creative writing stories about death

10 of the Best Short Stories about Death

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Death is a common theme in literature, and many of the finest writers of short fiction have explored the fear, event, and aftermath of death using the short-story form. Below, we select and introduce ten of the very best classic short stories which have death as their theme, ranging from the Gothic and macabre through to the realist, naturalist, and modernist modes.

1. Edgar Allan Poe, ‘ The Masque of the Red Death ’.

Among Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous tales, ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ is one of the shortest. In just a few pages, Poe paints a powerful picture of a luxurious masked ball, which is then interrupted and ultimately destroyed by the presence of a mysterious figure.

This 1842 story is about a mysterious disease or plague which kills the sufferer within half an hour, causing pain, sudden dizziness, and profuse bleeding. To avoid this terrible pestilence, a wealthy noble named Prince Prospero retreats with his retinue of a thousand of his friends and hangers-on to one of his abbeys.

We discuss this story in more detail in a separate post .

2. Henry James, ‘ The Beast in the Jungle ’.

In this longer tale from 1903 – it’s so long it is sometimes categorised as a ‘novella’ – Henry James uses his interest in delay to explore a friendship between a man and a woman which never turns into a romantic relationship because the man, John Marcher, fears that something terrible is going to befall him. What follows is one of James’s finest stories about death and how irrational fear of death at every turn can prompt us to hide away from living.

His stalwart and patient female companion, May, stands by his side and tries to help him make sense of this mysterious and imprecise threat which he feels hangs over him. Will this ‘beast’ lurking in the jungle of his unconscious ever be unleashed? Perhaps James’s finest example of a subversion of the traditional love story.

3. Kate Chopin, ‘ The Story of an Hour ’.

Some short stories can say all they need to do in just a few pages, and Kate Chopin’s three-page 1894 story ‘The Story of an Hour’ (sometimes known as ‘The Dream of an Hour’) is a classic example. Yet those three pages remain tantalisingly ambiguous, perhaps because so little is said, so much merely hinted at.

Chopin’s short story is, upon closer inspection, a subtle, studied analysis of death, marriage, and personal wishes. The story focuses on an hour in the life of a married woman who has just learnt that her husband has apparently died.

We have analysed this story here.

4. Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘ Markheim ’.

A year before Stevenson completed his short Gothic horror masterpiece, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , he wrote ‘Markheim’ (1885), a short story loosely based on Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment , in which the title character murders a shopkeeper and is plagued by a series of ‘visions’ in the wake of this horrific deed. Are these ghostly apparitions, or the pricking of his own conscience? Following Poe and Dickens and others, Stevenson leaves the matter open to question …

5. Anton Chekhov, ‘ The Death of a Government Clerk ’.

This 1883 short story by the Russian master of the form focuses on Ivan Chervyakov, a government official, who sneezes upon one of his superiors while in the theatre. The stress of having committed such a blunder eats away at him and he ends up going home and dying of sheer embarrassment.

6. James Joyce, ‘ The Sisters ’.

The opening story in Joyce’s 1914 collection Dubliners , ‘The Sisters’ is narrated by a young boy whose friendship with a recently deceased Catholic priest, Father Flynn, starts to concern him as the narrator picks up rumours and whispers about the priest’s behaviour and reputation.

Did Flynn do something wrong? Joyce doesn’t tell us – but the boy’s dreams and nightmares suggest that he may have been aware of something improper concerning the priest’s actions but, being only a child at the time, he had repressed it.

7. D. H. Lawrence, ‘ Odour of Chrysanthemums ’.

If Joyce’s story is about the psychological fallout that might follow the death of someone we know, this 1911 story, one of Lawrence’s earliest stories, is about how a young wife gradually begins to fear the worst when her husband doesn’t come home after work one night.

The story focuses on a miner’s wife, Lizzie Bates, living among the mining communities of Nottinghamshire. When Lizzie’s husband doesn’t come home from his work down the mine, she is angry … and then worried. What has happened to him? We follow Elizabeth’s thoughts and fears across the course of one evening as she waits for her husband to return.

8. Katherine Mansfield, ‘ The Daughters of the Late Colonel ’.

Several of Mansfield’s best-known stories focus on death: see ‘The Garden Party’, her 1920 story about a young woman who is greatly shaken by the death of a man from the local village. This 1922 story also takes death as one of its main themes: it focuses on two sisters, whose father has recently died.

It’s largely plotless: the sisters make arrangements for the funeral, recall a visit from their nephew while their father was still alive, and wonder whether to fire their maid. Part of the power of the story is its understated switching between moments of comedy (told in flashback, the moment when their nephew, Cyril, tried to make their irascible and hard-of-hearing father understand what he is saying) and pathos (the two unmarried and middle-aged sisters cut an almost tragic figure). We have analysed this story in more detail here .

9. Zora Neale Hurston, ‘ Sweat ’.

Hurston (1891-1960) is perhaps best-known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God , a classic of African-American literature published in 1937. But she also wrote numerous classic short stories, and ‘Sweat’ is a fine example of her mastery of this short form.

This 1927 story is about an unhappy marriage between Delia Jones and her husband, Sykes, who brings home a rattlesnake one day to taunt his wife (who has an extreme fear of snakes). When the snake bites and kills Sykes himself one night, the story becomes an interesting exploration of death and a put-upon wife’s reaction to the demise of her husband.

10. Ernest Hemingway, ‘ The Snows of Kilimanjaro ’.

This 1936 short story is probably Hemingway’s best-known and most widely studied short story; it is also one of his longest. Originally published in Esquire magazine, the story focuses on a writer, Harry, who has travelled to Africa and is trying to change careers, from writing to painting. However, he fails to treat a wound and gangrene sets in, slowly eating away at him.

This story is about a myriad things, but one of the prominent themes is that of the artist, and how an artist (in this case, a writer) deals with failure, with all of the works that he knows he will never write, and with losing a handle on his craft. Hemingway wrote the story when he had fears about his own writing productivity and the story is, in some respects, autobiographical.

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5 moving, beautiful essays about death and dying

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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 end from 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 peacefully when 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 Write A Truly Tragic Death Scene (and Avoid Clichés)

by allisongrace | Plot | 40 comments

How to Write A Truly Tragic Death Scene

By Allison Grace

“Noooo!” The hero runs across the battlefield to his fallen mentor. Falling to his knees beside the body, he begs his mentor to stay. 

The mentor weakly opens his eyes for the last time and gasps, “You are the Chosen One. Fulfill your destiny.” Then he dies. 

Cue the tragic soundtrack with haunting vocals. 

If we’re honest, we’ve all written scenes like that. 

We’re just trying to make the death feel real. But in the process, our readers wind up rolling their eyes instead of sobbing. 

Frankly, our character’s death turns into a writing tragedy. We fall into melodrama and clichés.

But there is hope. 

There is a way to avoid cheesy death scenes. Let’s take a look!

Spoiler Warning : Before you read on, know there are some pretty major spoilers ahead. I’ll be talking about Star Wars: A New Hope and Revenge of the Sith; Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame; Spider-Man: Homecoming; Captain America: Civil War; and The Fellowship of the Ring. You have been warned.

In general, your characters shouldn’t die out of the blue. Yes, you may want to shock your reader but when they look back, they should realize his fate was inescapable. 

For example, before watching Endgame , I knew Tony Stark was going to die (I’m still not over it). But Marvel did an excellent job of foreshadowing it. 

Just think of all the other times he almost died saving the world. It only made sense that at some point he’d fall in the line of duty. 

Excuse the poor wording, but his death was inevitable.

Gif credit: Tenor

Your reader doesn’t want their favorite character to die randomly. They want to look back at the events preceding his death and see your hidden hints.

Some good examples of foreshadowing are:

• Tony’s death was specifically foreshadowed when Captain America said Iron Man would never be the one to make the sacrifice play in the first Avengers movie.
• Spider-Man: Homecoming foreshadows Peter’s death when Tony says that if the kid dies, it would be on Tony’s conscience. 
• Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader was foreshadowed over numerous events in the prequels and the Clone Wars TV series. Most notably was when he slaughtered the entire Sand People village. 

Give It a Point

Characters dying for no reason is really irritating. In real life, death is devastating (but we as Christians have hope after death!). It should be the same in your fictional world.

Their death should do something. It should move the plot along. Instigate a change in the main character. Force the other characters to come to grips with their own mortality. 

And your point should not simply be to make the reader sob their eyes out. That’s not nice, okay? 

At first glance, Peter Parker’s death in Infinity War seems to fit the category of “hehe, let’s watch the fans wail” but it has a deeper purpose than that. Once you watch Endgame , you see that Peter’s death is what drives Tony Stark to solve time travel and reverse the Snap. Without his death, Tony wouldn’t have been motivated to help the Avengers. 

Gif credit: Tenor  

(Whoever made this, it’s amazing.)

So yes, make your readers cry, but give their tears a purpose. 

Avoid Gushy Emotions

Our first instinct when writing the aftermath of a death scene is to go on and on for pages about the characters’ grief. But this actually isn’t the best way to handle tragedy in writing.

My college creative writing textbook quotes Anton Chekhov: “When you describe the miserable and unfortunate, and want to make the reader to feel pity, try to be somewhat colder--that seems to give a kind of background to another’s grief, against which it stands out more clearly. Whereas in your story the characters cry and you sigh. Yes, be more cold.”

The author of the textbook, Heather Sellers, explains, “‘Going cold’ means that the more intense the emotion is [that your characters are feeling], the less intense the writing should be.”

Oftentimes, your character won’t have time to focus on the tragedy. 

Think of when Gandalf died fighting the Balrog. The Fellowship didn’t stop and cry for ages. They had to keep moving.

Or when Luke Skywalker watched Vader slay his mentor. He had to finish rescuing the princess. 

So don’t slow the action for pages wallowing in sorrow. Doing so brings the pacing to a screeching halt.

As you do so, remember your characters should feel something. If they are too cold, it will be just as unrealistic and frustrating as pages of sobbing.

And sometimes, the best reactions to a death scene are not the emotions but the way in which the surviving characters change because of it. Like after the Snap in Infinity War. All the Avengers handle their grief in a different way--Tony focuses on his family, Thor starts drinking, Steve counsels others, Nat keeps trying to protect the world, and Clint...well, he goes a bit crazy.

Actions speak louder than words and emotions. Any character can cry but only those truly affected will change. 

Don’t Focus on the Death

Rather than writing pages of melancholy description, try focusing on one small element that stands in stark contrast to the death. 

K.M. Weiland has a good video where she explains this concept:

Snag a tiny detail and use it as a magnifying glass for the whole scene. Instead of describing the smoking ruins, focus on the American flag still flying. Instead of dwelling on the blood-soaked battleground, note the picture of a soldier’s family lying in the mud. 

These are the details I will remember when I close your book.

They reframe the sorrow of the scene and make us see it in a different light. By showing your reader an innocent detail, such as the butterfly Weiland mentions, it makes everything else stand out. 

Avoid Cringy Dialogue

One of the ways we make our death scenes really annoying is by drawing out the character’s last words. They usually say something along the lines of “I love you,” “I’m sorry,” “Go on without me,” etc. 

But what if their last words aren’t sappy? What if they don’t get a chance to say anything at all?

When Gandalf falls into the pit, he yells, “Fly you fools!” It’s definitely not what one would expect from a dying character. But it has become iconic. 

Gif Credi: Giphy

Or what about when Tony Stark dies? Surely as he’s sitting there surrounded by his friends and family, he could say something. Yet he doesn’t. And it makes the scene all that more tragic. ( Here’s an article explaining why he’s silent. )

Remember, a character’s last words are important. Most of the time, the character knows they are about to die and choses their words carefully. Whether you give them an opportunity to say them or not is up to you. 

It Doesn’t Have to be a Physical Death

This last point might seem a bit off-topic, but I assure you, it’s not. 

When we think about a death scene, we think of someone (probably the mentor) getting stabbed and dying in the hero’s arms. Then the hero proceeds to mourn and vows to take vengeance. 

But what if you tried a different kind of death scene? What about the death of a dream, a relationship, or a treasure? 

Everyone has experienced this kind of death. Everyone has a hope that got crushed, a dream that vanished into darkness, or a friendship that crumbled. 

Sometimes, this type of “death scene” hurts more than if someone physically dies. 

Remember the fight between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi at the end of Revenge of the Sith? Neither character physically dies. But it still hurts.

Or take the battle between Iron Man and Captain America in Captain America: Civil War. In this scene, there is no death. But you can see the characters’ friendship crumbling with each blow. 

So before deciding your best bet is to kill a character, consider if turning them against the hero might improve the story. 

As you prepare to write the death of a beloved character remember these few tips:

• Make the character’s death inevitable by skillfully utilizing foreshadowing. 
• Don’t let them die in vain. Their sacrifice should drive the hero onward.
• Go cold. Don’t wallow in the grief. 
• Focus on an unusual detail that stands out against the tragedy. 
• Know when to use last words and when to remain silent.
• Sometimes the death of a dream or relationship hurts way more than physical loss.
• Bring lots of tissues.

Here are some more resources on writing death scenes:

Top 5 Myths to Avoid When Writing Grief

6 Tips for Writing Grief Realistically 

3 Reasons You Should Kill A Main Character

How to Kill Characters Without Enraging Readers

4 Tactics to Make Tragedy More Meaningful In Your Stories

Allison Grace

Allison Grace used to hate writing.

Now she can’t imagine a world without telling stories.

She has written several short stories and completed a novel. Her favorite themes to write about (fiction and nonfiction) are identity, faith, and redemption. She also has a whole stash of unfinished fan fiction no one is allowed to read.  

Besides writing, Allison loves to crochet stuffed animals and dolls to give to charities. She is a shameless Star Wars and Marvel nerd and can carry on an entire conversation solely in movie quotes.

She blogs at  allisongracewrites.com

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Ooh! This was such a good article! I love all the points you made. Particularly about giving the readers tears a purpose XD. Also, that Tony and Peter GIF? I agree. Amazing.

Thank you so much, Sandrina!

Ikr? I just stared at it for a while when I found it.

YES. Thank you for writing this. I have a death scene in my first book (yes, I’m that merciless) and so this will help me a LOT. Thank you so much!!

I do have one question though… would it interrupt the flow of the story to have one character in deep grief? In my story, two of the MCs are twin sisters, but one dies in an avalanche. Would it be okay, I guess, to have the other one sort of go into a depression without her? (And then learn to get over it, of course.)

Good question, Grace! The short answer is yes. That would be a realistic reaction in real life.

What I’m advising you avoid is the ten-page description of the character alone in their bedroom, looking at a picture of their friend, and reminiscing on days gone by. That’s what really slows the story down, not the character grieving.

So in my example of Gandalf’s death, the Fellowship didn’t have time to stop and grieve. But it clearly affected them and shook them up. If Tolkien had made them all stop and reminisce for chapters on how kind Gandalf was and how he always had the best fireworks, the adventure would be put on hold.

Or when Peter died in Infinity War, it clearly was devastating to Tony. But the story doesn’t slow down. It keeps going. Instead of watching Tony grieve, we see how his grief affects his relationships, his goals, his personality, and his team.

So I’d say, in your story, that your character definitely could fall into depression. But I wouldn’t write about her in a room alone. I’d stick her at the dinner table, no matter how much she doesn’t want to be there, and show her grief through her interactions with the rest of her family. Does she believe they don’t care about what happened and they are just glossing it over? Then show that through her actions. Don’t just have her think it, have her demonstrate it.

Does that make any sense? I feel like that was long and rambly. XD

Ok, thank you so much! This was super helpful. Sometimes I feel like the action in my story is too fast XD Yes, that makes a lot of sense! Thank you!! 😀

You’re welcome!

This was fantastic! I’ll have to save this for when I go back over my WIP’s death scene–it needs the help! 😉

Thank you for reading, Gracie!

This is awesome! I love this! I will totally use this information!

Thank you, Scoutillus!

Nice! I have a few death scenes in my stories. Usually there, a character’s “last words” are not their last dying breaths; rather, a character who dies in the story is usually dead by the time the others get to him, so whatever I want him to say before his excision from the story is what he said before he fought the enemy, or leaped into the explosion/burning building or ship or whatever/vicious battle. I used this in one of my fan-fictions. Also, I agree with you on that GIF, and on the “Fly, you fools!” quote. I really liked the LOTR movies!

That’s a good idea for last words!

I first remember doing it in my most recent Warriors fanfic, “The Fire Prophecy,” when the warrior cat Kalevpelt (if you’ve read the warriors books you’ll know why his name is so weird) explains to his fellow warrior Quorraheart how he truly feels about her, since he senses he’s about to die. Also, any advice on when a character dies of old age? Because I have a character which I had to let die of natural causes, because I realized he couldn’t live forever. (This guy was one of my favorites back when he was young, so it’s not like I don’t like him or anything.)

Hmm. I haven’t had any of my characters die of old age, and actually haven’t seen that very many other places. Apparently, writers prefer dramatic deaths instead. XD If he knows he’s going to die, he’d probably get his affairs in order (sort out his money, be sure his will is correct, etc.) and say goodbye to his family. If he’s sick, he might not be able to do those things. So maybe have his family visit him in the hospital or wherever he is. I kinda feel like your character would die in his sleep. (I realize if your character is a cat, these might not apply. XD) Does that help?

He did die in his sleep. But yes, I think that would be a good idea–saying goodbye to his remaining family.

Also, I saw your bio, and…..You and I have so much in common! I am a definite Marvel and Star Wars freak, too. And I have a zillion fanfics. Which is your favorite? What is it about?

*high fives* My favorite is the ones I’m working on right now, a novel-length fanfic about Tony Stark overcoming his greatest fears.

Awesome. My favorite fanfic….Well, I can’t decide. I had a Avengers/Star Wars/How to Train your Dragon one once, where Tony Stark rode a Night Fury from the Star Wars planet Lothal….. I’m currently working on a Tron Legacy fanfic, and multiple warrior cats ones.

Tony Stark, Night Furies, and Lothal. That sounds awesome! (I love SW Rebels. =D)

Yay! Someone else who’s a Rebels/How to Train Your Dragon freak. Maybe someday I’ll show you “Dragon Riders, Assemble!” (That’s what it was called. Each Avenger had a dragon……)

This is an extremely helpful article! I filled at least three pages full of note-taking while reading this and it made me re-think the death of one of my characters. Perhaps making him turn against the MC would be more effective than having him die. Question: or would it be terribly cliche to have the character turn against the MC, later help her, then die? I am just wondering before I begin setting the idea in stone:)

Also, the character in question happens to be a very close friend (almost kindred spirit to the MC). That doesn’t make things much easier on me, so I was just wondering what advice you might have.

I’m glad it was helpful!

Sorry it took so long to reply!

I don’t think that is cliche. As long as they really, truly turn against the MC and aren’t doing a double-agent kind of thing. *glances at her own characters who like to do that*

The closer the characters are, the worse the betrayal is. And I think if your MC knows her friend really well, she will know that it’s not fake.

So my best advice is to commit to the betrayal and if the friend winds up helping the MC again, that it’s not “just like old times.” The MC will have trouble trusting them and might even balk at their help.

Is that helpful? I feel like that was rambly. XD

@allisongrace

Oh, my goodness! That is super extraordinarily helpful!! That wasn’t rambly at all and it really helps clear up a lot about the characters:) Thank you so so much! 😀 Your response literally helped me make another breakthrough in my WIP:)

That and my MC already has an extremely hard time trusting people. And carrying out the betrayal instead of making them a double-agent *also coughs guiltily* I think it would be much more effective for the story. Thank you so much for all these awesome tips! 😀

Hi, Abigail!!! 🙂 My advice might not be very good, but I like the idea of your character turning against your MC, then helping your MC before dying. That’s just my opinion. Do what works best for your story. I wish you the best of luck as you plan it out!!!!!! 🙂

Hi Kathrine! 🙂 Thank you so much, I appreciate it (I’ll need all the luck I can get XD ) Seriously though, thank you! 😀

This a great article! Whenever I want to write a tragedy I always have the character in question promise to do something else with someone else before hand (usually going to see the ocean or something) before I write the scene.

