspire your readers to feel that sadness through subtext. Let them interact with the entire scene through your character’s stream of consciousness, the setting, or even dialogues and monologues.
The earlier could be done this way instead: “The bike. His bike. The one he kept riding every morning to work. The one he’ll never come back for…not after what I did.”
The above line better conveys emotion without making it forced. The readers infer a sense of wrongness and loss, which will slowly build up as more information is fed to them.
2. Add atmosphere
Sadness shouldn’t be shown just by how the character talks, thinks, and acts. Amplify the emotion by using all five senses.
Play around with how these senses interact. A character might see the sun shining and birds chirping, but inside all they feel is heaviness. Or match how they feel with what they see, hear, taste, and so on.
“It was a cloudless, sunny day outside—just perfect. And all Dianne saw was how alone she was in a crowd of lovers. It’s not like she was desperate for a boyfriend. But it did remind her of how isolated she’s been since Harry was gone.”
3. Give space to the scene.
Internal monologues are great at showing a character’s thoughts and emotions. But sometimes they can be heavy-handed, leaving your audience uncomfortable with what is being portrayed.
Keep in mind that you’ve already set the scene for this emotional payday. That means your audience already knows why your characters feel or think due to past events, actions, and dialogue.
Pull back from the scene a bit. Use less deep point-of-views, simple language, and quiet actions to demonstrate what a character is feeling. This gives your characters a kind of privacy and your audience a chance to feel the emotion on their own terms, making it more natural to them.
So instead of “He felt numb. There was a heaviness in his chest and he knew he was close to tears.” you could say, “He went quiet. We saw from his face that he was hurt, and we didn’t know what he was thinking.”
4. Don’t skip the emotional journey.
A lot of people read to experience catharsis. To many, this means going on an emotional journey together with the protagonist. Don’t cheat them out of that.
For one thing, you’re missing out on a lot of character development. For another, it could leave large holes in your plot.
Imagine reading about the Chosen One’s mother falling ill. And then in the next chapter, set a couple of months later, they just casually mention her death.
It’s a shock to the readers. They didn’t see the protagonist’s reaction or their decision on how to move forward. It creates a disconnect between them and your work.
The good thing about this journey is that it doesn’t have to be linear. You can use flashbacks and foreshadowing to further make the experience more cathartic. Just don’t create an emotional gap that’s extremely hard to bridge.
5. Make it personal.
This doesn’t mean limiting sad scenes to things you’ve personally felt, though writing from experience does have its advantage.
Some sad things are universal such as the death of a loved one, a breakup, or betrayal. Working these into your stories makes them more relatable.
Your audience doesn’t even need to actually experience these things. Humanity is just so familiar with them that everyone kind of understands how they should feel.
Why Should You Make Your Audience Feel Sadness?
Do you like playing with people’s emotions? Well…to some degree. After all, most writers write the stuff they write because they like it. But you’re no monster.
While you do enjoy putting people on emotional rollercoasters with your writing, there’s a purpose to it.
For one thing, emotions are a normal part of being human—and much as you don’t like feeling them, sadness is a natural emotion you feel. Excluding that from your characters just won’t make sense.
And for another, there’s beauty to be found in sorrow. You might read about something that hits close to home and find closure in the process. Or think about how the sad days just make the better day all the brighter.
The bottom line is that negative emotions shouldn’t be shunned in writing, but embraced. They provide a layer of authenticity to a story, letting your readers accept its events and characters much more readily.
What are your favorite sad scenes in literature? Share them in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- Scene and Sequel: How to Plot an Epic Novel
- Obligatory Scenes and Their Place in Storytelling
- How to Write a Scene: Tips for Structure, Timing, and Revision
- How To Write a Fight Scene: 6 Hard-Hitting Rules for Violence in Fiction
Cole Salao
Cole is a blog writer and aspiring novelist. He has a degree in Communications and is an advocate of media and information literacy and responsible media practices. Aside from his interest in technology, crafts, and food, he’s also your typical science fiction and fantasy junkie, spending most of his free time reading through an ever-growing to-be-read list. It’s either that or procrastinating over actually writing his book. Wish him luck!