That’s one I think you might want to be a bit careful with. My family has watched a lot of old (like, pre-1970) war movies, and it’s gotten so we know that if someone is going to die, he is probably going to have a scene talking about his life/dreams/future, unlike every other guy in the story. It starts seeming pretty cliche-ish. BUT…it IS a reasonable way to foreshadow.

Thank you! Ooo, that is tragic. I had my MC promise something to his wife. He thought he was going to die, but she did instead. *cries*

“His death was inevitable.”

Really? REALLY? too soon, girl. too soon. 😉

I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. XD *goes to cry in the corner*

Girl, why are you so good?? 😄 Thanks so much for writing this, definitely will use it in the future…

Aww, thank you so much! <3

This post was incredible!!!!!!! Thank you so much!!!!!! A couple of weeks ago I wrote my first death scene. Reading this post really gave me some great ideas on how to make my MC react to the death of another character.

OOOOH, such good advice!! I really needed this, as I tend to write way too many death scenes :))

I loved this so much!!! This brought out several thing’s I’d never thought about before, so THANK YOU!!!!

I think Tony actually says “Pep” really, really quietly but other than that…augh yes. You could even say it was foreshadowed as early as the first Iron Man movie, but I don’t know how – maybe after the battle with Obadiah when the arc reactor is flickering?

Anyway…in my in-progress Civil War series, I plan on one of the main characters losing one of his older brothers at the Battle of Fredericksburg. The Northern Lights made an appearance on the night of the 14th, and after finding his brother dead, the MC sees the Lights and it causes him to remember a childhood memory of his brother.

Also, his brother’s last words to him are sometime before they get separated during the battle and it happens to be something he always told the MC growing up, so 😭.

Hi! I am writing a book with one of my friends. We are trying to be the youngest authors to write chapter books! I don’t really know how to put in a death scene of one of the main characters so this was extremely helpful. Quick question, if I kill off the third main character, and they come back to life, would it be weird? In case this gets published, please look for the book: Finding Panacea! It is going to be a series! Thank you so much for this article! Trying to make stories heartfelt but it’s kinda hard to get it just right.

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Sad Death Writing Prompts: Explore Themes of Loss

My name is Debbie, and I am passionate about developing a love for the written word and planting a seed that will grow into a powerful voice that can inspire many.

Exploring the depths of loss: Introducing Sad Death Writing Prompts

A journey through grief: harnessing the power of emotional expression, unearthing hidden emotions: delving into suppressed feelings about loss, a tribute to loved ones: honoring the memories through writing, depicting the aftermath: navigating the complex emotions after a tragic loss, finding solace in words: how writing can aid in the healing process, turning pain into art: transforming grief into powerful and cathartic narratives, healing hearts through storytelling: recommendations for using writing to soothe the soul, recommendations for using writing to soothe the soul, frequently asked questions, concluding remarks.

Welcome to a writing journey like no other. Our Sad Death Writing Prompts offer a unique opportunity to delve into the complexities of loss and explore the myriad of emotions that accompany it. Through thought-provoking prompts and introspective exercises, we aim to provide a safe and empathetic space for writers to express their deepest feelings, reflect on personal experiences, or even create fictional narratives that touch upon the themes of grief, longing, and resilience.

Embracing the power of storytelling, our prompts are carefully designed to encourage raw and authentic exploration of the human experience surrounding loss. We believe that by tapping into these emotions, writers can not only find healing and solace but also create works of art that resonate with others who have gone through similar journeys. So whether you’re a novice writer seeking catharsis or a seasoned wordsmith looking for new inspiration, our Sad Death Writing Prompts will help you navigate the depths of bereavement and offer a therapeutic outlet for your emotions.

Grief is a complex and deeply personal emotion that we all experience at some point in our lives. It can be a challenging journey, but one that can be navigated with the power of emotional expression. Finding healthy ways to release and process our emotions is crucial in helping us heal and move forward.

One effective way to harness the power of emotional expression during the grieving process is through creative outlets. Art therapy, for example, can provide a safe space for individuals to explore and communicate their emotions visually. Painting, drawing, or even sculpting can serve as powerful tools for accessing and releasing feelings that words may not be able to fully capture.

Another powerful tool for emotional expression is writing. Keeping a journal or writing letters to the deceased can allow individuals to express their thoughts and feelings in a deeply personal and cathartic way. Putting pen to paper provides an outlet for reflection, processing, and exploring the complex emotions that come with grief.

Additionally, seeking support through group therapy or counseling can provide a space to share and connect with others who are also experiencing grief. Engaging in conversations with empathetic individuals who have faced similar struggles can offer comfort, validation, and understanding. Together, participants can express their emotions, verbalize their experiences, and find solace in the knowledge that they are not alone in their journey.

Loss is an inevitable part of life, and while it is natural to feel sadness, grief, and pain, society often discourages us from openly expressing these emotions. As a result, many individuals find themselves suppressing their feelings, burying them deep within. However, unearthing and acknowledging these hidden emotions can be a crucial step towards healing and finding solace. Here are some insights on why it’s important to delve into suppressed feelings about loss:

• Understanding the impacts: By openly exploring suppressed emotions, we gain a deeper understanding of how loss has affected us on various levels – mentally, emotionally, and even physically. This self-awareness allows us to recognize patterns of behavior or thought that may hinder our healing process.
• Validating our experiences: Suppressing emotions about loss often stems from societal pressure or the fear of burdening others with our grief. Yet, acknowledging and giving ourselves permission to feel these emotions is an act of self-validation. It reaffirms our right to mourn and helps break the stigma surrounding grief.
• Fostering personal growth: Exploring suppressed feelings can serve as a catalyst for personal growth and transformation. By facing our emotions head-on, we give ourselves an opportunity to learn from our pain, develop resilience, and discover inner strengths we may not have known existed.

While it can be a daunting and uncomfortable journey to unearth our suppressed feelings about loss, acknowledging and allowing ourselves to experience these emotions is an essential step towards healing and personal growth. It’s important to recognize that everyone’s path is unique, and seeking support from friends, family, or professionals can offer guidance and comfort throughout this process. By delving into our suppressed feelings, we pave the way for a future where personal growth and emotional well-being take precedence, ultimately leading to a more fulfilled and authentic life.

Losing a loved one is never easy. It’s a challenging and emotional time when we long to hold on to the memories and the essence of those we’ve lost. Writing can be a beautiful and cathartic way to honor the lives of our loved ones and keep their memories alive. Whether it’s a heartfelt letter, a poem, or a memoir, writing allows us to express our deepest emotions and celebrate the impact our loved ones had on our lives.

Writing a tribute can be a personal journey that brings solace and healing. It allows us to reflect on the cherished moments spent with our loved ones and the lessons they taught us. Through writing, we can capture their spirit, their wisdom, and their love, creating a lasting tribute that preserves their memory for generations to come. It’s a way to reconnect with our emotions, confront grief, and find comfort in the beautiful stories we weave with our words.

• Preserving memories: Through writing, we can immortalize the memories of our loved ones in a tangible and meaningful way, ensuring their stories live on.
• Expressing emotions: Writing allows us to release our feelings of grief, sadness, and even joy, providing a cathartic outlet for processing the complex emotions associated with loss.
• Celebrating their impact: By writing about the incredible impact our loved ones made on our lives, we can honor their legacies and keep their spirit alive in our hearts.

Experiencing a tragic loss is a deeply overwhelming and emotionally complex journey. It is natural to find yourself navigating through a multitude of complex emotions that can feel confusing and exhausting. Each individual copes differently, and there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Understanding these emotions and learning to navigate them can help in finding solace and healing in the aftermath.

Grief often manifests itself in various ways, as no two people experience it alike. Some common emotions that may arise during the aftermath of a tragic loss include:

• Sadness: Overwhelming feelings of sadness and despair may consume you, making it difficult to find joy in everyday life.
• Anger: Rage and anger towards the situation, others, or even yourself for not being able to prevent the tragedy.
• Guilt: Feelings of guilt may arise, questioning if there was something you could have done differently to change the outcome.
• Denial: It is common to experience a sense of disbelief or denial, trying to protect oneself from the harsh reality of the loss.
• Fear: The fear of facing a future without your loved one, the unknown, and the fear of forgetting their memory can be overwhelming.

In times of hardship, when emotions are overwhelming and clarity seems elusive, turning to writing can provide a remarkable refuge for the weary soul. The therapeutic power of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard has long been recognized as a profound tool for healing and self-discovery. Here, we delve into the profound ways in which writing can aid in the process of healing, allowing individuals to navigate their emotions, find solace, and ultimately, come to terms with their innermost struggles.

Unlocking emotions:

• Writing offers a safe and private space to explore the depths of one’s emotions. It encourages individuals to confront and unravel their feelings, even the ones that may be difficult or painful to face.
• The act of putting thoughts into words allows for a release of pent-up emotions, fostering a sense of catharsis and relief. It enables individuals to gain insights into their own experiences and find new perspectives.
• Through writing, people can identify patterns in their emotions, behaviors, and thoughts, often leading to a better understanding of their struggles and contributing factors.

Finding solace and self-expression:

• Writing offers a refuge where one can express themselves freely without judgment or interruption, providing a safe space for cathartic introspection.
• It allows individuals to give voice to their pain, fear, or grief, validating their experiences and providing a sense of comfort.
• Writing can serve as a vehicle for self-reflection and self-discovery, enabling individuals to gain clarity, discover their true passions, and explore their identity amidst their healing journey.
• By documenting one’s thoughts and experiences, writing acts as a tangible record of personal growth and a reminder of progress made along the healing process.

When pain strikes, it has the potential to be an overwhelming and isolating experience. However, some individuals have found a unique outlet for their grief: turning it into art. By channeling their sorrow and transforming it into powerful narratives, these creative souls are using their craft as a cathartic tool for healing.

Art has long been recognized as a powerful medium for self-expression, and when coupled with the transformative force of grief, it can become even more extraordinary. Through their art, people are able to explore their emotions, confront their pain, and find solace in the process. Whether it is through painting, poetry, music, or performance, these individuals weave their grief into their chosen mediums, creating powerful and moving pieces that resonate with others who have experienced similar pain.

Storytelling is an incredible tool for healing our wounded hearts and finding solace amidst life’s challenges. Through the power of words, we can explore our pain, express our deepest emotions, and ultimately find comfort in the process. Here are some recommendations for using writing as a therapeutic practice to nurture and mend our souls:

• Journaling: Set aside a dedicated time each day to pour your thoughts onto paper. Write without judgment or censoring, allowing your emotions to flow freely. Reflecting on your experiences and emotions through journaling can provide a cathartic release while helping you gain a deeper understanding of yourself.
• Writing Prompts: Explore various writing prompts that resonate with your journey of healing. These prompts can gently guide you to evaluate your emotions, dive into your past, or envision a brighter future. Let your imagination roam freely and witness the transformative power of storytelling.
• Creating Characters: Develop fictional characters that resemble aspects of your feelings or experiences. Accompany them through their own journeys of triumph and growth, infusing them with your hopes and dreams. Through these characters, you can explore new perspectives and narratives that offer hope and healing.

Writing has the remarkable ability to unlock suppressed emotions, build resilience, and foster personal growth. Whether through poetry, short stories, or simply jotting down thoughts, the act of writing allows you to transform pain into triumph. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to write for healing; the key lies in unearthing your own truth and embracing the power of storytelling to heal your heart and nurture your soul.

Q: What are sad death writing prompts? A: Sad death writing prompts are thought-provoking prompts that encourage writers to explore themes of loss, grief, and mourning. These prompts serve as inspiration for writing pieces that delve into the emotional aspects surrounding death.

Q: Why would someone choose to write about such a somber topic? A: Writing about sad death prompts allows individuals to process their emotions, express their feelings, and explore the complexities of loss in a safe and creative way. It can provide a sense of catharsis and serve as a form of therapy for those who are experiencing grief or who want to gain a deeper understanding of the human experience.

Q: What themes can be explored through sad death writing prompts? A: There are numerous themes that can be explored through sad death writing prompts. Some examples include coping with loss, the impact of death on relationships, the meaning of life and mortality, the stages of grief, and finding hope amidst sorrow.

Q: How do sad death writing prompts help writers? A: Sad death writing prompts help writers by providing them with a starting point for their creative exploration. These prompts can ignite the imagination, challenge writers to think deeply, and evoke powerful emotions. They can also help writers develop their writing skills, enhance their ability to express complex emotions, and connect with readers on a profound level.

Q: Can sad death writing prompts be useful for personal reflection? A: Absolutely. Sad death writing prompts can be an excellent tool for personal reflection. They encourage writers to dig deep within themselves, reflect on their own experiences or losses, and gain insights and new perspectives on life and mortality.

Q: Are there any potential benefits in sharing sad death writing prompt responses? A: Sharing sad death writing prompt responses can have numerous benefits. It can create a sense of community among writers who have experienced loss or grief, and it can provide solace and understanding to readers who have gone through similar experiences. Additionally, sharing these reflections can raise awareness about important topics surrounding death and help reduce the stigma associated with discussing such emotions.

Q: Can sad death writing prompts be triggering for some individuals? A: Yes, sad death writing prompts have the potential to be triggering for individuals who are currently experiencing intense grief or have suffered recent losses. It is important for writers to approach these prompts with self-care in mind, and for readers to approach sensitive content with caution and mindfulness of their own mental well-being.

Q: How can one effectively use sad death writing prompts? A: To effectively use sad death writing prompts, it is important to approach them with an open mind and heart. Allow yourself to feel the emotions that arise, and let your words flow without judgment. Give yourself permission to explore difficult themes and seek ways to provide healing and growth through your writing. Remember to engage in self-care and seek support when needed.

Q: What are some resources for finding sad death writing prompts? A: Sad death writing prompts can be found online through writing communities, creative writing websites , or through writing exercises found in books or workshops focused on grief and loss writing. Additionally, connecting with writing groups or seeking guidance from a writing mentor can offer valuable resources and prompts specific to sad death themes.

In conclusion, using sad death writing prompts can provide an opportunity to deeply explore themes of loss and reflect on its impact on our lives.

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• Books About Death

10 Touching Short Stories About Death, Grief & Loss

Updated 09/20/2023

Published 02/26/2022

Belinda McLeod, BA in Secondary Education

Contributing writer

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 .

Death often plays an important role in literature. After all, it’s a universal experience and a driving force behind many actions. No one escapes from it, and death represents that vast unknown frontier that we will all one day explore.

Jump ahead to these sections:

Short stories about the death of a friend, short stories about the death of a family member, short stories about the death of a partner or spouse, funny short stories about death, short stories about death and love.

Because of this, most prolific writers eventually examine death as a theme in their work. Here are some short stories about death, grief, and loss written by some of the world’s most famous writers.

Please understand that we will be spoiling the plots of these short stories. If you would rather approach the literature from a fresh point of view, avoid reading the descriptions.

We’ve scoured short story anthologies to look for short stories about death. Please understand that some of these stories may be painful to read if you recently lost a loved one. Just as watching movies about death might be difficult for you, reading some of these stories may be a distressing experience. 

1. “The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Leo Tolstoy

“The Death of Ivan Ilych” examines what it means to live a good life and the inevitability of death. The short story/novella begins with the title character’s death and the reaction of his friends and family to it. 

Then, the plot shifts to 30 years before Ivan’s death and tells the story of the young Ivan – a man with misplaced priorities. A freak accident while hanging up curtains causes Ivan to consider his mortality, and the thoughts of death terrify him. He finally understands that the relationships he formed during his life were artificial. He has an epiphany while on his deathbed, and “in the place of death there was light.” The character then exclaims, “So that’s what it is! . . . What joy!” as he dies with a sigh.

Tolstoy is said to have written this story soon after his conversion to Christianity. He also wrote War and Peace   and Anna Karenina .  

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2. “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane

At the beginning of "The Open Boat,"  four survivors of a shipwreck are in a small dinghy in the middle of the sea. The small crew is in a precarious position because their boat can’t handle the rough waves, and they are forced to work non-stop to stay afloat.

While they have hopeful moments that rescue may be imminent, their struggle continues until they are finally forced into the cold water. Three of the four survive the ordeal.

The themes of this story are that nature is indifferent to the sufferings of man. However, our connections with others help us face the cruel, indifferent nature.

Stephen Crane’s best-known work is The Red Badge of Courage , a short novel that takes place during the American Civil War.

If you recently lost a family member, you may try to overlook the negative aspects of your relationships and the bad memories. However, some of these short stories on our list describe complicated relationships with those who died. Because of that, these stories aren’t for everyone. 

3. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Ann Porter

Like other stories on our list, the central character in "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" is lying on her deathbed in this story by Katherine Ann Porter. In between moments of confusion and clarity, Granny Weatherall reflects on her current situation as well as her past life. The reader learns that the central character had been jilted at the altar by a man named George, but she later marries and has children with John.

Although it isn’t clear if Granny uncovers any mysteries of life on her deathbed, the reader learns about the role of denial in Granny’s life. Instead of wallowing in despair about lost loves, difficult relationships, and her daughter’s death, she ignores these heartbreaking experiences and moves on with life. 

4. “A Silver Dish” by Saul Bellow

Difficult familial relationships is one theme of "A Silver Dish." At the beginning of this story, the reader learns that Woody, a man in his 60s, has recently lost his father. He reflects on his history with his father and recalls an account when his dad stole a silver dish from Woody’s benefactor, who is paying his way through seminary. The crime forces Woody to leave school.

His reminiscences fast forward to his father’s deathbed when Woody prevents the old man from pulling the feeding tubes out of his arms.

Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature. One of his most famous books is The Adventures of Augie March . 

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If you are new to grief from the loss of a spouse , you are probably reeling from your loss. Most grief experts advise widows and widowers to avoid making major decisions until at least a year following their loved one’s death.

Here are some short stories that discuss the death of husbands and wives. We also included the memoir of Joyce Carol Oates on our list.

5. “The Knowers” by Helen Phillips

In "The Knowers," technology exists that allows people to find out the exact date they will die. A wife decides to find out, much to her husband’s chagrin. 

As the couple grows old together, their relationship is enriched and strained by knowing the death date. 

Phillips graduated from Yale and is an associate professor at Brooklyn College. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their children.

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6. A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates

Please understand that this selection is a memoir instead of a short story. However, we decided to include it on our list because Oates is a highly praised short story writer, and A Widow's Story is her personal account of the loss of her husband of 46 years.

Some people struggle to find their purpose after the death of a spouse . If you face this dilemma, know that you are not alone.

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We apologize if you feel that this category is not appropriate. But, the fact is that people cope with death in different ways. So, here are some stories that present death in a somewhat lighthearted or ironic manner. Of course, our list of funny short stories begins with a little-known piece by Mark Twain.

7. “Is He Dead?” by Mark Twain

This play by Mark Twain was based on a short story the author wrote. In "Is He Dead?" , a French painter stages his death to increase the value of his paintings. He later dresses as a woman to keep his secret from the public.

Mark Twain is a pseudonym for Samuel Clemens. Twain/Clemens wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer  and numerous short stories such as the “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

8. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin

Please understand that this isn’t a typical heartbreaking story about losing a spouse. Instead, the main character in "The Story of an Hour" isn’t disappointed when she learns that her husband died in an accident. She reflects on her new freedom and hopes for a long life. However, at the end of the story, the widow sees her husband walk through the door. The woman dies of shock.

Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening , which has been described as a case study of 19th Century feminism.

Are you still trying to find that perfect story about death that describes your experience with loss and grief? We know that many of the stories on our list tell exaggerated accounts and over-the-top plots. Perhaps that’s why these stories are so popular and easy to find.

Here are a few more stories about death and love to consider.

9. “Wild Horses” by Rick Bass

In “Wild Horses,” Karen’s fiance drowns in the Mississippi River the day before their wedding. Karen blames the death on her fiance’s friend Sydney. Sydney, who breaks wild horses for a living, also feels guilt for witnessing the tragedy but failing to save his friend. Sydney attempts to “break” Karen from her grief while struggling with his own. 

Rick Bass is a writer and an environmental activist. He has a Bachelor of Science in Geology with a focus in Wildlife from Utah State University. 

10. “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

The power of death is the theme for this rather macabre story by William Faulkner. In this "A Rose for Emily," a southern woman lives with her father, who refuses to let her marry anyone beneath her station. When the father dies, Emily refuses to give up his body for burial – insisting that her father wasn’t dead. She finally gives up her dad’s corpse for burial.

Later, a laborer comes into town and is seen spending time with Emily. Emily purchases gifts for the man, who neighbors assume will soon become her husband. However, the man disappears, and a strange smell emanates from the house.

Years later, Emily dies. The townspeople enter her home for services and break down a locked door. There, they discover the decayed corpse of the laborer who had gone missing. Near the corpse was a pillow with the indentation of a head and a long gray hair. 

This story by Faulkner is a popular choice for high school and college reading lists. Faulkner also wrote The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying .

What Does Your Favorite Author Have to Say About Death?

Since death is such a popular subject, consider looking at a list of works by your favorite authors to find a time when they broached the subject. You might also begin your search by finding quotes about death by your favorite writers.

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Free Creative Writing Prompts #3: Death

During my senior year of high school, an old wrestling buddy of mine overdosed on heroin and passed away. He had been clean for a few months and it was a huge shock to everybody who knew him. I had been to funerals before, but this was the first one in which the deceased was the same age as myself.

When I returned home, I felt like being outside and alone. I started kicking around the soccer ball and having a conversation with my dead friend. I didn’t really think he was there but he sort of was. At least, wherever he was, he probably had a chance of hearing me.

As is the usual case with me, it took television to make a point really hit home. Last year, my girlfriend and I developed an obsession with the HBO series  “Six Feet Under."  I had never seen a show that touched upon death in such a realistic way. The characters had conversations like mine on a regular basis. But what really hit me was a message I’ve heard since college.

“You must come to terms with the fact that some day you will die."

Everyone and everything dies (at least physically). It is part of the natural cycle of things and everybody has his or her own thoughts about it. Your thoughts on death majorly affect the way you live your life. The following twenty free  creative writing prompts deal with death and the way you feel about it.

Caution: These free creative writing prompts may cause you to come to terms with death :).

Seriously though, if completed with an open mind and a willingness to give yourself the gift, these prompts can open you up to a wide range of emotions to write from. Try them. Try one! Really try it. You may be surprised with what you get out of it.

Here are twenty free creative writing prompts about death:

1. You have just walked up to the open casket of your favorite grandparent. How does it make you feel?

2. Your best friend has just been in a horrible accident and is on life support, possibly for the rest of his or her life. Your friend has appointed you to be the person who pulls the plug for his or her Do Not Resuscitate order. Describe your feelings.

3. Your grandmother just passed away and she personally left you $100,000. Do you do something in her memory or spend it on yourself? Start the story from the reading of the will.

4. While waiting for a train, a large man in a hooded sweatshirt asks you for change. You give him a dollar and you walk to the far side of the platform. He follows and then pulls a gun on you. Start from there.

5. Your partner has died in a sudden accident and you have to deliver the main eulogy. Detail your process of creating this eulogy while grieving.

6. You are watching your own viewing from the back of the room. Who eulogizes you and what do they say? (Thanks to  Stephen Covey  for the inspiration for this!)

7. Your favorite pet is ailing incredibly. The vet says that he could survive up to one more year but in increasingly worse pain. He suggests putting the pet down. Describe what you do.

8. The plane you are flying in begins to lose cabin pressure rapidly. You are told to prepare for emergency landing procedure. What do you do?

9. You have been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Describe your first week after finding this out.

10. Your friend or spouse is in the third trimester of pregnancy. Due to complications, she must choose between the baby and herself. She is leaning towards choosing the baby. How do you advise her?

11. You see a little boy wander into the middle of a busy intersection. What do you do?

12. Your father has told you that he is in incredible pain and that he wants you to help him kill himself. What do you say or do?

13. You see a homeless man lying by the side of a building. You are not sure if he is dead or sleeping. Go from there.

14. You are the witness of a group beating that is in progress. What do you see? What do you do?

15. You wake up to find yourself bleeding profusely and you aren’t sure from where. You will definitely need medical attention. Describe your next few hours.

16. You are in an extremely heated argument with your partner. He or she goes tumbling down the stairs. Your partner is not moving or responding. Describe the next few hours.

17. You have just been informed that the discomfort you felt earlier in the day was a mild heart attack. What will you do to change your lifestyle?

18. Your father has just passed away. Describe dealing with your mother.

19. Your elderly grandmother has been trying to complete an extensive family scrapbook for years, but she has become too frail. You decide to help her out. Describe the process of creating this work with your grandmother. (Thanks Amy!)

20. You are on your deathbed, surrounded by your loved ones. They are attentively waiting what may be your final words. Describe the scene, what you say, and the last precious moments of life.

If you are looking for something a little more light-hearted, try these  free creative writing prompts about love.  If this is your thing, have at it :).

Related Articles to Free Creative Writing Prompts #3 Free Creative Writing Exercises #2: Relaxation Free Creative Writing Prompts from the Heart, Part 1 Creative Writing Tips #1: Substitution

Done with Prompts about Death? Go back to Creative Writing Prompts.  

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How to Write a Death Scene That's Meaningful

Death is a universal experience that has the power to evoke some of the strongest emotions in a reader. For writers, death scenes can add depth, meaning, and impact to a story. At the same time, these critical scenes can advance the plot, develop characters, explore themes, and create a sense of loss or change. 

They can also come across as a cheap trick.

Not all deaths are the same, though. In fact, death scenes can take many forms, including physical, emotional, and psychological deaths. 

By the time you’re done with this article, we will:

• Understand the different types of death scenes and their impact on a story
• Learn how to research and prepare for writing a death scene
• Develop the skills necessary to craft a death scene that is emotionally powerful and memorable
• Gain insights and tips for avoiding common mistakes and writing effective death scenes

These scenes should be some of the most emotional and powerful in your story, so let’s get them right.

Exploring the Different Types of Death Scenes

Death is one of the only certainties of life and has been a central theme in storytelling for centuries. Whether it's a tragedy, a romance , or an epic adventure, death has the power to add depth and meaning to a story in a way that no other event can.

But each type of death brings something different to the table and allows you to, quite frankly, destroy your characters in different ways. But you’re destroying them to mess with your readers, so that’s okay.

Let’s look at the different types of death scenes you can use in your writing.

Physical Deaths

Physical death is perhaps the most straightforward type of death scene. It refers to the end of life in a physical sense, and is often depicted as the end of a character's journey in a story. Physical deaths can be caused by a wide range of factors, like an illness, an accident, violence, or natural causes.

In a physical death scene, the focus is often on the character's condition, the circumstances surrounding the death, and the reactions of other characters in the scene. With this type of scene, you want to consider the why behind the death. For example, a physical death may be seen as a sacrifice for a greater cause, a tragic loss, or a release from suffering.

To make a physical death scene impactful, it's important to spend some time on the emotional reactions of your characters. The way that other characters react to the death can reveal important information about their relationships and motivations . If a character dies in battle, for example, the reactions of their comrades can show the depth of their bond and the sacrifice they’re willing to make for each other.

Additionally, it's crucial to consider the details surrounding the physical death. How is the death depicted? Is it violent and brutal , or is it peaceful and serene? The way you write the death plays a key role in the emotional impact of the scene.

Overall, physical deaths can be a powerful tool in storytelling, but they must be handled with care. By considering the context, emotional reactions, and details of the death, you can craft a physical death scene that is both meaningful and impactful.

Emotional Deaths

An emotional death is the end of a character's emotional journey, rather than their physical life. It can take many forms, such as the loss of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or the loss of a cherished dream. Emotional deaths can be just as impactful as physical deaths, as they often reveal deeper truths about a character's personality, motivations, and beliefs.

In an emotional death scene, it's important to focus on the internal experience of the character. What are their thoughts and feelings in the aftermath of the emotional death? How do they process the loss ? Are they able to move on, or are they consumed by grief?

An effective emotional death scene should also consider the impact the death has on the other characters in the story. How does the death affect their relationships and motivations? For example, if a character loses a loved one, it can drive them to seek revenge or bring them closer to their friends and family.

Additionally, the setting and tone of emotional death scenes are crucial factors to consider. A peaceful, serene setting can emphasize the character's acceptance of the loss, while a dark and stormy setting can highlight their struggle and turmoil. Just try not to make it overtly cliché.

Most writers don’t consider this kind of scene a “death,” but emotional deaths can be powerful tools in storytelling, as they offer the opportunity to delve into a character's inner world and explore their emotional experiences. By focusing on the internal experience of the character, the impact on other characters, and the setting and tone of the scene, you can craft something that’s incredibly moving.

Psychological Deaths

Lastly, psychological death refers to the end of a character's mental and emotional stability. This kind of scene can look like a loss of identity, a traumatic experience , or a descent into madness. 

Psychological deaths can be some of the most powerful and impactful death scenes, as they challenge a character's sense of self and force them to confront their inner demons. And honestly, no one wants to do that.

In a psychological death scene, the focus is on the character's inner world and their psychological experience. What is causing their mental and emotional collapse? What are their thoughts and feelings in the aftermath of the death? Are they able to overcome their trauma, or are they consumed by it?

Don’t forget about your other characters, either. How do they react to the character's descent into madness? How does it affect their relationships and motivations? For example, if a character is struggling with their mental health, it can push their friends and family away or bring them closer together.

To make a psychological death scene impactful, it's important to pay attention to the character's inner dialogue and thoughts. What is the character thinking as they struggle with their psychological death? What are their fears and anxieties?

Finally, the setting and tone of the psychological death scene should also be carefully considered. A dark, creepy setting can emphasize the character's descent into madness, while a bright, hopeful setting can highlight their struggle to overcome their trauma.

When writing any death scene, especially psychological death that deals with mental health or illness, make sure to do your homework and treat it in a responsible way. These scenes can be powerful, but they can also be harmful if written poorly.

Crafting a Death Scene

Now we’re going to  dive into the process of crafting a death scene, including tips and advice to help writers create powerful and impactful death scenes. 

No matter which kind of death you’re writing, there are key elements that must be considered in order to create a scene that is both memorable and meaningful. 

Researching Death and Death Scenes

Before writing a death scene, it's important to do your research. This can involve learning about the different types of death all the ways death might come about for your characters. Understanding the physical, emotional, and psychological impact of death can help you create a death scene that is authentic and impactful.

It can also be helpful to read and analyze other death scenes from books, movies, and TV shows. What makes these scenes effective or ineffective? What are the key elements that are included in the scene, and how do they contribute to the overall impact of the scene?

Additionally, you may want to research cultural attitudes and beliefs about death. How does society view death and the dying process? What are the common rituals and traditions surrounding death, and how do they influence our perceptions of death and dying?

Truly understanding the different types of death will better equip you to write a scene that is both authentic and impactful.

Creating the Setting

The setting of a death scene isn’t just a backdrop for your characters, but it can impact the tone of the scene. The setting should reflect the mood and atmosphere of the scene, as well as the emotional state of the characters.

When creating the setting for a death scene, consider the following:

• Location: Where is the death scene taking place? Is it in a hospital room, a battlefield, or a peaceful forest? The location of the death scene should be chosen based on the type of death, the mood, and the atmosphere you want to create.
• Time of day: What time of day is it? A death scene taking place at night can create a sense of mystery and tension, while one that takes place during the day can create a sense of clarity and peace.
• Weather: The weather can also play a role in setting the tone of the death scene. A dark, stormy day can reflect the emotional turmoil of the characters, while a clear, sunny day can reflect the peace and tranquility of the death.
• Surroundings: What is the environment like in the death scene? Are there trees, buildings, or other structures surrounding the character? Are there any objects in the scene that are particularly significant, like a religious symbol or a family photo?

Above all else, remember the setting of a scene isn’t just where it takes place. Like everything you write, the setting should play an important role in your story. For an ultimate guide to writing a setting, click here .

Highlighting the Character

The character at the center of the death is perhaps the most important element in the scene, so the death of a character can be a powerful moment in a story, one that can have a lasting impact on the reader or viewer.

When developing the character for a death scene, consider the following:

• Background: What’s the background of the character? What has led them to this point in their life, and how does their past impact the death scene? Is anything unresolved?
• Relationships: What are the relationships between the character who’s dying and the others in the story? How will their death affect the other characters, and how will the relationships between these other character change?
• Personality: How does the character react to their own death or the idea of it? If the dying character isn’t the narrator, how does your POV character react to someone else dying? Are they stoic? Understanding? Terrified? Inner monologue and thoughts are central to an effective death.
• Goals and dreams: What are the goals and dreams of the character, and how do they relate to the death scene? Does the character's death mark the end of their journey, or does it mark a new beginning?

As you can probably see, the most important parts of a death scene are the reactions of people— the character themselves , those around them, and the reader. Leverage this to make your scene meaningful.

Writing the Death Scene

Writing a death scene can be a challenging and emotional experience, but it can also be a rewarding one. The key to writing a death scene that is powerful and memorable is to focus on the emotional impact of the death, rather than just the physical act of dying.

When writing a death scene, consider the following:

• Show, don't tell: The death scene is a moment for showing, not telling. Instead of simply describing what is happening, use sensory detail and dialogue to bring the scene to life. Allow the reader to experience the scene through the characters' emotions and actions. Get some show, don't tell practice here .
• Emotional impact: The death of a character is a significant event, and the emotional impact of the death should be at the forefront of the scene. Explore the emotions of the characters involved in the death scene and show how the death affects them.
• Atmosphere: The atmosphere of the death scene should reflect the mood and tone of the scene. Use sensory detail and descriptive language to create an atmosphere that is intense, peaceful, or somewhere in between.
• Themes: The death scene can also be an opportunity to explore themes in your story, such as life and death, loss and grief, or hope and renewal. Consider how the death scene relates to these themes and use it to deepen the overall meaning of your story.

Writing a death scene is an opportunity to explore the emotions and themes of your story, not just shock or upset your reader. Make sure you use this type of scene to its fullest potential.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Death Scenes

While writing a death scene can be a rewarding experience, it can also be easy to fall into common traps and make mistakes that detract from such a pivotal moment. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when writing death scenes:

• Overdone melodrama: Death scenes are emotional moments, but it's important to avoid overdoing the melodrama. Avoid using clichéd phrases or overly sentimental language, and focus instead on showing the emotions of the characters through their actions and dialogue.
• Lack of emotional impact: The death of a character should have a significant emotional impact, but it's important to make sure the impact is real and genuine. Avoid making the death feel like a cheap plot device, and make sure it has a lasting emotional impact on the characters and the story.
• Poorly developed characters: A death scene can be a powerful moment, but it will only have the effect you want if the reader cares about the character who is dying. Make sure the character who’s dying is well-developed and the reader has a reason to care about them before the death scene takes place.
• Shocking for shock's sake: While it can be tempting to write a death scene that is shocking or unexpected, it's important to make sure that the death makes sense in the context of the story. Avoid making the death feel like a cheap trick and instead make sure that the death is an organic and meaningful part of the story.
• Ignoring grief: The death of a character is a significant event, and it's important to acknowledge and explore the grief that follows. Avoid making the death feel like a footnote in the story, and instead explore the impact that the death has on the characters and the world of the story.

Do you know what’s way worse than your favorite character dying? Your favorite character being written off in a lazy death scene. Don’t do it!

A Fourth Type of Death?

Now that you’ve made it this far, I want to introduce you to another kind of death: article death. It’s when you reach the last part of an article, like right now.

All jokes aside, I hope this article has opened your eyes not just to the effect death scenes can have on a story but the different types of deaths and how you can write them.

The next step? Actually writing. And for that, Dabble’s got your back.

With all the tools a writer needs—without any of the learning curve or distractions—Dabble is the best platform for fiction writers to bring their book to life.

And you can give it a try for 14 days, absolutely free, without even putting in your credit card info. Click here to get started with Dabble , and go kill some of your characters.

Doug Landsborough can’t get enough of writing. Whether freelancing as an editor, blog writer, or ghostwriter, Doug is a big fan of the power of words. In his spare time, he writes about monsters, angels, and demons under the name D. William Landsborough. When not obsessing about sympathetic villains and wondrous magic, Doug enjoys board games, horror movies, and spending time with his wife, Sarah.

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Write About Life and Death

by Joe Bunting | 83 comments

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The day Marston was born , we found out my wife's grandmother had cancer. They said she had six months to a year to live. Three weeks later, she was in critical condition, and my wife was flying up to see her. It's now four weeks after my son was born and I'm here in Pennsylvania, Amish country, for the funeral.

Never before have I seen life and death in such close proximity.  Cormac McCarthy once said these are the only two subjects worth writing about, life and death. After experiencing it first hand this month, I get it.

Photo by Rama V

Contrast in Art

Great art employs contrast: good and evil, dark and light, life and death. When you place orange next to dark blue, both colors look more vibrant (which is why sunrises are so beautiful).

When you place life next to death (or vice versa), both become more meaningful.

Life Beside Death

There’s this one picture someone took of my son with his great-grandmother. She was unconscious, had that gaping mouth of the dazed dying.

Marston was lying, propped up against her, looking up just past the camera with an expression that says, “This is very strange.” And certainly, for one so freshly brought into the world, the idea of someone leaving it would be foreign.

When I first saw that picture, I thought, “Oh, good. Someone got a picture of him with her.” The second time I looked at it, I recognized the contrast and felt a slow burn of grief and awe in my chest.

I wanted to show the picture to everyone I talked to that day, as if to say, “See? This is the mystery, that these two things could exist in the same world. How do you explain that?”

Great Authors Write About Death

I recently read The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, the novel that won the Booker Prize in 2012. The title is very appropriate. The story follows a man trying to understand the suicide of his best friend fifty years prior, a man at the end of his life trying to understand the end of someone he cared about.

Great writers write about death. Of the twenty books nominated for the Booker Prize in 2011 , all of them involved the theme of death. By exploring death, you naturally draw out the meanings behind life.

Sometimes when I look at my son, I wonder what it will be like for him as an old man, looking back on his life. Will he be content with what his life as he faces death? What can I do, I wonder, at the start of his life, to make sure the end is successful?

Develop the Contrast in Your Story

Great art employs contrast. If you want to create art, ask how can you develop the contrast in your story?

How can you increase the proximity between death and life?

How can you draw out the meaning of life by writing about death?

Do you follow Cormac McCarthy’s advice and write about life and death?

Write a scene that shows life and death in proximity to each other, experimenting with the contrast and how it draws out the meaning of both.

Write for fifteen minutes. When you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section. And if you post, be sure to comment on a few practices by other writers.

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Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

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83 Comments

Here’s my practice:

The baby was just sitting in his swing, smiling. The sun caressed his fluffy locks. I crept up to his rocking swing, suspended from the high branch. “How is this fair, Boy? All you know is goodness.” He giggled and cooed, as if to agree with me. The gentle breeze tousled our hair. His mother was watching us from the picnic blanket. “His name is Brandon. He’s only four moths old.” She smiled, but i could see she was tense. I must look strange, crouched next to her baby without a friendly greeting her way. “Ella, let’s go,” Aunt Violet pat my head, none too gently. “They’re trying to have a nice picnic.” I looked over their way. The four ladies were all stretched out on the red checkered blanket, sipping their pink drinks and smiling gaily under their flowered hats in their spotted dresses. Aunt Violet and I were wearing black. The most forlorn color in the whole world. “Don’t be deceived, Brandon,” I whispered, hoping he would take my advice and be spared the pain. Once, I had been happy. I had loved swinging, sunny picnics and pink lemonade. I had been deceived.

you give us just a hint of life and death. I would like to know more where you are going with it, and more about the narrator.

I hardly know anything about the narrator or where the story is going. This is from my current WIP that i just started a couple days ago. It’s been pleasant to work on so far 🙂

More please. I want to know how old the narrator is more about her. Very intriguing mystery here.

Glad you’re intrigued!

powerful piece in a few sentences…squeezed my heart. Well done.

It’s a good hook. I agree with the others’ comments. It seems to lead to a deeper story.

I’m so sorry about your wife’s grandmother. 🙁 Our family will be thinking about you guys.

Thanks Kate. You guys are the best.

I pray for comfort for your family. I am sorry to hear about her death.

Thanks Pamela. :}

They were dancing, dancing, and the room was alive with their whirling limbs. The music was loud and the costumes full of sparkle, a blur, a cacophony of joy and celebration. In the next room a son had been born, the first son in three generations, and the family was overcome with relief and gratitude. The daughters were fine, they appreciated the daughters, but a son, oh! To have a son was heaven itself. Propped in her bed, triumphant even in her exhaustion, the new baby’s mother watched as her plump pink boy blinked his eyes and moved his mouth as he was passed from happy arm to happy arm. Already she was calculating his years, his education, his future occupation. Her husband beamed at her with accomplishment and pride.

A quieter room, farther down the hall. The lights dimmed and the grief palpable. Hushed voices huddled over hunched figures wrapped in blankets and sadness. In her arms a lifeless child, also a boy, gray and shrunken. His mother cradled him and rocked back and forth, oblivious to the umbilical cord that bound them and the cramping of the afterbirth trying to expel. She kissed his blue lips and his mottled eyelids. Her mother fluttered helplessly, looking for something to do. Her father was silent in his own world of hurt and pain. This was to be the first grandchild. This was the hope of a new beginning, now crushed. And the father of the baby had left the room. He couldn’t bear it. The nurses waited nervously to take the body, mindful that the mother needed her bonding time even it was only to the grave. One nurse offered to take a picture but the family shook their heads in unison. That would be too painful, they said. She’ll recover, her mother said. She’ll have another baby and forget this one. The woman lifted her head and shook it slowly. “I’ll never forget my first born son.” Then she reluctantly handed him to the nurse, wrapping his blankets around his little shoulders and kissing his little cold forehead. “I will never forget you, ” she whispered to him, and squeezed a tear from her tired eyes.

The faint sounds of music and celebration came down the hall like a western breeze. She leaned back in her hospital bed and closed her eyelids, listening to the music, the laughter, the sheer happiness. In a strange way it comforted her to know that on the day she lost hope, others had found it, and there would be a new tomorrow after all.

This is incredible, Jay.

Okay, I have to get up and wipe my eyes. Truly excellent.

thank you so much, I am glad it moved you.

Awesome job with the contrast. I like how the mother found a strange comfort in that painful time for her.

…..in the hope that others had found. Yes!

i couldn’t leave it without hope.

Beautifully written. ” A new beginning, crushed..” The hardest blow of all to a parent. Thanks for sharing this story.

being a parent leaves us so very vulnerable.

Yes, beautifully, descriptively, unforgettably written.

‘The daughters were fine, they appreciated the daughters, but a son, oh! To have a son was heaven itself.’

It’s nice to be appreciated.

ironic, and I debated putting that line in, but it seemed to write itself. Perhaps it says something about the culture of the family, which may not have been American. And just to put my two cents in, I absolutely celebrate my daughters, they are the most amazing people in my life.

‘I debated putting that line in, but it seemed to write itself…’

Not sure this makes sense, Jay. I suspect that if you were a little more up with the main tenets of feminist politics you would have an explanation for why the line seemed to ‘write itself’ in spite of the age-old sexist sentiment not sitting well with your more updated, personal attachment to your own daughters. Some people think you should keep politics out of art (and out of the family, indeed), I am not one of them. Surely art is not about reinforcing common prejudices, tacitly or otherwise, while the best art is all about challenging them.

Hi SJ… I beg to differ. I think it all depends on where the rest of Jay’s story is going. If the line writes itself, then it must be allowed to. Perhaps there is more to this story… Perhaps we will tell a tale about the unfair oppression of women. One can only be true to the muse, what the story want’s to say and who it wants to talk about.

Hi Audrey. You’re right to pull me up for assuming Jay’s story ends there. With the creative process, one never knows. Though the theme of Jay’s piece was life and death represented by two boy babies with girls mentioned only to emphasise the greater joy that the family felt in having a son, compared with their daughters, who were merely appreciated. I felt for those ‘appreciated’ girls. It’s such an over-used and harmful sentiment, I didn’t feel the creative muse at work at all, more the prejudice of the ages. But you’re right, that is the beauty of the creative process (unlike politics); you’re not stuck with prejudice. You can speak to it and think outside of its confused confines. If only more people would!

Gosh. So good, but so hard. Thanks Jay.

beautiful and oh, so real, Jay. The last line is so big and believable, this feels like a psalm. Thx.

Your comment about bonding time, even to the grave, is poignant, Jay. I loved how you captured the emotion of each scene and tied them together. Thanks for sharing – this was great reading.

-mother needed her bonding time even it was only to the grave. This is my favorite line of your piece. I think it draws a picture of eternity. One day is as a thousand years, type of thinking. A mother’s love is eternal and her short memory of her son is intense and not without purpose. God wastes nothing, especially grief, for it wouldn’t be grief if it were not first love.

I’m glad you ended this piece with hope instead of sadness. You did a wonderful job putting both life and death in this practice.

This thing about the 2 boys being grandchildren, it touches me so Jay, it’s so Asian… I almost cried when you had the second mother saying “I will never forget you..”

At my mother- in- law’s funeral, a gathering of family surrounded the gravesite. The humidity was intense as the harpist played “Wind Beneath my Wings”, and doves were released. A solemn silence paid tribute to her life until a month-old great-grandson added his voice. She had never met this new addition to the family but she would have adored him. Something about that innocent new life expressing himself as forcefully as she might have made everyone smile. The tension eased as focus transferred from the past to the future. In the continuity of life we find hope.

Succinct and so expressive. So much in a short paragraph!

Joe, Thank you for sharing your grief and insight. Prayers for your family and your grandmother through her transition.

Thank you so much.

Thank you Joe. so sorry to hear about your wife’s grandmother, what beautiful way you have told us this. (And “in Amish country, PA” is where for you?)

Thank you Beca. Graveside service was today. It was very moving.

Lancaster. 🙂

I’m glad you’re able to deal with that loss so maturely and with your head held high. All my regards to your family Joe.

My practice:

I had another nightmare about Claire this morning and when my eyes shot open the relief I felt that it was all in my imagination was temporary; hardly comforting; and when I opened my eyes to find myself alone in our king sized bed in the dark hours of dawn my heart wrenched. When I fell asleep we were twirling on top of Lake Havasu, hands and eyes locked and she was smiling and laughing; her burgundy hair flowed like ribbons in the wind. We didn’t sink because that’s how I saw her; she could walk on water and she could probably fly, if she wanted to.

Then she morphed into Brady, and Brady and I swam and splashed in the lake. Brady couldn’t swim because babies can’t swim but I was holding her and I wouldn’t let her sink. I would never let her sink and Claire would never let us sink. Claire was still there but I couldn’t see her in my dream because she was Brady now and Brady hadn’t been born yet but I knew what Brady looked like because it was a dream it was a wonderful dream. Then Claire was there and She had Brady in her arms and they both sunk. One second later they both sank in the water—they were both drowning and I swam down, down, down further but our outstretched hands never touched. We were all crying even though we were underwater and then I woke up and my heart wrenched.

As if the world cared about a loss. I woke up and it wasn’t a dream anymore. The events played out in my imagination even though my eyes were open and I looked at the ceiling. It was like my eyes were closed–I wish I could close my eyes without seeing Claire fall. We were walking to the store, all three of us (Brady kicking around inside Claire’s belly) and the sun bright and hot I should have told Claire to stay home. I should have known it was too hot when we were sweating and we joked. We joked that we wouldn’t get lost because we would follow the drops of sweat that fell onto the pavement.

As if the world cared about one loss. Two losses, even. A million, even; the world doesn’t care. It’s plus or minus another set of feet pounding the earth and the world doesn’t care. That’s why the world gave Claire an aneurysm on our way to the gas station because Brady wanted a candy bar. That’s why the world killed them; because our unborn baby wanted a candy bar.

When Claire’s grip on my hand loosened and I thought that’s okay because it’s too hot to hold hands anyway, I wasn’t worried for a split second. Then I was worried because Claire made a funny noise; she grunted like a wild animal and then she fell. I yelled out, “Claire!” and she wouldn’t answer and she wouldn’t breathe. I knew she wouldn’t answer me but I kept screaming her name anyway, and I screamed for help and there was No God Damned One on the block outside; they stayed inside because it was too hot.

And Claire splayed out face down on the cement—her burgundy hair like an explosion on the pavement, that image still burns my eyelids when I close my eyes and now my eyes are open. My eyes are open and I can see that and I’m alone in the bed, this giant empty bed at four in the morning. Claire is gone and Brady was never really here, not really anyway and my heart wrenched. My chest tightened up and my testicles shriveled up and I leaned over the side of the bed and vomited.

Absolutely. The heart wrenches and you make us feel it. I like your repetition of that and other phrases at strategic points — it drives home that the man is in a sense marooned with his loss, at least for the time being — the loss of the life that had been so present and animated. Good work, man!

Thanks John!

amazing, Karl. Amazing piece of writing. You had me at “I had another nightmare about Claire this morning” – drew me in right away (it’s such a strong pull, may I suggest you make it a lone sentence?)The descriptions of her hair are down right fabulous:”hair flowed like ribbons in the wind, her burgundy hair like an explosion on the pavement” Loved this work.

Thank you for that awesome suggestion. It feels good that you enjoyed it so much, thank you for reading it!

I love the detail you put into this. I can feel the narrator’s sadness. The visions and memories were outstanding, and it made my heart wrench. Beautifully written.

My heart wrenched reading this, Karl – beautiful work. I loved the stream-of-consciousness dream. I could feel all the heat and pain as you three were outside. And the “burgundy hair like an explosion on the pavement” – that’s a vivid picture! Thanks for sharing this

We didn’t sink because that’s how I saw her; she could walk on water and she could probably fly, if she wanted to. I like this. Our dreams tell of soulful truth. I like “burgundy hair” and “As if the world cared about loss.”

I could no more tell you what the play was about than the man in the moon, beyond the fact that one of the female actors wore cowboy boots, which was part of the joke. Hopefully composed on the outside, my inner works were vibrating/chanting in unison *oh god oh god oh god*. God’s female voice sounded soft and low and rich with loving authority in my inner ear, telling me it’s all right, be assured, be still and know, enjoy, after awhile we’ll go home. It was settled, *we* had determined where *we* were going after the play was over. Mutuality of excited consent: the first glorious morning in an exotic but lovely land to which I was repatriate. We planned this, albeit hurriedly, down to my asking if she could bring some fresh towels because none of mine were clean. She could, and did — I flashed on my young mother smoothing the comforter on my bed while covering me with lover’s eyes, domesticity old become young again, unbesmirched by any cynicism of bitterness. All of that was gone now.

I left her to get the takeout Chinese at the restaurant we’d settled on. As I walk out and toward the car balancing the boxes, a tall, lean, muscular black man of indeterminate age, but not old, speaks up loudly: “Say, I gotta twelve-dollar mistake I gotta take care of, can ya help me out?” I’ve seen this person and heard these exact same words from him before, in this same exact place. Practicing prudent policy I look neither to the left nor the right, I say not a word, I continue my awkward mincing toward my car. This arouses his anger. “Whatsa mattah donchu TALK? F***in’ Vietnam *Vetterun*!” I’m opening the car door, I squench behind the wheel, I close (and lock) the door, I’m in. I feel the tight little grin/grimace on my face. I, who have never (fortunately for us all!) graced our military, allow myself one little titter of amusement, then cut it off, draw myself up, watchfully back out and begin slowly and carefully driving back to her. I have kept myself contained today. I have not shaken to pieces. I have not broken down in tears. I have not rolled over for the picking. I have not given what a stranger asked. I can still think of myself as something of a man — but I have once again carved my insides out on the street, almost it would seem for the amusement of all and sundry. There is a walking dead person in here. A personal integrity has been satisfied. But it is so *bitter*.

We came together in the light from the streetlamp through the window. There was no one but us in the world, and at the same time humanity entire bore quiet joyful witness. Even the creaking from upstairs of a neighbor shifting on his bed seemed completely right. We were altogether, whole, complete, merging. We told each other our pain. We told each other our joy. We faltered in the telling of our love each for the other. We belonged to each other and to the universe.

The night carried us through.

Fantastic. I love your writing style, so easy to read and so full of images and reflections. I can feel the way the narrator feels, and yet see him from the outside in. I would love to read more of your work, do you have any stories posted you could link me to?

Jay, Thank you so much, it’s great to have an interested reader. OK I’m not smart enough to do links per se in this context, but I went back over my old posts and selected a few you might enjoy — I think you can get to them by googling the title of the article and/or the first few words of the story; I tested it and that seemed to work in most instances for me:

What is the Emotional Investment in you Stories?/ “Looking back, Jim . . .”

What Driving Can Teach You about Practicing Writing/ “My father taught me …”

Grandfather [Writing Prompt]/ Grandma did the talking . . . ”

How to Write a Short Story No One Else Can Write/ “Two terraced sets of ten strings…”

I hope that works, or if you know a better way to link let me know. Thanks again!

There was no one but us in the world, and at the same time humanity entire bore quiet joyful witness. You phrase things very beautifully and to be honest I’m a bit jealous 🙂 Very nice work today

Thank you so much Karl! It means a lot.

I love your style in this piece, John. The opening sentence so conversational put me in the story right away as though I was sitting beside you and we had been chatting. Same feeling with “I left her to get the takeout Chinese at the restaurant we’d settled on.” There’s a comfortable ease with this piece, yet so intimate. Tender and powerful writing. Great work.

Thank you, Margaret!

I understand the sense of wondering that you had. How could both things -life and death- can coexist in this world. Excelent post!

Am so sorry for your loss, Joe. I can’t imagine the flurry of emotions storming your heart with your son’s birth and a death in the family so close together. I am deeply touched you would use that experience to inspire a writing practice with all of us. Thank you for your generous spirit and continued love of story…blessings to you and your family.

Thank you, Margaret, for this touching comment. Appreciate your kindness.

With you on this, Margaret. I think it is admirable, the closeness of your family, Joe. Hopeful beginnings, mournful endings.

As a child, I had always been rather curious. Too curious, perhaps, for my own safety. Now, there are many things that that curiosity led to that I have tried to forget. In fact, there are quite a bit that I have forgotton, over time. But there’s still one memory that stands out, imprinted into my brain, bearing down on my heart and my innocence like ten-tons of boulders surrounding me that only intend to kill me. It wrecked me permanently. It ruined me forever. You can sense my sadness and my grief just by the look in my eyes. Oh, my eyes. They tell many stories. The biggest story my eyes tell happened in the summer I was three. I was walking down the street with my mother and father. I hung onto my mother’s arms, swinging back and forth. She laughed heartily, pulling me up into her arms so I could sail like an airplane, or putting me on her shoulders. I remember she pointed at my father once. “Who’s that, Tara?” she would say. “Daddy!” I shouted, as any child would. I was passed to my father, where he would give me butterfly kisses. He tapped my nose. “And what’s your name, my pretty girl?” he smiled. “I’m Tara!” I said proudly, putting my finger on my chest in a gesture to myself. Father set me down, careful to keep a hold of my hand. Mother stayed a couple steps behind, watching with her fond, motherly smile. Father nodded toward the onrush of cars flying by on the freeway next to our sidewalk. “What are those called, Tara?” My little eyes widened at the sight of so many cars. They all sped around, flying past me in a neverending spectrum of colors. It was then that I saw it– the pink car. Pink, naturally, was my favorite color. I was a princess, afterall, just like the Disney ones, I liked to think. I had never seen a pink car, and had only dreamed about them for so long. I didn’t think they existed. It was the car of my dreams, fit to carry the princess to the ball. My curiosity overruled my body in a second, and before I had time to think about what I was about to do, I was off toward the pink car driving by, right in the middle of the freeway. The next couple minutes have always been a blur to me. I’m not exactly sure what happened. All I remember is my father screaming my name, and my feet hitting the sidewalk as I was lifted out of the street. And then there was the crash. They told me my father went out to save me. He somehow rescued me… But not himself. Days later I was sitting next to his bed in the hospital room. He was limp. I poked at his cheek, opened his eyelids, shook him, but he would never wake up. Why was he sleeping so long? My mother cried as she picked me up away from Dad. I tilted my head. “Mommy, what’s wrong with Daddy?” I asked. She shook her head, carrying me out the door. “Nothing, Tara,” she said. “Let’s go. Just let Daddy sleep.”

…wondering how many people told this child “It wasn’t your fault.” Great practice, poignant story to be a part of a child’s painful memory. I absolutely loved “Oh, my eyes. They tell many stories”…an amazing line to grab our hearts. …don’t all of our eyes tell stories? Thx for this!

This gripped my heart… Wow. You did an Excellent job. I loved the pink princess car.

The last lines end it well. It wraps up the piece in a profound way, like the Dad’s sacrificial love brings them all to eventual rest. Kind of like God, the Father. The way Mommy gives explanation to Tara is appropriate on a childlike level.

Thank you! I’m so glad you recognized the relation between the piece and God’s love for us, that’s exactly what I was going for. 🙂

She had never ridden in an ambulance before. Not that she would call this a ride. The attendants strapped her onto a gurney that locked on the floor of the ambulance after they slid it into place. Cachunk. Cachunk. She heard the locks catch, felt the vibration buzz against her back a moment before the siren began to wail. The female attendant knelt beside her to check her pulse again as she reported to the hospital. “Patient is a 58 year old female, no history of migraines, collapsed with sudden onset head pain” The ride was rough, she felt every crack in the road. “Why is he hitting every single pothole?” she thought. She felt like she was on a carnival ride. “I think I’m falling” she said to the attendant. When the attendant didn’t respond, she wasn’t sure if she’d said it or thought it. She was used to people paying attention to her. Didn’t they know she as Vice President of the College? Didn’t they see her name on the door when they came?

“Patient has an aversion to light, describes head pain as ten out of ten, elevated BP, neck and jaw pain, facial numbness.” The driver turned on the radio. “CKFM?” he yelled over the siren. “Man, gotta love the eighties stuff…you like Huey Lewis?” The attendant answered.” I don’t listen to the radio much.”

She heard a loud pop. Like a kids pop gun that shoots a cork. But the pop came from inside her head. And, she began to fall. She turned to the attendant. “Help me…I’m falling… please….” Her head felt like it was packed with cotton and she had to wade through the stuffing to find the right words. The attendant held her hand. “You’re strapped in. You cannot fall.” She tapped the IV bag and looked at her watch. The radio blared Whitney Huston and the driver sang along. “The greatest lo-o-ove of a-a-all…”

She waded through the cotton in her head like she was hacking through a dark jungle, a jungle of cotton. She searched for words to try to tell the attendant that she was wrong, that she really WAS falling when it hit her. It wasn’t her body that was falling at all. “So this is how it feels.” she thought. “Let go, let go…” And at that moment, she felt more more alive than she ever had in her whole life.

The close proximity and contrast of life and death here are excellent. The physical symptoms this person endures — I’m not medically educated but the headache, numbness, and that persistent sensation of falling just sound so real. Death as insult to personal identity, oh yes. As the music and the mundane go on around her, even in an ambulance. And can we, in the end, just let go? To feel so alive. Great work!

thank you so much, John. This story’s been brewing a long time – needs a lot of work, but I’m grateful to have this practice to try it out…

I like the description in your first two paragraphs, Margaret. I could see myself in this experience. The line about the ambulance trans not being a ride, I like that. I also like how you illustrate the paramedics in their typical work as usual setting, with the music playing in the background.

thx, Susan.

It was in early July that my father was born to my favorite grandmother. I do not know much of how it went other than that she had waited many years for his arrival. She was allergic to strawberries was the one caution I knew about her. But I was always showered with her spontaneous joy each time I visited. I was the favourite, because I was the girl she never had. In spite of my mothers challenge with being married to her son, but this was another issue altogether.

Death waited eagerly and impatiently for both my father and my grandmother… I knew it might happen sooner or later, but on that frightful day in my 16th year, it was announced… she is on the phone… I demanded to speak with her. The voice of a dying human being came through the phone line. I could hardly hear her voice…, but I felt her immense love pulsate through me that penetrated my teenage brain. I felt so small, but yet huge in the spirit of her, and what she meant for me. It happened as in a dream. But then she was forever gone. A big black emptiness without meaning! What could fill it?

My beautiful little niece had just reached her first birthday when my father left after many painful months of suffering. My sister told me she was there at his deathbed, shocked and silent, but included in this family gathering. I myself arrived two days later having traveled for the third time across the Atlantic in 7 months. I was met by sheer exhaustion and silence. Death left another gaping hole in my psyche. I was the oldest, so I went to work helping my siblings, my mother and there was no time for me to take in what had happened. But my busy activities of cleaning and organizing upon my arrival alleviated the imminent grief that would take years to accept. Death seemed to be so final, no turning back ever.

It took over a week before I saw him. When things settled, the day before the funeral, my brother and my youngest sister came with me into the room where they had laid the coffin in a dim lavender saturated haze. I saw death up close. The mangled naked face had sunken in and the jaw dropped way down in an unnatural pose of the Black Death. He, my father was not there, only an empty skin covered in his best suit was left behind from a remarkable man. To end a life in pain from cancer was the torture and fate of my grandmother as well.

Over 400 people attended the service the next day while a dark torrential storm of snow battered the windows of the flower filled hall, which competed with my uncle’s masterful organ playing in force and volume. It was 5 weeks before Christmas.

One is ushered in. The other is ushered out– both alone, through tunnels. One greeted to bright light, as well as the other. One takes her place in a crib, the other on a cloud.

Both nestle in by the same grace.

Birthbed–deathbed– they are so similar, so close in need and dignity.

One is showered in fresh pink gifts, the other in pink flowers.

One is greeted with optimism. She’ll require that to carry her on dark suffering roads of life’s journey. It is new, it is hopeful. it is a beginning.

The other’s white hair is smoothed. Her feet warmed. She’s propped by an eternal window. She looks through with peace. She’s done the darkness. Her hands gnarled with work of pain and duty. She’s tired and earned. Ready for her eternal beginning.

Chiaroscuro-A technique of the master. Artsy contrast. The dark is a backdrop. It is necessary for the light to shine brighter.

Light sheds light,

On the happy and sad.

Life, Death, both are birthdays.

One to this world. The other to heaven.

love this line “Life, Death, both are birthdays.” Have never considered death another birthday, but you are right. This is a lovely work in contrast, thx for the new word!

Thanks Margaret, and you’re welcome!

My practice for today:

Our new puppy jumped over Belle’s back, then crowded up close to the old dog’s snout. Griffin’s butt was up in the air, tail wagging. He yipped at Belle, then hopped back, anticipating a response. With a soft, low growl, Belle lifted her head a couple of inches off the floor, then turned toward me as she settled back down. It looked like pleading.

Griffin yipped and crawled towards Belle again. “C’mere, Griff”, I said, and he hopped up on the couch and into my lap. “Give the girl a break.” He whipped around and licked my face.

Belle was the most patient dog we’d ever had. And still was, but at 15 and with the pain she seemed to have all the time, her threshold was lower than when she was young. Now she sighed and curled up a little, facing away from Griffin and me.

The pup took that as a challenge and coiled up to pounce. I held him back and rubbed behind his ears. “Enough, Griff!” I glanced at the clock, and blinked away the tear that was forming. Griffin was squirming to get out of my grasp, a fawn-colored bundle of energy.

I carried him into the next room and locked him in his crate. “You can chill out in here for a while, pal”, I said. Amid yips of protest I walked back to Belle and sat on the floor next to her. I stroked her back, avoiding the lump that seemed even bigger today. Her black fur was just the right length and had always felt so good to me. She sighed again and nuzzled up close.

I checked my watch, then reached for the tissue box as more tears flowed. Sniffling, I said to her, “We had some great times, didn’t we?” Griffin’s yelps were getting louder and were accompanied by scratching now.

Feeling a tiny surge of strength inside me, I said, “Okay, girl, let’s go for a drive.” At the word “drive”, Belle struggled to her feet and headed for the door, tail wagging. She’d always loved going anywhere in the truck. Still holding the tissue box, I picked up my keys and followed her into the garage.

I lifted Belle onto the front seat and got her settled. We backed out of the driveway then drove up to 21st Street, turning right towards the vet’s office.

He went to the graveyard for the second time that day. The first time it was at dawn, with crows cawing around, the sky gloomy, and the underground sleeping homies at ease. He stood on the brink of an empty grave, and looked deep down inside it and himself. The crows couldn’t stop distracting him from what he was struggling to remember. His grandpa’s words. They had just woke him up and led him to the graveyard but now he couldn’t concentrate on them. He wanted to recall every and each word of the discourse he had used to tell him in his nightmare. ‘Maybe it’s not the right time’, he thought. He got back to there at dusk. Trees were dancing, and doves were playfully chasing each other. The grave was strangely filled and closed; It wasn’t empty anymore. There was an immobile fellow inside it, with a fresh load of flesh for worms and pests. He just remembered: Son, you do not have a soul, but a body. You ARE the soul. Your body may fail, die, decay, and become food to other minute creatures who are living a life on your dead body, but life just goes on for you. We never die. No one has ever died. The grave was still vacant, the tombstone an illusion.

The contrast of life & death is at the core of everything I write. Joe, it’s so nice to see a post written by you. Gosh, what you guys have been through, it’s been quite the rollercoaster. You know, they say in some cultures that when one person comes into a family, another has to go out? When my sister-in-law died, my son was born soon after. And when my grandmother died, there was another birth in the family. I see it again and again.

Ghareeb could see from the corner of the eye, Ismail approaching the door and couldn’t help, although for an instant, but to look in his direction. Tayyib saw it and knew something wasn’t square. Peering behind the door, he discovered Ismail lurking. From there, everything went very fast; Tayyib was about to open his mouth to scream when Ghareeb took advantage of Tayyib turning his back to him and tightly grabbed his waist and covered his mouth. Not a peep. Ismail ripped the knife from Tayyib’s hands, and Tayyib started desperately to kick and thrash around his arms. Ghareeb had to hold tight. To avoid commotion, he lifted Tayyib from the ground and moved away from the door and behind the house. He spread his legs to avoid the kicks on his shins. The action took a few second and Ismail vanished into the darkness of the house. What is he doing? We should be going! Tayyib kept struggling, so Ghareeb had to hold strong and press the hand on his mouth even sturdier to extinguish the deaf cries he was making all the more. Both understood, something very bad was about to happen. “I will kill this bastard!… Don’t worry, I know what to do!” A silent, guttural cry emanated from the house, followed by an eerie silence that took over the night. Even frogs and crickets in the distant banks of the river silenced the cacophony of songs. Ismail came out, panting heavily. Protruding eyes, the look that made prickle the hair at the nape; his robe, with sombre stains on his entire right side; a thick substance dripping from the tip of the knife. Ghareeb was so perplexed that he didn’t realise that Tayyib wasn’t moving. Had Ismail’s creepy appearance made him faint? Scared, he let go, and the lifeless corpse plopped down. At first, Ghareeb stood there looking down at the corpse. Then he tried to shake him, to lift him. No reaction. Oh God, I killed him! ‘Psst! Said Ismail from behind the house – ‘come on! Come on!’ Ghareeb did not move staring at Tayyib’s corpse. ‘Hey! We have to go… Now! Pulling him from his galabeyah. Ghareeb startled and both run towards the river, so fast as followed by the vindictive phantasms of the two dead. Arriving, and in spite of the dangers lurking in the dark Nile, Ismail jumped, without even undressing, into the river; writhing his body, scrubbing desperately with hands and arms as to wipe the thousands of creeping and biting ants. Whereas he had no blood on him, Ghareeb undressed and followed suit; he felt all the same.

Ghareeb awake to reality and was confronted for the first time with life and death. He didn’t want to kill Tayyib. This was not in their plans; he only wanted to escape; “I will kill this bastard!… Don’t worry, I know what to do!” Now they were fugitive assassins. An adventure turned into a nightmare. Whilst the events tormented Ghareeb; there was something more in the scenery that was nagging in the back of his mind, he couldn’t boil down what; as seeing a familiar face but couldn’t put a name on it. Only later in his life, he would recognise the importance of it. For now, his worries were in the gruesome events.

Ismail materialized from the dark water like the men’s version of a nymph, his body exhausted, arms hanging, cleansed. At the riverbank, he shed off his tunic and laid down naked on the cold, wet sand. He let his body go, sinking and spreading. Ghareeb came off the water and picked up the knife on the beach. Squatting at the water’s edge, he washed the dry, of metal smelling blood from the blade with dislike. Joining Ismail, he spread on the sand watching the stars. They lay for a long while, quietly, respecting each other’s thoughts; conceding their strained bodies a well deserved recovery.

Mr. Conroy called us outside when the sky was as bleak and dark as the coffee Papa and he shared each morning. At first Mamma hadn’t wanted us to go out so late, in fear of Anna wondering off or Johnny getting bit by the donkey again.

“It will give them a good brake, you could use one too Addy come on.” Papa had assured her. She decided to stay with Helen but reluctantly let us go, I knew better then to leave Helen like that, all sickly on the bed, her glassy eyes red, and her weak hands pawing on the pillows as she fought to escape the feverish hell that had held her captive for weeks now. Mamma loved Helen like a daughter and I as a sister, but when Papa held sleepy Anna and Johnny in his arms telling them of the miracle in the barn and I had stayed behind clinging to the wall and starring at Helen Mamma bowed her head.

“Go Eliza, Helens gonna be all right.”

“But you said-”

“Go.” I obeyed, kissing Helens sweaty forehead I whispered.

“Your gonna get better Helen, when your all better I promise we’ll go to the ocean and…and you’ll finally have that silver flute and we’re all gonna listen to your beautiful music.”

Inside the barn Mr. Conroy, Johnny and Anna were huddled in the corner cooing over tiny little creatures in the straw. Papa smiled when I kneeled by them, the straw poking through my cotton nightgown scratching my legs, but it was worth it. Three tiny lambs lay in the straw nest Mr. Conroy had made for them. “Aren’t they adorable?” Mr. Conroy asked stroking a pure white ones velvet neck. I had seen so many lambs on the farm, when we first moved to Riverdale I had been awed by the arrival of the sweet little lambs. But after five years this same “miracle” wasn’t as amazing, not with Helen like she was. Was something a miracle if it happened every year and could be expected on a set date? “There soooo cute.” Anna squealed. “I’ve seen them before.” I muttered bitterly. “We should bring it to Helen.” Anna said. “What?” “This is her first year here, she wanted to see the lambs soooo much. That’s why she’d visit Tom every day right? She never seen a newborn animal.” I smiled Anna could some times be right, and before Papa or Mr. Conroy could stop me picked up the white lamb and ran across the dark path to the big steps of the house. I swung open the big wooden door, dramatic maybe but It was for Helen. Mama was standing up and startled when she saw me. “What in the lord!” The words she snapped at me hurt like the loss of limb, the loss life and friend. The lamb made small noise that only one so young as an hour can make and I make the cry of a girl who knew the meaning of very little things, but this wasn’t one of them. Helen was dead.

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The Creative Penn

Writing, self-publishing, book marketing, making a living with your writing

Writing About Death, Dying, And Grief With Dr Karen Wyatt

posted on March 19, 2018

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00:39 — 49.4MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | More

Death is an inevitable part of life. We spend a lot of time trying to forget that fact but as writers, our job is to face the difficult things and write about them anyway.

In the introduction, I discuss the Audible Romance Subscription payout , the new Audible.com Author pages that use your Amazon Central Profile to pull from [ here's mine ], and the New York Times new audiobook bestseller list. Audio is not going away!

Plus, predictions on 2018 – 2038 from Peter Diamandis, whose companies span asteroid mining and human longevity, including 5G streaming internet for global mobile users by 2020, and self-driving cars as mainstream by 2026 – both will mean a LOT more consumers. We are only just starting this digital transformation!

My personal update about walking last week on the Amalfi Coast in Italy – pics here on Instagram , although it did rain a lot! I talk about the need for fallow periods, writing about places you haven't been, gathering ideas and emotional reaction to place, as well as creating a life you don't want to escape from. Plus, I recommend Seth Godin's new podcast, Akimbo .

You can listen above or on iTunes or Stitcher or watch the video here , read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and full transcript below.

• Lessons learned from working with those close to death
• On paying attention to our inner passion for writing
• Tips for dealing with death and grief in our characters and our writing. Joanna talks about some of the issues tackled in Desecration .
• Why we are able to write about grief that we might not have experienced personally
• Why it's okay to be comfortable with the subject of death
• On changes in death culture as boomers age
• My interview on End of Life University on writing about death and dying

You can find Dr. Karen Wyatt at KarenWyattMD.com and on Twitter @spiritualmd

You can find another interview with Karen on how traveling has helped her deal with death and grief here .

Transcript of Interview with Dr. Karen Wyatt

Joanna: Hi, everyone, I'm Joanna Penn from thecreativepenn.com. And today I'm here with Dr. Karen Wyatt. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Hi, Joanna, thanks for having me.

Joanna: Oh, it's great to have you on the show. Just a little introduction.

Karen is a hospice physician and bestselling author of books about death, loss and grief. She's also the host of the “End of Life University” podcast, and an inspirational speaker who teaches how to live a life that really matters by embracing our mortality.

I have something to show you, Karen, and the viewers on the video, because I wanted to do this because this is what I have on my desk next to me all the time. This is a sugar skull for those on the audio.

I have a sugar skull covered in butterflies right next to my writing desk, because I absolutely believe in thinking about death and mortality all the time. But enough about my skull.

Tell us a bit more about you, Karen, and why and how you chose this path for your career in writing?

Karen: Well, like so many writers that you've interviewed, I had a passion for storytelling and writing as just a young child. But I took the long route to becoming a writer and I decided to become a doctor.

So all those years during my medical training and practice, I really wasn't able to write. I would have 30 minutes here and there, and I have notebooks full of projects I tried to start because I had this constant flood of ideas in my head, always thinking of a new story.

I could write a play about this. I can write a screenplay. Like, what about this? I always saw the stories, but I had no time to write them. So it took all these years of a long medical career.

During that time I started working in hospice, taking care of dying patients, which really changed my life. I got there because I was trying to cope with my own grief after my father committed suicide. So hospice really became a refuge for me where I could just focus on death and dying and bring my grief.

I learned these amazing lessons from working there. And I always knew I have to write about this, but still I was in medicine. I still had a long career to go through.

About eight years ago, I met a woman who is a psychic at a party who just came up to me knowing nothing about me. And she said, “You have an unfulfilled passion within you. I can read it right now. And if you don't start paying attention to that, you'll get sick.”

Instantly I knew it's time. I have to start writing. That happened on a Friday, and on Monday, I resigned from my job and I started writing. I took it seriously. It's been an eight-year journey. Since then I've been trying to write my stories that are in my head.

Joanna: I think it's really interesting you say about that, whether it is somebody externally who says, “You must do this or you will get sick.” Or the evidence of so many people I know who are writers who start to write because they did get sick.

It's like you got there first. But I know so many people and in fact, I did. I was spiritually sick and I was probably 20 pounds heavier than I now, when I was so miserable in my job.

If we have an unfulfilled desire, we can get sick.

Now circling back then to you mentioned the lessons you learned in the hospice. I imagine one of them is that you must do the thing that's unfulfilled before you die.

Karen: Very true.

Joanna: So what were some of the other lessons that you really feel? And, of course, you've written a book about lessons from the dying.

Give us a couple of the things that really stand out.

Karen: One of the things that I saw from all the patients to sitting at their bedsides, I saw how important relationships are. How many of them had regrets that they didn't reach out more to the people they loved. How many needed to practice forgiveness in order to be at peace.

It made me realize I don't want to go there. I'm going to work on my relationships now.

And also the idea of being in the present moment, which I had always heard about. I hear so many people talking about the power of now, be in the present moment. But I witnessed it with dying patients.

I'd sit with a man while he was watching the sunset, and he took in every color and every cloud, and he watched the entire sunset until it completely faded away.

And the reason is because he didn't know if he would ever see another sunset. And it became clear to me, like, wow, I've never enjoyed a single sunset I've seen to the extent that he has.

It made it clear to me that when we're aware that we could die at any time, we can really go to the depths and really mine every one of our experiences for everything that's there, and really make the most of it. I saw the power of being aware of death and mortality.

Joanna: I totally agree on that present moment emphasis, and I do catch myself, particularly because Jonathan and I work in the same office. And he'll be saying something and I'll be like, “Just stop it. I'm concentrating on my thing.”

And then I'll be like, “No, stop and pay attention to what he's talking about.”

But then that we have to balance living in the present moment with doing our writing work, which often means we're living in the past or imagining something else.

How do we balance doing our writing work, the work of our soul with that living in the present moment?

Karen: I like to think of it as separating my soul from my mind, in a way, and that if I'm writing in the present moment, I'm being in the present moment, even if what I'm thinking about and processing is something from the past.

I'm being right here, right now doing what it meant to do and what my soul is supposed to be doing by writing.

I think of it always as both ways. I'm in the present even though I'm processing the past or planning for the future, I'm aware of everything happening around me right now.

Joanna: Now, that makes sense. Thank you for that.

Circling back on death in general and hopefully, the people who are still listening into this topic. I'm imagining everyone else has gone away, but so many people struggle to talk about death and to think about death.

I particularly notice with my parents, how different they are. My mum has organized everything. Everything is all paid for, all the paperwork's done and my dad just will not even talk about it.

The denial of death is, is huge in some people, right?

As writers, how do we tackle this difficult subject, either in memoir or in fiction? How do we bring ourselves to the page to even face that fear?

Karen: I think we do have to do our own inner work first, and look at our own fear of death and our own thoughts and emotions when we contemplate our death. And then also look at our own history with death.

Do we have unresolved grief over a loss we've had in the past? Has that entrenched our fear of death even more, so that we kind of open ourselves up to the subject of death.

For me, the moment I started studying death by working with dying patients, instantly my fear went away and I was instantly able to just sit with it and realize, “Oh, this is just part of life.”

Why had I shut off that part of myself for so many years and not addressed it or thought of it. And it was actually, a huge relief once I was able to just bring death into my awareness every day.

I think if writers would like to write about death, they need to spend a little time journaling first and doing their own inner work to prepare for it.

Joanna: It seems like we see a lot of deaths even on screen and in books, but we may not have seen it in real life. And often, the death we see on screen and I'm thinking of “Game of Thrones,” for example, which is very violent and there's a lot of death and dying.

But it's not, as you say, on an emotional level. It's done as entertainment.

There's so many things I want to ask you about, but let's stick with the writing.

What do people get wrong with things like writing about death, with writing crime novels, with writing entertainment, that you see as is incorrect?

Karen: I don't necessarily see it as being wrong, but I think many writers objectify death. They project death outside of themselves, as if it's something that happens to other people but not to them. That allows the reader to do the same thing.

The reader can read all kinds of crime novels and thrillers and watch violent movies and play video games, and never think about their own death because they're only seeing the death of the other, of someone else outside of them.

That's also because of the emotions around death are not being addressed in that way. I think what writers need to do, again, is explore their own thoughts and feelings about death and even their own experiences, if they're carrying their own pain of some sort of grief that's really valuable and trying to write about it with a character.

And then remember, death is the most common experience of every human on earth. Every single one of our characters in some way should have some thoughts or feelings about death.

If we remember to incorporate it in the back stories of our characters we can ask what has this person's experience been? What are they grieving? How are they accepting and coping with death and how does that affect their behavior?

That's the one thing I'd love to see more authors address it. Just like you did in “Desecration” with Jamie Brooke when her daughter was dying. I just thought that made Jamie such a rich and authentic character because she was genuinely grieving.

We got to see her doing her detective work and we had all the thrilling aspects of the crime thriller, but there was genuine emotion when Polly died. I hope I'm not spoiling the book. I'm sorry.

Joanna: No, I think that that's fair enough. I was going to bring that up because I am a happily child-free woman, and yet I wrote about the death of a child in that book, that has not happened to me.

My experience of grief as I was writing it, I've never actually, other than that book, cried when I was writing a scene and it did affect me, because I was empathizing with someone who was going through that. Even though I haven't been through that myself.

Which implies that we can imagine this even if we haven't been through it. Would that be right?

Karen: Yes, absolutely. Because we've all been through loss and we all go through they call them the “little deaths.”

The Buddhists refer to that the little deaths of life, and each one of us has probably had a relationship breakup, or a betrayal in life, or something else, or losing a pet that we loved that died.

So each one of us has had losses throughout life and had that experience of grieving when something you loved that was just here with you is now gone. I think we can apply all of that.

You clearly did because you wrote in a very authentic voice about Jamie's grief. So to me it sounds like you did draw from that well within of a level of grief you had experienced.

Joanna: Part of it also is I feel like I have been thinking about death all my life. I was going to ask you about this because like you mentioned as a child wanting to write.

I remember thinking about death as a child and my mom getting upset about this and I'm like, “It's nothing to do with you, mom.” I had a very happy childhood. I just think I've always been aware of that.

Some people have said, you know, “You're an old soul or something like this.”

Do you believe that there is a different awareness or belief? Have you seen evidence that different people have different awareness of death that perhaps they have, even as children? And if you're a parent of a child who seems a bit morbid, that maybe you shouldn't worry?

Karen: Absolutely. I see it all the time and those of us who ended up doing hospice work, many of us talk about, “Oh, I've always felt comfortable with death.” Or, “I've always been interested in death.”

We ended up doing that work because it's fulfilling to us and meaningful, and we're not afraid to be there with someone who's dying.

Don't be afraid at all because the people who are comfortable with death and aware of it, they end up really benefiting from that overall in life because if you can cope with death, you can cope with other things that happen in life. It really helps you have equanimity.

Joanna: I have actually thought about getting involved in hospice work. Some people wanna be wedding celebrants. I'm interested in death culture and end of life stuff, which is why you and I connected when I came on your podcast. I find it endlessly interesting.

Let's get more into the emotional side because there's obviously upset, there's perhaps wanting to self-harm or the destructive side. I also think about grief and death, especially it seems of parents, is guilt and anger.

Guilt and anger seem to be difficult emotions. And yet I suspect that that's just very common.

What do you think about guilt and anger when it comes to dealing with grief?

Karen: I think on the one hand, they can come from these unresolved issues in a relationship that never got addressed, and we can feel guilty after the death of a loved one, because there was something we should've said or we wish we had done.

That was huge for me after my dad took his own life because first I'm a doctor and I treated depression yet I somehow couldn't see this coming with my dad and couldn't help him.

It was a terrible, the guilt that I felt over his death. And then anger. It's one of those stages in the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, “Five Stages of Acceptance,” that we just go through anger because it feels wrong, and it feels like this should not have happened to me.

But part of that comes again from our lack of awareness on a day to day basis that death is normal, and death happens to everyone at some point. The fact that we're so offended and upset when it happens is part of just our denial of it all along, that we weren't accepting all along.

Someday my parents will die and I need to be prepared for that. I need to know that everyone around me eventually will die.

Joanna: And in terms of writing as a form of healing, is that something you've seen work for people?

Karen: It absolutely worked for me. Because that's the thing that was my solace and my savior after my dad's suicide was journaling a lot and sometimes writing poems, writing letters to him, writing stories about things that had happened between us.

It was really a way to put my grief on the page, but I could go back and reread it, and it helped me process. And at a time when it was very difficult to find people I could talk to about it.

Writing was a great alternative. I wrote, I discussed my grief with my journal basically.

Joanna: My grief was a broken relationship when my first husband left me. It was a shock, like your dad. I was like, “What? How did that happen? I didn't see that coming.”

It's interesting reading my journals from that time. I wanted to self-harm. I was angry. I went through those stages of grief. And then I read it back and I don't recognize the woman who wrote that.

Is it the same with the grief in death process; you look back at those and do you recognize yourself?

Karen: Definitely for me, I look back and see, wow, I can see where I was and what a deep hole I was in at that time, and just how much transformation has taken place.

That it gives me great peace and a lot of acceptance about my dad's death in the first place, because I realized I wouldn't be writing right now, I wouldn't have written the book I've written, I wouldn't have gone to hospice work.

Not that I'm saying that justifies my dad's death, but I can accept that it happened now and it has a place in my life. I'm not angry that it happened or that I'm trying to eliminate it from my life history. I embrace it and include it in my life story because it was something important that made a difference to me.

Joanna: That's a message of hope for anyone listening who is still in the depths of it is that if you can work it through, there is a point where you start to emerge.

Karen: Yes. I always think about the process of writing a book, when you're in the middle build and things just don't always make sense and it's confusing and you're not sure where you're headed with this story, and it feels like things are falling apart and you're losing the thread.

But when you keep remembering there will be an ending and I am going to come up with the ending, and I am going to put these pieces together and it will happen. That's how I look at it.

Sometimes we're lost in the middle section. As long as we keep our hope and know we will find a way for these pieces to come together and the loose ends to be tied up eventually.

Joanna: I wanted to ask you as a medical doctor, you've dealt with physical bodies. This is one of the things that I was really interested in exploring in “Desecration.”

My theory being that the physical body at death is no longer us. However, people believe in a religious sense, doesn't really matter. But given the number of people you've seen go through the death transition as such.

Did you see that evidence that the physical body was no longer the person?

Karen: Absolutely, and it was never more clear. I was with my mom when she died five years ago and the transition was amazing and that suddenly when she stopped breathing and I almost felt as if her spirit was leaving her body, and what was left on the bed was a carcass, and it didn't look like my mom.

It didn't feel like my mom. It was not her. I could feel her in some ways bigger than that outside of that body.

But the body, as you said, it was just a body like just like the clothes we take off at the end of the day laying there. So you're exactly right. For me, at least, that was the experience I had.

Joanna: That gives me hope. I don't believe in an afterlife.

I don't think it matters what you believe, but that we're not left in that physical body is the important thing.

Karen: Yes, exactly. I think that's the mentality behind the whole green burial movement, is that we need to stop trying to preserve the physical body and embalming it and using vaults and caskets to try to keep the body from decomposing.

Allow the body to go back to nature. It's part of nature and let it be that and let the normal process happen. That happens for every other living thing on the planet.

Joanna: I did want to ask you about this because I received an email today from some research firm about the change in the boomers reaching 70. A lot of them reaching 70, including my parents, my husband's parents, everyone's hitting 70 in our generation's parents.

It's the boomers, I think, also changing things around death. We have seen a change in death culture as this hippie generation of going, “We're not going to do that the same way.” In one way changing death culture, death cafés, that type of thing.

But also interestingly with the life extension, those boomers who are not ready to die.

What do you think is changing in the death culture with this aging of the boomers?

Karen: It's absolutely changing because boomers tend to be very self-actualized; the most educated generation. The first most educated generation to come along, and having witnessed our parents dying.

I think that's the thing that made the biggest transition for boomers is to see, “Whoa, I don't like the way my parents experienced death and that's not happening for me.” And so they've decided that they need to make plans, they need to get educated.

I do think that a lot of the movements that are happening and including death with dignity here in the U.S. is because baby boomers are saying, “I want to take death in my own hands. I don't want to at the mercy of other people making decisions for me.”

That's a huge movement that I think is probably going to keep growing over time because of the boomers, but also talking about death more and preparing for it.

Though I still see a lot of baby boomers are youth-obsessed and focused on anti-aging, and so we have a ways to go to convince them that it's actually okay to be getting older.

Joanna: The idea that it's okay to be getting older is the interesting thing. My hair has really getting grayed out and I look at yours and I'm like, I actually, I'm waiting for when I can let my hair go. At the moment it's just a little bit.

I was talking to my hairdresser and she said, “You just need to wait till all the roots are going and then go for it.” I like that acceptance. And I actually love that idea of just letting things go. I love Mary Beard, you know Mary Beard, the classicist?

Karen: Mm-hmm. Yes, yes.

Joanna: I just think she's awesome. She's an amazing woman.

I'm fascinated with this acceptance of death with this mortality, life extension. There's even some of these Silicon Valley billionaires getting blood transfusions of younger blood and stuff like that.

Is this just mad? Or, do you think there is some life extension stuff?

Karen: I personally see it as a by-product of the fact that we've evolved to this rational thinking in a way, and that causes us to reject death even more. So I see it as still kind of death avoidance and not really appreciating how valuable death is to us really.

Steve Jobs in his commencement speech, that you might have heard said, “Death is life's change agent.” That we wouldn't have life if we didn't have death. If you look in the natural world.

I feel like some of the life extension, it's slightly misguided and I understand people. I understand it's intriguing and what can technology do and what's available, but I still know in my heart, we will all die one day, no matter how much we managed to extend a few more years here and there, we will still all die one day and we need to be aware of that and we need to grapple with that. That's ultimately what makes us human, is grappling with that reality.

Joanna: I don't know if you saw the very violent program, “Altered Carbon” on Netflix?

Joanna: Quite recent series that just came out as we talk in 2018 and based on a book. It's basically that the physical body is like a sleeve and you swap out your mind into these bodies and you can live forever if you're rich, just for swapping out your bodies.

It's interesting to me how many films and books are tackling this right now because it's a trend that's growing, which is fascinating.

Circling back on the physical body and other cultures. I was in Italy last year and put some pictures on my Pinterest and everything of the jewel skeletons in the churches, these saints that are venerated. Skeletons very much used in, not worship but in the church.

You've recently done a trip, haven't you? A grief pilgrimage to Italy.

Tell us about that and how travel helps you and what you've been writing.

Karen: Yes, I got the idea because on two of my previous trips to Italy, I was dealing with death. One the death of a young patient, a child, the day we were leaving for Italy, a child I had taken care of in my office which devastated me.

And our second trip, my brother-in-law died while we were in Italy. I realized there's something about Italy and death for me. So I need to go back there and recreate these places we've been, but through the lens of grief and really looking at this country.

What can I learn about grief when I keep open to it, instead of just being a tourist to going to see how many pictures I can take. It was really phenomenal because I saw things like in Marina Grande, the little port village near Sorento, the women there still wear mourning clothes.

They wear black for a year after a loved one dies. So grief is visible. They walk around the streets and you see a woman in all black and you know she's grieving.

And in Naples, they put up posters, black and white posters in the neighborhood when someone dies with their photo on it and their date of birth and date of death and funeral information. And so noticing that as you walk down the street in Naples, you see, oh, someone in this neighborhood on this street died yesterday.

There's the poster to tell everyone about it. It's visible, and the grief is visible. It's really powerful to feel connected to everyone there. Like, everyone in that neighborhood is grieving Giuseppe, who died yesterday, and to feel connected and how that experience of grief is the one thing that binds us to everyone in every culture, every religion, everywhere on our planet.

For me, it was really profound looking through the eyes of grief in the first place, and then also being aware, as you said, of churches with decorated with skulls and skeletons and how common those images are in Italy that we don't see very often here in the U.S.

Joanna: I was just researching in Pittsburgh, you have a massive collection of religious relics.

Karen: Really? I didn't know that.

Joanna: I was just researching relics in America and you have a ton of relics in Pittsburgh of all place. I might even have to come visit, but this is interesting because the Catholic religion definitely does death in, you know,

I'm not of any religion but from a Protestant upbringing. I have an Irish friend. And we were joking one day and I said, “Whichever one of us dies first, the other one must ululate at their funeral.” Because women ululating, this sort of wailing is just not common in the British culture.

Karen: No, no, and not here in the U.S. either.

Joanna: But it seems to me like a really good thing to do to kind of let it lose and that kind of thing.

What have you seen about the different cultures and different ways that cultures deal with death that seem more healthy than the west?

Karen: When you brought up the ululating. When we were in Italy on this trip, we stopped in Paestum, the Greek ruins there and there was an exhibition at the museum of tombs that had been painted and had pictures of women mourning and they were paid mourners. Hired mourners. Not the family necessarily.

I watched a little video about that and there are places in Italy where there are professional mourners who come to funerals to weep in order to help the family with their grief, and I thought that was just beautiful. I loved that idea that we can weep and grieve openly at a funeral, just as you were mentioning.

I know in the Tibetan and Buddhist cultures, they're very open about death and even have a spiritual practice of thinking about death five times a day and focusing on death, and also their rituals around dying and cremating the body and allowing the body to go back to ash and back to the air.

They're just so accepting of the disintegration of the physical body. I think that's something, as we mentioned before, we're really missing in our western cultures of letting the body go.

Joanna: We don't talk about the business of death very often, but in America particularly the embalming and these massive caskets.

And that's why my mom's cool and she's already chosen all that and sorted it out and got the cheapest, most basic stuff. And I'm like, “Way to go, mom.”

But also, she's very green and very concerned that even with cremation and the stuff that goes into the air. But I think these technologies are going to change with the boomers. That's what I hope anyway.

Tell us about your “End of Life University” podcast because I think it's very cool.

Karen: I started it once my book that I wrote about the hospice patients was released.

I had a rude awakening, that you can't just make a living by writing one book and putting it out in the world, but also, especially if you write a book about death and dying, it doesn't necessarily sell well in the beginning, especially in 2012, which is when it came out.

I knew I had to do something else. I had to build an email list, I have to get followers and I got the idea to start doing interviews and I called it “End of Life University.”

I just started emailing people all over the country who worked in some aspect of death and dying, and doing interviews and posting them on my website. At that time, I'd never heard of podcasts. I didn't know that was even possible and I hadn't discovered you yet.

So that's how I began and I remember it took me like two years to get my mailing list to 500 subscribers. I had been contacted about being on someone's radio show, and when she was processing the application, she said, “Oh, you have to have at least 5,000 subscribers to be on our on our show.”

I was just crushed, “Are you kidding me? I won't live long enough to get 5,000 subscribers. I talk about death. This is terrible.” But the interviews I did really helped because each speaker I talked to had their mailing list, and I got introduced to their followers.

And now, I'm up to 5,000 followers and subscribers. And things are so much easier now when you have an actual list and I can write to people, and 700 people buy my book overnight. That made all the difference. It just took a long time.

But what's happened now at this point, I have this whole library of interviews I've done of information and knowledge about death and dying that's out there for people to listen to and if people are curious about death, but they can just come and listen to two other people talking about it like we are and it'll help them a little bit with their exploration.

Joanna: We are almost out of time, but tell people where they can find you and your books, and the podcast, and everything online.

Karen: They can find me at karenwyattmd.com or eolniversity.com. And my book is for sale there, but also on Amazon. My book, “What Really Matters: 7 Lessons for Living from the Stories of the Dying.” That's the book that I waited all those years to finally write.

Joanna: And will there be a book about Italy? Because I'm really interested in that one.

Karen: Yeas. I'm actually working on that right now after our last trip. So hopefully by the end of the year, I'll have that finished.

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Karen. That was great.

Karen: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you, Joanna.

Reader Interactions

March 19, 2018 at 6:16 am

What a fascinating interview. It really touched me today, because in the past weeks, I’ve been having panic attacks based on the fear of dying while birthing the baby I’m expecting any day now (no, there isn’t any medical indication, it’s purely psychological). People being dismissive (“oh, you’re just silly, birth is safer than driving”) doesn’t help. There’s anger (“why didn’t anyone stop me while I was thinking about another child?”), guilt (“how could I do this while my existing children need a mother?”) and grief – today we couldn’t take the kids to an activity they were looking forward to, and I just burst out crying because, for all I know, this could be our last time doing this. There’s also the relishing of every moment, such as Karen described. In the past weeks, I don’t rush through walks or bedtime stories, because for all I know, these are the last walks and stories. I don’t mind taking my time.

Finally, having stopped rationalizing and talking myself out of fears, I sat my husband down today, and talked to him about everything I want him to do if something happens to me – hospital litigation, applying for government aid, being there for the children, accessing my bank account, contacting my publisher. It made me feel better prepared for any outcome.

I realize I’m digressing here. Death is a powerful motive in literature, and I am strongly attracted to describing its emotional aspects in my fiction. I think it helps me process my personal fears.

March 20, 2018 at 1:50 am

Sending you strength, Hannah. It sounds like a rollercoaster time for you. I’m sure everything will go well, but I’m glad you were able to discuss your fears and practicalities with your husband. I find the practicalities helpful too. I have a letter detailing everything and plans in place in case of an accident. It makes me calmer to know it’s all ready just in case. I hope you can find time for some writing, as that can also help us navigate the crazy way our brains process life.

March 24, 2018 at 6:43 pm

I’m glad to be able to come back and say that our baby girl was born yesterday and we’re both well. Nevertheless, things happen, and facing fear ultimately makes us stronger.

March 23, 2018 at 10:52 am

Hanna thank you for sharing your story. I totally resonate with this because I experienced the same anxiety around the births of each of my children. As a doctor I had heard enough stories of tragedy to make me aware that death is an ever-present factor in life so it seemed natural to think of death when childbirth was at hand. I’m sending you lots of love and support that all will be well during this beautiful passage for you and your family.

March 21, 2018 at 6:41 am

I love how your interviews weave and wander hither and thither 🙂 This was of interest and help to me, both on a personal level…and in realizing where some of the death-thought in my first book came from. (It opens with a recently-bereaved young woman; there are subsequent events that cause her to reflect more on her loss and what it means.) And I drift to Keith Richards (I’ll someday finish that biography) and the skulls he wears (rings). We are all the same beneath the skin; mortality is an ever present thought. I cheer you, Joanna, as you came to your discovery of Who You Really Are and What You Should Be Doing comparatively early in your life. Thank you for all you give. You’ve changed lives.

March 23, 2018 at 10:57 am

Hello Cheryl, I agree with you that Joanna is an amazing interviewer! She has a way of getting to the deeper aspects of a subject. I’m happy to hear that you included loss and bereavement in your first book and I hope you’ll keep writing! With Joanna as our inspiration we are off to a good start! Best wishes to you.

March 21, 2018 at 1:05 pm

This was really an amazing interview to listen to. I am currently trying to write a book in which death is a personified character, and this was a great resource for me. After listening/reading I realized that writing this book is, in a sense, my way of coming to terms with death and what comes after, something I tend to think about too much. My mother is studying to become a doctor (go figure) and when I voice my concerns to her, she always combats them with asking /why/ I am afraid, telling me to be curious about those fears.

The story I am writing has a lot to do with death, and accepting it (spoilers, the main character dies) and I think being aware of the lessons in this interview is very important to portray the story correctly. Thank you so much!

March 22, 2018 at 8:07 am

I’m glad it was useful!

March 23, 2018 at 11:01 am

I’d love to read your book! I hope you’ll reach out to me through my website when it’s finished. Kudos to you for having the courage to think about death and face the fears that arise. Best wishes to you on your writing journey!

March 22, 2018 at 9:36 am

A lot of boomers are full of life – recycled teenagers- But many do think and plan. We went to a funeral at a riverside hotel with a humanist celebrant. The man had planned his own funreal – wicker coffin – we all left the room and went next door for lunch – he wanted no one to go to the crematorium. Another chap, a Christian, had a simple service at the woodland burial and the male voice choir he had belonged to led the procession out to the burial site. Both were lovely. I know others who have applied to donate their body to science and no funeral.

March 23, 2018 at 11:04 am

Thanks for sharing these lovely stories Janet. It’s encouraging to hear that people everywhere are beginning to be “pro-active” about death by planning ahead. It really helps reduce our fears and anxiety if we’ve already thought things through and made some choices for ourselves.

March 23, 2018 at 6:24 am

Palliative medicine is very different from all other branches of medicine because when you think about it, medicine is about not accepting death and using knowledge to extend life. Accepting your own mortality has value in getting over your fears and doing what you really want with your life, but so does not rushing death which gives you more time to enjoy life. Medical specialties extend on a wide spectrum between those with many solutions (like infectious diseases) and those with none where quality of life is the only thing that matters (palliative medicine). But as medical technology evolves many of them will move towards the first part of the spectrum, geriatrics medicine included. I don’t find being interested in life extension as being in denial of death, on the contrary. There is so much suffering in aging that searching for methods to slow it down or even better, cure it, is just as important as looking left and right before you cross the street or taking your medication if you have any disease where there is efficient medication invented and available. There are countless species of animals and plants which display no signs of senescence, so why should people accept aging just because it is a ‘disease’ affecting all humans? A balance can be reached between accepting your mortality (so that you don’t procrastinate) and not accepting it (so that you don’t prematurely die from things which were preventable). This is also what I noticed as a physician when working with long-lived patients – they were serene about their finite life, but also took great care about their lifestyle and not missing on medical appointments.

March 23, 2018 at 11:12 am

Hello Anca, I totally agree with you that balance is the most important factor – the balance between living fully and accepting mortality. In my experience those who can hold both of those perspectives in mind have the most equanimity and joy in life. But I have seen many patients who were seeking more life because of a fear of death rather than a love for living. Those patients were more likely to choose painful and costly treatment at the end of life, which may have diminished the quality of their last days. So my goal is to reduce the fear of death overall so that patients will choose a healthy lifestyle out of a love for life itself rather than fear of dying.

March 25, 2018 at 4:30 am

I agree with those types of patients, I encountered them as well, but at the end of the day we have different values and what is expensive to me may be cheap to someone else or what is not important to me may mean everything to someone else. I find fear of death to be completely normal, especially when young and/or when you didn’t finish doing what you set up accomplishing in your lifetime. But if you can reduce the fear of death in patients that is a great thing as it’s exactly this fear which can increase anxiety and turn people away from what they secretly want from life.

March 23, 2018 at 8:08 am

I really enjoyed this interview. We’ve experienced a lot of death in our family in recent years. In 2015, my brother committed suicide. It was rather dramatic as he went missing and wasn’t found until almost 2 months later. There was a lot of drama about identification and that took another 6 months. My brother suffered from mental illness for much of his adult life, and I have found great comfort in the fact that I believe he is completely healed and whole now – the person he was meant to be before mental illness stole so much from him. In September, my father passed away from cancer, but again, I take great comfort in both the belief that I will see him again and the fact that he had a well-lived life and left a lasting legacy. One thing I have found very interesting is that death is never grieved the same way. The way I grieved for my brother was very different than the way I grieved for my father. It was the difference between coming to the end of a book, reading the end, and while feeling sad the book was over, having a sense of this is the end of the story versus feeling like someone ripped the book out of my hands and the story wasn’t finished. Anyway, I really appreciated this interview. I always listen while walking my dog Kipper (think Lassie). I have learned so much from your podcasts and always find them uplifting, encouraging and challenging in the best of ways!

March 23, 2018 at 11:19 am

Thank you for sharing your story Rosanne. I so agree with your depiction of grief – having the book ripped out of your hands before the story is complete vs. reading all the way to the end with a sense of sadness but resolution. A few years after my father’s suicide I had a dream in which he was young, whole and happy and it still gives me great peace when I think of him now to see that image. In a way that dream helped complete the ending of my father’s story. Best wishes to you!

[…] my dad, and when I read it again it somehow gives me hope that everything will be alright. How does creative writing help you when you are dealing with something as real and heart breaking as death? Let me know in […]

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Writing About Death

• Writing Worksheets

Not everything needs to be a matter of life and death, but death is such an enormous part of life that we can’t long avoid it in our writing. You might want to use this worksheet as part of your shadow work , for worldbuilding , or for personal reflection.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS WORKSHEET (PDF)

Prompts for Writing About Death

• What do you think happens after you die?
• How does the thought of death affect you? Why?
• Whose death has affected you the most?
• What is the biggest lesson that death has taught you?
• How do the deaths of people you didn’t know personally, affect you?
• Recount your favourite death myth.
• What would you like to happen to your body after you die?
• What would you like to be written on your tombstone, in your obituary, or in a posthumous biography of your life?
• If you were a ghost, what would be your favourite haunt?
• What do you fear most about death?
• How is death not what you feared?
• Describe death as a person, creature, or symbol.
• What are your thoughts on euthanasia?
• Which fictional character’s death affected you the most?
• Is your own mortality different to that of others?
• How has your perception of death evolved over time?
• Research a death ritual.
• How does death create life?
• Choose three very different characters and explore their relationships with death.
• How would you solve the trolley problem ?
• Write a fictional will.

P.S. You might also consider  killing characters , the death of the author , the death card , and the death of the seasons .

More Writing Worksheets…

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How to Write Death Scenes (Ultimate Guide + 21 Examples)

Writing death scenes adds a new meaning to the popular writing phrase, “Kill your darlings.”

Here is how to write death scenes:

Write death scenes by focusing on sensory details, context, and symbolism. Use words like “eternal” or “finality” to set the mood. Incorporate elements like scent, sound, and even texture for added realism. Poetry often allows for greater symbolic exploration while prose offers deeper nuance.

In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about how to write death scenes in your stories.

7 Types of Death Scenes

Table of Contents

There are many different types of death scenes you can put in your story.

Each type of death scene serves a unique narrative function and comes with its own set of considerations for how to approach it effectively.

By understanding the different types of death scenes, writers can choose the one that best serves their story’s needs.

Here are 7 popular types of death scenes.

Emotional Death Scene

In an emotional death scene, the focus lies primarily on the inner feelings and psychological impact surrounding the character’s death.

The atmosphere is often heavy, filled with sorrow, love, or even a sense of tragic inevitability.

Characters may have the opportunity to say goodbye, allowing for moments of vulnerability or closure.

Sudden Death Scenes

Sudden death scenes jolt the reader with their abruptness.

There’s little or no time for emotional preparation; the death happens quickly, leaving characters and readers alike to grapple with the aftermath.

In such scenes, the focus is often on the shock and the immediate ripple effects of the death.

Sacrificial Death Scene

In sacrificial death scenes, a character willingly gives up their life for a cause, greater than themselves.

These scenes can be emotionally intense as they often involve a noble or courageous act, defining the character’s legacy.

The focus is on the magnitude of the sacrifice.

Also, its impact on the surviving characters and the narrative as a whole.

Funny Death Scene

Contrary to the generally somber nature of death, funny death scenes aim for humor without making light of the act of dying itself.

These scenes often involve irony, comedic timing, or unexpected outcomes that bring a dark levity to the narrative.

The goal is to provide emotional relief without trivializing the event.

Tragic Death Scene

Tragic death scenes carry an air of inevitability and futility, often resulting from a flaw or decision made by the character.

Such deaths are meant to provoke pity and fear, serving as a cautionary element in the story.

Build a crescendo of events that lead to an inescapable, devastating conclusion.

Heroic Death Scene

Heroic death scenes showcase characters dying in a manner that highlights their bravery, ethics, or special skills.

These deaths often occur during climactic moments, and serve to inspire other characters or resolve a critical plot point.

Heroic deaths linger in the memories of the characters and the readers alike.

Ambiguous Death Scene

Ambiguous death scenes leave room for interpretation, raising questions about whether the character has actually died, how they died, or what the implications are for the story.

This type of death can serve as a complex narrative device.

It leaves characters and readers in a state of uncertainty, which can be either resolved later in the story or left as an enduring mystery.

21 Tips for Describing Death in Writing

Here are 21 tips to guide you through the intricate process of describing death in your writing.

Tip 1: “Soulful Strings” – Create Emotional Resonance

A death scene should be emotionally charged.

Think about how you want the reader to feel and tailor the scene to invoke those emotions.

Whether you aim for sadness, anger, or even relief, the key is to make the scene resonate emotionally with the audience.

Example : Instead of just saying “She cried,” you could describe the scene with more emotional depth: “Tears blurred her vision as she held his lifeless hand, a torrent of emotions washing over her as she remembered their shared laughter, their shared dreams, now shattered.”

Tip 2: “The Echo Chamber” – Show the Ripple Effect

A death isn’t just a singular event; it has ramifications that affect other characters and the plot.

Make sure to highlight how the death alters relationships, prompts action, or deepens themes in your story.

Example : After the protagonist’s mentor dies, you might write: “John picked up the fallen sword, its weight heavier now. Every clang of metal was a reminder, every battle cry an echo of a lesson learned from the man who was no more.”

Tip 3: “Veil of Authenticity” – Be Accurate

If your story involves a death based on specific conditions like an illness or historical event, research is crucial.

Accurate details lend credibility and depth to the scene.

Example : If a character is dying of a specific illness, describe their symptoms and the medical procedures accurately: “The pallor of his skin, the visible jaundice in his eyes, and the constant beeping of the dialysis machine painted a picture more poignant than words could describe.”

Tip 4: “Time Warp” – Consider Pacing

The pacing of a death scene should match its emotional and narrative importance.

A sudden death might happen quickly, while a more emotional or dramatic death could benefit from a slower pace.

Example : For a sudden, unexpected death you might write, “The shot rang out, and Mark fell.” For a slower-paced, emotional death: “As she took her final breaths, each second stretched on, a lifetime of memories flashing before her eyes.”

Tip 5: “Color of Emotion” – Use Symbolism and Metaphor

Symbolism can add layers of meaning to a death scene.

Consider using objects, colors, or settings that have symbolic significance either to the story or the character who is dying.

Example : “As Emily died, the fading sunlight cast long shadows on the walls, mirroring the darkness that slowly enveloped her world.”

Tip 6: “Final Curtain” – Match the Tone with the Story

The tone of the death scene should align with the overall tone of your story.

A gritty crime novel and a whimsical fantasy will have very different kinds of death scenes.

Example : In a dark thriller, you could describe death as, “His last breath was a gasp, a futile grasp for life in a world filled with darkness.” In a comedic setting: “He tripped over a banana peel, plummeted off the cliff, and met his maker in the most absurd way possible.”

Tip 7: “Eclipsing Event” – Make it Unforgettable

A memorable death scene often contains an element that makes it stand out.

It could be a final line, an unexpected twist, or a significant action by the dying character.

Example : “With his last ounce of strength, he pulled the locket from his pocket and placed it in her hand. ‘Never forget,’ he whispered, before succumbing to the darkness.”

Tip 8: “Orchestrated Chaos” – Use Sensory Details

To make a death scene vivid and immediate, use all five senses.

Describe not just what is seen, but also what is heard, smelled, touched, and even tasted.

Example : “ The air smelled of gunpowder and sweat. As he lay dying, the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, and the distant cries of his comrades sounded like a forlorn farewell.”

Tip 9: “Chiaroscuro” – Play with Light and Darkness

The contrast between light and darkness can provide a dramatic backdrop for a death scene.

Light and darkness can serve as a metaphor for life and death itself.

Example : “As her life ebbed away, the room grew darker, as if each flickering candle knew that its light was no longer needed in a world that would be devoid of her radiance.”

Tip 10: “Language of Loss” – Choose Your Words Carefully

The words you choose can heavily influence how a reader experiences a death scene.

Words with strong connotations can deepen the emotional impact.

Example : Instead of saying, “He stopped breathing,” you might write, “His breath surrendered to the relentless grip of death.”

Tip 11: “The Chain Reaction” – Set Up the Dominoes

A well-crafted death scene often has elements of foreshadowing that make the event feel both surprising and inevitable.

Setting up these “dominoes” can make the actual death more impactful.

Example : If a character has been coughing throughout the story, hinting at a deadly illness, their eventual demise will feel like a tragic but logical conclusion: “He coughed again, each hack more desperate than the last, as if his lungs were pleading for a reprieve he knew would never come.”

Tip 12: “Inner Worlds” – Tap Into Inner Monologue

Incorporating the dying character’s inner thoughts can offer a poignant, intimate perspective on their death.

This works especially well for the main characters or those with whom the reader is emotionally invested.

Example : “Is this it? he wondered, as the edges of his vision began to blur. A lifetime reduced to this singular, fateful moment.”

Tip 13: “Unspoken Words” – Use Dialogue Wisely

Dialogue can be a powerful tool in a death scene, revealing character, emotion, or plot points.

However, it should be used wisely, as overly dramatic or unrealistic dialogue can break the reader’s immersion.

Example : “‘I love you,’ she said, her voice tinged with a sadness that conveyed more than any eloquent farewell could. With those final words, her eyes closed, forever.”

Tip 14: “The Elegy” – Give Time for Reflection

After the death occurs, allow room for the surviving characters—and the reader—to reflect.

This could be a brief moment of silence, a poignant observation, or a memory.

Example : “As they lowered her casket into the ground, Maria remembered the way her grandmother’s eyes had always seemed to sparkle like the ocean on a sunny day. That sparkle was now a legacy, etched in her memory.”

Tip 15: “The Undercurrent” – Use Subtext to Your Advantage

Subtext can add an additional layer of complexity to your death scene.

The unsaid words, hidden motivations, or lingering questions can add depth and richness to the experience.

Sometimes what isn’t said speaks volumes, leaving room for interpretation and drawing the reader further into the emotional fabric of the story.

Example : “He looked into her eyes one final time. Words failed him, but his eyes conveyed a lifetime of love and regret, a silent conversation only they understood.”

Tip 16: “Sound of Silence” – Consider the Role of Absence

Sometimes the most powerful moments in a death scene come from what is left unsaid or undone.

The absence of sound, movement, or even emotional response can be as telling as their presence.

This emptiness can create a haunting atmosphere, adding a layer of complexity to the scene.

Example : “As the life ebbed from his eyes, the room fell eerily silent. Even the clock on the wall seemed to pause, as if paying its respects to the gravity of the moment.”

Tip 17: “Interlude of Reflection” – Insert Moments of Inner Monologue

Providing an inner monologue can serve to deepen the emotional impact of the death scene.

Whether it’s the dying character reflecting on their life or another character grappling with the impending loss, these internal thoughts can serve as an emotional focal point.

Make sure the monologue fits the character and adds something meaningful to the scene.

Example : “In those final moments, Lisa’s mind danced through the years—childhood summers, love’s first kiss, her daughter’s smile—each memory a bittersweet note in the symphony of her life.”

Tip 18: “Fading Echoes” – Use Repetition for Emotional Impact

Repetition of a word, a phrase, or an action can add dramatic weight to a death scene.

This literary device can emphasize the emotional or thematic significance of the moment.

In a way, it acts as a refrain that hammers home the scene’s impact.

Example : “He fell to his knees, repeating her name over and over, as if each utterance could bring her back. ‘Emily, Emily, Emily,’ he whispered into the void.”

Tip 19: “Mosaic of Memories” – Incorporate Flashbacks

Skillfully interwoven flashbacks can enhance the emotional texture of a death scene.

By juxtaposing the past with the present, you can illuminate the significance of the dying character’s life, their relationships, or their dreams.

Flashbacks can serve as a poignant reminder of what is being lost.

Example : “As Anna took her last breaths, her mind transported her back to the day they first met. The sunlight in his hair, the promise in his eyes—gone, but never forgotten.”

Tip 20: “Harmony in Discord” – Use Contrasts to Highlight the Moment

Contrasting elements like joy and sorrow, noise and silence, or life and death can magnify the emotional stakes of your death scene.

By putting two contrasting elements side by side, you create a tension that captures the reader’s attention.

And, at the same time, underscores the tragedy or poignancy of the moment.

Example : “Amidst the joyous laughter and celebration of the festival outside, Mary closed her eyes for the final time, her world dimming as the fireworks burst into the night sky.”

Tip 21: “Ode to the End” – Pay Attention to the Final Sentence

The final sentence of a death scene holds a significant responsibility—it’s the lingering note that stays with the reader as they navigate the aftermath of the character’s demise.

Craft this sentence with care, making sure it encapsulates the emotion, the significance, and the finality of the moment.

Example : “As her heart gave its final beat, the room seemed to exhale with her, releasing a lifetime of love, sorrow, and unspoken dreams into the universe.”

Just when you thought we were done, here are 10 more tips for how to write death scenes:

How to Describe Death in a Poem

Describing death in a poem allows for a condensed but emotionally charged exploration of the subject.

Poetic forms often lend themselves to capturing the essence of death in a manner that’s more focused on emotional and sensory experiences than straightforward narrative.

The use of metaphors, similes, and symbolism can elevate the emotional stakes.

Meanwhile, the poem’s rhythm and meter can mimic the heartbeat or breath of life itself.

Example : “In twilight’s dim I softly tread, My breath a cloud, my heart like lead. The sun retreats, as must I too, Into night’s arms, where dreams are few.”

How to Describe a Dead Person in Writing

The description of a deceased character can set the mood and offer a poignant moment for both the characters and the readers.

Details such as facial expression, position, and surrounding scenery should be considered.

You may want to highlight whether they look peaceful or tormented, how their clothes lay, or even the color of their skin and the temperature of their body.

These details contribute to a vivid and respectful rendering of death.

Example : “Her face was a waxen moon in the dim light, eyes closed in eternal contemplation. Her once vibrant auburn hair lay flat, framing her face like a fading halo on a long-forgotten saint.”

How to Describe the Stages of Death in Writing

Describing the stages of death can add a layer of realism and gravitas to your narrative.

It’s crucial to handle this with care and sensitivity, keeping in mind that different cultures and individuals have their own perceptions and experiences of death.

The physical stages—such as pallor mortis, algor mortis, and rigor mortis—can be depicted to show the inexorable progression of death.

The emotional and spiritual stages can illuminate the internal experiences of the dying or those left behind.

Example : “As the minutes ticked by, John’s skin turned an ashy gray, the warmth retreating from his limbs like a fading summer. His breathing grew shallow, a slow rattle that signaled his spirit’s negotiation between two realms.”

How to Describe the Scent of Death

The scent of death can be an unsettling but powerful detail in your writing.

This sensory element immerses your reader into the scene and underlines the finality and biological aspects of death.

Depending on the circumstances, the smell could range from the antiseptic scent of a hospital room to the sickly-sweet smell of decay.

Injecting this olfactory detail can provide a visceral realism to your death scene.

Example : “The air was thick with a cloying, metallic odor, a mixture of fresh blood and the acrid tang of decay. It hung around them like an unspoken truth, inescapable and deeply human.”

How to Describe the Death Rattle in Writing

The death rattle is a specific respiratory sound that can occur shortly before or during death.

It’s a haunting, unforgettable auditory detail that can add a layer of stark realism to your scene.

The sound can serve as a countdown of sorts, each raspy breath a solemn drumbeat leading toward the end.

But tread carefully—while it adds to the sensory experience, it can be unsettling for some readers.

Example : “Each breath he took sounded like a distant thunderstorm, a low, guttural rattle that seemed to echo the turmoil within his failing body. It was a sound both alien and profoundly sad, a final refrain in the symphony of his life.”

30 Best Words to Describe Death in Writing

Selecting the right words can make a significant difference in conveying the tone, emotion, and atmosphere of a death scene.

Choose words that resonate with the mood you want to create, whether it’s peaceful, tragic, horrifying, or uplifting.

Here are some of the best words for death scenes:

30 Best Phrases to Describe Death in Writing

Just as single words can be powerful, phrases can deepen the emotional and thematic resonance of your death scene.

Phrases offer the chance to capture more nuanced feelings or reactions surrounding death, adding a lyrical or poetic layer to the narrative.

Best death scene phrases:

• Eternal rest
• Gave up the ghost
• Passed away
• Snuffed out
• Breathed his last
• Met his maker
• Crossed the threshold
• Laid to rest
• Gone to a better place
• Pushing up daisies
• Ascended to heaven
• Taken too soon
• Reached the end of the road
• A light extinguished
• Embraced oblivion
• Final curtain call
• Left this mortal coil
• Fading away
• Found peace
• Walked into the light
• Sank into darkness
• The sands ran out
• Time’s up
• Closed the book
• The last chapter
• Left the stage
• Cut the thread
• A life complete
• Shuffled off this mortal coil

Death Scene Writing Example

To bring all the tips, words, and phrases together, here’s an example of a death scene to illustrate how you might incorporate all these elements into your own writing.

Amelia sat by her grandfather’s bedside, her heart pounding in a strange mixture of dread and tranquility.

His skin was almost translucent, a fragile parchment that had recorded ninety years of joys, sorrows, and ordinary miracles. His breath came in shallow bursts, each one a raspy whisper that seemed to fill the room with an almost sacred reverence—a death rattle that served as the final curtain call in the grand theater of his life.

The room was permeated with the metallic scent of decay, but Amelia didn’t mind.

It felt natural, a part of the cycle that began with the sweet aroma of birth and concluded with this. The air was heavy , as if it too was burdened with the weight of impending finality.

He opened his eyes once more and locked his gaze onto hers.

No words were spoken, yet an entire lifetime seemed to pass between them in that lingering moment. The silence was their last shared language, a poignant interlude of reflection before the inevitable.

Then, with a soft sigh, he crossed the threshold.

His eyes remained open, but Amelia knew he had left the stage, departing this world for whatever lay beyond.

She felt a rush of sorrow, followed by an unexpected serenity, as if he had bequeathed to her a small part of his newly found eternal rest. The room seemed to exhale with him, releasing a lifetime of love, sorrow, and unspoken dreams into the universe.

Final Thoughts: How to Write Death Scenes

Death scenes are as unique as each story, character, and writer.

Blend the tips, techniques, and examples in this guide to write your next epic death scene.

Related Posts:

• How to Write Chase Scenes (13 Best Tips + Examples)
• How to Write Battle Scenes: The Ultimate Guide for 2023
• How To Write a Funeral Scene (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)
• How To Write a Sad Scene: A Full Guide With 10 Examples

PEW Research on Death and Dying

Teaching Death

About a decade ago, I decided it was time to confront what seemed to me to be the most important issue a human being can face: death. I decided to do so in the way you might expect an academic philosopher to confront a difficult issue. I would teach a course about it. Along with a dozen or so willing (or unwilling) fellow travelers about half my age, I would read about and reflect upon the fact of my mortality.

It is not unusual for me to teach about issues about which I’m thinking. Often, I use teaching to reflect on issues that I don’t want to approach in specialized philosophical language, issues that are important but not in my particular area of philosophical expertise, issues that deserve thought and consideration but that aren’t necessarily topics about which I would write a technical article or a book. War, justice, technology. Sooner or later, I suppose, it was inevitable that death would be added to that list.

But why a course on death at that particular time? Why was it somehow ripe for me to drag myself and these students into a reflective confrontation with death then? I suppose that if I say I was in my mid-forties, many readers won’t need further explanation. And, in fact, that was likely it. I was at that point where I could see the far shore of my life more clearly than the shore from which I had set out. And that had me thinking.

As I began to put together a syllabus for the course, the first thing I discovered was the difficulty of cobbling together a good list of readings for a seminar on the philosophy of death. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t find any philosophical writings on death. I could. They simply weren’t the kind of writings I was looking for. Philosophers of death mostly seemed to write about the technical matters that define life and death and that, perhaps, help doctors who are uncertain about whether to sustain a particular life. Not that there is anything wrong with that angle, as far as it goes. But I wasn’t really interested in thinking about the question of when someone is technically dead or whether someone who dies of cancer two days before she would have been run over by a car anyway really suffers a tragedy when the cancer gets her first. I wasn’t interested in the question of whether someone who dies after having Alzheimer’s disease is a different person at her death from someone who dies with her mental facilities intact.

What I was interested in was the fact that I am going to die—that each of us is going to die. I wanted to confront that fact reflectively with my students. I wanted to look death in the face, have it look back at me and then figure out how, in the glare of its gaze, I was going to continue on. And when it came to philosophical writings on the fact of death, I discovered that after the ancients, it was pretty slim pickings. There was material in Plato and Aristotle, a wealth of riches in the Stoics and the Epicureans, and then only an essay or an excerpt here and there until Heidegger’s famous chapter on death in Being and Time . And that was about it. In the end, I turned to literature for assistance. That did the trick. Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illyich , Jim Crace’s Being Dead , Milan Kundera’s Immortality —these and other texts helped me design a syllabus that would keep us on track in thinking about our lives and our deaths.

Then there was another hurdle I hadn’t predicted. The curriculum committee in my department didn’t want to allow me to teach the seminar. Why? It wasn’t philosophical enough. Too much literature. In the end, I was begrudged the course mostly because there were no other seminars being offered that semester. I got it by default. And it turned out to be the best course I ever conducted, or am ever likely to conduct.

There is much about the course I still reflect upon. Among those is the dearth of philosophical writings on the fact that we will die. Why is it that so few philosophers—and, in particular, so few modern and contemporary philosophers—write on this? Contemporary philosophers who do write on the fact of death mostly seem to engage with Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ raft of arguments to the effect that we have nothing to fear in death: because in death we don’t exist (so there is no is nobody there to mind being dead); because we didn’t mourn over not existing before we were born (so there’s no reason to mourn over not existing after we die); or, in a more generous vein, because we need to exit our lives gracefully to leave room for the generations that follow us. These are all interesting arguments, and they deserve attention. But, with the exception of that single chapter in Being and Time , is there really so little else to be said about the issue philosophically?

Maybe the problem is that each of us, as Heidegger tells us, must confront death alone. There is nobody to do it for us, no one who can stand in as our representative. If that is true—and certainly it is—then perhaps philosophy is not the place to confront death. Philosophy’s coin of trade is generality, even universality. It tends to reside in the realm of what is true for all rather than in that of what each must confront singly. And so perhaps literature is, indeed, the proper place for reflection on death. In literature, humans don’t die; individuals die. Each of them dies his or her own particular death. Ivan Illyich dies. Jim Crace’s Joseph and Celice die—hand in hand, to be sure, murdered together on the beach. But, as Crace makes us understand, they die alone. Maybe my colleagues on the curriculum committee were not entirely wrong. Death is not a philosophical issue; it is a literary one.

And yet, if philosophy is supposed to have something to do with thinking about our lives, should it not also have something to do with thinking about a defining fact of those lives—i.e., that they end? I suspect it is not enough for philosophy to define the problem as one out of its realm. It is not enough to say, “Death? That’s down the hall in the English department.” I also suspect most philosophers would agree with me on this. So again: why the dearth of philosophical considerations of death?

I believe the reason is twofold. First, philosophers are human beings. Like non-philosophers, we die. And this causes us anxiety. So we think about other things in regard to living—how to act, what we can reasonably know, what justice is, how our minds relate to the world—rather than dying.

But what about the ancients, for whom death was a central issue? They died, too, and a number of them thought and wrote about it. There is something that distinguishes us from the ancients, something that encompasses all of us, not just philosophers. We live in a period where the denial of death, at least for those of us fortunate enough to live decently well in technologically advanced societies, is not merely a social temptation but instead a phenomenon approaching a collective illusion. We are no longer on intimate terms with death.

I am told that the average life span of Americans about a hundred years ago was not much more than forty. Now people regularly live into their eighties. And when we begin to decline, we do not so much think about death as about medicine. We look for ways to prolong our lives. This, in itself, is not a bad thing; all things equal, a longer life is better than a shorter one. However, in the same gesture that we prolong our lives, we also postpone thinking about death. It is as though death becomes a misfortune, a medical or personal failure, rather than an inevitability. We might even be forgiven for thinking that one of the reasons we prolong our lives is precisely so we don’t have to think about death.

If my seminar is any evidence, the thought of one’s death can be more than frightening. It can be overwhelming. The first day of class, I asked my twelve students to take out a piece of paper and write on it the four things most meaningful to them about their lives. I assured them no one else would see what they wrote. Then I asked them to fold the papers up and pass them to me, again saying that I would not see what they had written. I held the pieces of paper in my hand and told my students to keep in mind what they had written there. Then I tore the papers into shreds. I thought this might impress them a bit with the stakes involved in the course.

I was not ready for the collective gasp my students let out as I ripped up the papers. It was as though something foreign, and threatening, had just entered the room. And, for those of us in the contemporary world, that is probably exactly what happens when we are forced to confront our deaths.

Philosophers—like my students, like me, like the rest of us—don’t think about death because the tools of our society permit us to forgo thinking about it. And the medical and other health advances of the contemporary world—in contrast to so many other recent developments, such as advanced weaponry, environmental degradation, neoliberalism—are undoubtedly among the developments we could unreservedly call historical advances. We have extended our lifespans to lengths our recent ancestors couldn’t have imagined. The cost it seems to have exacted, however, is the loss of our intimacy with the most important fact about ourselves. We live as though we are immortal, and the more we train our eyes on the immortal, the more farsighted we become and the less clearly we can see that the horizon is not laid out endlessly before us. If, instead, we cast our vision upon ourselves, we would see that we are not, in fact, immortal. Death comes to each of us. Sooner or later, it is our lot.

And this, I want to argue, is necessary if our lives are to have the meaning they do.

There have been—in literature, of course—a number of reflections on immortality. The most famous among them is probably Jonathan Swift’s struldbrugs, who live forever but continue to age. They are a pathetic bunch, wizened and decrepit, shunned by their fellow creatures, who put them out to pasture with minimal provisions and support. And yet, since the promise of modern medicine is not just longevity but vitality, perhaps the struldbrugs lack relevance for contemporary audiences or immortality-seekers. Perhaps Jorge Luis Borges’ short story aptly named “The Immortal” provides a better comparison. Borges’ protagonist, Joseph Cartaphilus, finds himself among the immortals, whose landscape is dismal indeed. He learns that the immortals have stopped caring for themselves or others; life has lost all urgency for them since everything will happen of its own accord, sooner or later. Cartaphilus meets Homer in the City of Immortals and reflects that Homer having composed The Odyssey is not such a remarkable feat, for “if we postulate an infinite period of time, with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose The Odyssey , at least once.”

Our age—and again, I emphasize this applies only to the few of us fortunate enough to live in comfortable circumstances in developed nations—is one that denies death in favor of immortal strivings. But have we really thought about what immortality might mean? Imagine that you were to live forever. Imagine that your life were to go on without cease. And, to give it the best gloss, imagine that you were to do so as a healthy human being and that everyone you cared about could join you in this immortal condition. Would this be a future worth having? Would you want it?

In order to see what is at stake, let us give this imagining some flesh. What are your favorite activities? Sports, music, reading, watching television, talking with friends, eating at interesting restaurants? Take any or all of these, and then consider doing them for five thousand years. Or ten thousand. The first ten thousand years, of course, would be only a flicker in the span of immortality. One image that captures immortality for me, one which I believe comes from earlier sages, is that of a desert the size of the Sahara. To this desert flies a bird every thousand years. The bird collects a grain of sand from this desert and flies off, only to return a thousand years later to collect another grain. When the bird has cleared all the sand from the Sahara, not even an instant of eternity will have passed. Immortality lasts, I think we can agree, a long time.

Over such an immensity of time, what happens to our projects, our relationships, the meaning and character of our lives? They become shapeless. When there is time for everything, and perhaps everything will happen over the course of one’s time, then the urgency of living is sapped. The threads tying us to our lives go slack. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum explains this concept in her book on the Stoic philosophers, The Therapy of Desire : “[T]he intensity and dedication with which very many human activities are pursued cannot be explained without reference to the awareness that our opportunities are finite, that we cannot choose these activities indefinitely many times. In raising a child, in cherishing a lover, in performing a demanding task of work or thought or artistic creation, we are aware, at some level, of the thought that each of these efforts is structured and constrained by finite time.” It is not that structure and constraint alone give our lives meaning. But without the finiteness of time, it is unclear if they could sustain us in the meaningfulness they possess for us mortals. As Homer concludes in Borges’ “The Immortal,” “Everything among the mortals has the values of the irretrievable and the perilous.”

One might argue here that there is so much to do in life, so many activities to engage in, that it would be myopic to say immortality would leave our lives shapeless or bereft. After all, there are people being born every day. There are different activities and pursuits being created all the time. Think of the video games and novels being written as you read this, the basketball games yet to be played, even the slow changing of the earth’s surface.. There is always something new to do, some project to be pursued, someone else to meet. How could a person at all dedicated to life lose the intensity of living under these conditions?

This line of thought fails to appreciate the uniqueness of each of us. We cannot be just anybody. The trajectory of each life offers particular passions and interests and styles of relationships. There are certain people with whom we form deep relationships; others are just acquaintances. There are projects and engagements that stir us; others are just ways of passing time. There are places we want to see and immerse ourselves in because they resonate with something inside us, perhaps something inchoate even to us; other places are just amusing. The idea that novelty could continuously lend our lives shape misses this essential fact about us. For me, a life where what was left to do involved fishing, romance novels, racquetball, cocktail parties, and gardening would not be a life that compelled me. I would not be living; I would just be soldiering on.

In order for our lives to have a sense, we must die. We may try to avoid thinking about this, but it remains a cornerstone for our living.

And yet, we cannot conclude from the fact that immortality would be bad for us that we should embrace the fact of our dying. Death is not good for us, except perhaps for those among us in extreme pain or suffering.

This is the paradox of human mortality. We need death to give us meaning, and yet the meaningfulness of our lives is precisely what makes death so frightening. Without death, our lives would be shapeless. Since we do, in fact, die, our lives often take on a shape, but once they have a shape, a meaning, who wants to die?

As a philosopher, I am supposed to have a solution to this paradox. I am supposed to guide people on the narrow straits between death and immortality, to navigate us through this Scylla and Charybdis into the tranquil waters of a consistent and non-paradoxical relationship to mortality.

I cannot do so.

Death and its other, immortality, present us with the paradox our lives must grasp. We must simultaneously recognize the evil to each of us that death inescapably is and yet also not pine for a future that would bleed us of the reasons to fear death. We must embrace the fragility that lends our lives beauty and, at the same time, withdraws beauty from us. There is no straight path, nor a crooked one, that will lead us beyond all this. Our home lies here, we might say.

There are those in philosophical circles who seek a bid for immortality through the back door of this paradox. They argue that however many days I am granted, if I were asked at the end of that time whether I wanted another day, would I not say yes? And if, at the end of the next day, I were asked again, would I not continue to say yes? And in the end, would this not be the embrace of immortality that I have just denied?

This is clever, but ultimately it requires the mortality it seeks to overcome. If I am asked on a given day whether I would like another one, the background of the asking is the fact of my death. I live that day, in the hours before I am asked, as a mortal creature. I am not granted immortality; I am granted another day within mortality. And, then, another and, perhaps, another. The framework of my life remains a mortal one. I remain someone who faces death but with an indefinite reprieve. How long this cycle can go on without, one day, my saying I have had enough of these extra days is a question for which I have no answer. However, the frame of the question presupposes the extension of a mortal life, not the granting of an immortal one.

In any case, this offer is not a choice we are given. We are only given one choice, which is to die. And this, of course, is no choice at all.

Near the end of the fifteen-week seminar I taught a decade ago, during the discussion of Crace’s Being Dead , one of my students became noticeably silent. She wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone and just stared in front of her as each class unfolded. After a week of this, I asked her after class whether she was OK. Yes, she replied, she was OK. But, she added, she didn’t want to talk. She couldn’t talk. For the first time in her life, I realized, she was looking right at death. And, although she didn’t say this, it was looking right back at her. I knew what she meant and knew that there was nothing I could do to take away what she saw. After all, there were moments in class when I had to stop speaking because the hitch in my voice was beginning to overtake me. After all, I myself was waking up from nightmares, covered in sweat, knowing only that all of this would one day end. And after all, wasn’t all this why we had embarked upon this journey? She sat in class in those moments, staring straight ahead because she knew that when death appears before you, when it really appears, there is nowhere else to look.

In the end, then, the philosophers whose reflections on death I could not find because they were not there were half right in their avoidance, in their refusal to have death really appear. There is much to fear from death, just as there would be from immortality. In seeking to come to terms with death through the course I taught, I was treading on ground that rightfully stirs the deepest anxieties among all of us who consider our lives from outside the immediacy of what they ask of us. I was lucky to have had that particular group of people, young but game to confront the most intractable problem most humans ever face; several of them, long since graduated, still keep in touch and write to tell me about how the course affected them, how they think differently about their lives knowing that they will die.

I would like to say that since teaching the course, I have risen above the silence this fear of death often induces, in order to place it before myself and others. But this, too, would only be half right. I have written on death, and have been asked to speak on death. But I have not taught the seminar on death again and have no plans to do so in the future.

* Illustration by Anna Hall

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19,890 quotes, descriptions and writing prompts, 4,964 themes

death - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

• Dead Animal
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How is that so many nations have no death penalty while others allow their law enforcement to be judge, jury and executioner upon the public highway? Twenty, wow, wow, wow.

In the sorrow of death is the proof of love, of the bonds that exist beyond our reality, beyond the spacetime, matter and energy that makes our world real.

Death is a tragedy in the young and a right of passage for the old and so bring different kinds of mourning.

Wise elders are at peace with death as a transformation, a pathway, into the realities heaven offers beyond our world. Yet the young are wise to live and feel the positive ether of this world bind their hearts and souls to that of Mother Earth.

Death is the gateway to rebirth, and at someone beloved passes through, we both mourn and celebrate. We fee their loss in our life and community, yet we celebrate all that they achieved in their lifetime for goodness, for love, for the natural world, for humanity. It is a time when we are most aware of how sacred living is and to appreciate the gift all the more.

Mourn not the passing of a life well lived, yet celebrate. Count the times your souls smiled together, reached out so invisibly yet tangibly and touched. Death is only the end of a chapter, my friend. And so as this body makes ready to return to the soil, my spirit will watch over you and live in your heart. It will bring sadness as we transform to this new way of connecting, yet this is part of living.

Don't they say that none of us will leave this world alive? Yet for my part I intend to leave the biggest and most beautiful footprint I can. Maybe yours will be right next to mine, that it is together we walk, together we leave a path to guide future generations.

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KitanKaboodle New Member

Describing death.

Discussion in ' Word Mechanics ' started by KitanKaboodle , Mar 11, 2017 .

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); When moving from a living individual to a dead individual, yet they maintain a sense of consciousness, how would you draw the line for the reader? Is it enough to describe the inability to re-open your eyes and discuss the cliche white light?  

NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); To be perfectly frank, this is what would make or break a book for me. This is the sort of thing that's really a test for a writer & their ability and ingenuity and imagination. You can reach for the familiar or on hand cliches to get the idea across quickly & easily, sure But as a reader I'm hoping for the author to do something different, unique, and so creative that I just want to admire their craft. I would suggest you experiment, really think about what you think the difference between live consciousness and what it is to be other beyond this life—whatever that means to you. Depending on how you (specifically in your story/world, but even your general worldview typically bleeds through) view the seperation of life & death, methods to illustrate the transition alters. Consider the distinction between Life and Death. And then fiddle with depicting your view of that distinction. Cheering for you~  

zoupskim Contributor Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); I mean... How do they die? Is it violent, or do they just sort of nod off during a nap at 90?  

Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); You talking a linear POV of a character "crossing over" from life into death or just a posthumous character overseeing the living world?  

Forinsyther Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); I think the white light may be a little too cliche unfortunately. Think about the universe you're writing in and then use your imagination. If it's a fantasy world then you can do literally anything you want you can make the transition peaceful, or painful, or overwhelming, or so calm that when they have crossed the line they don't realise at first. But if you're using our world, and you don't want it to be too extreme, you could maybe just tweak the white light cliche. Zoupskim makes a good point; how does the character die? If it's violent, like a gunshot to the head, you could have the change to be instantaneous. The gun goes off, but he doesn't even feel it, the whole world around him just seems to freeze. When he tries, he can certainly move, but everything apart from him, even time, has stopped. And then he looks at the man who pulled the trigger and contemplates his situation, he's not in pain, so perhaps he didn't shoot? Only, his heart was racing with fear a minute ago. Etc etc etc If it's a peaceful death, like in their bed, you could have their lasts thoughts to be of family, or of unfulfilled goals. If he knows it's his time, then maybe there's just this feeling you get and suddenly you're very conscious of the fact you've passed on. You could let the reader know that everyone feels this. Or if you don't want that, you could have one minute they're lying there, and then the next, they're still in bed but they slowly realises that they're no longer breathing. Their senses are heightened or stopped. And then when he's come to grips with the afterlife he struggles with the fact that he'll never get to face the things he was last thinking about.  

Pinkymcfiddle Banned

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); I imagine the moment before death would be sheer panic, your survival instinct in overdrive, a desperate and futile search for some reprieve. It would be a few moments of consummate terror, and that would be your last memory of life. Or you might go in your sleep.  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); Thank you for the responses! I am avoiding the 'white light'. The issue I am having is that I had someone read the switch from the person dying, to describing the feeling of death, and they got confused. They read it the way that I meant for it to be read, but he did not understand as to why I described death and then carried on with the character. This also could be due to the fact that he hates reading, and isn't the best source for constructive criticism, but it had me thinking. The character dies in a very formal way; due to old age. She has lived a happy and fulfilling life with a family, starts to slip away when the loss of her pain is replaced by the feeling of falling. She is blinded by the lack of light, wakes up strapped to a metal bed and the first voice she hears is a woman over an intercom. All the woman says is “Greetings, Prisoner 11384. You have served your sentence. You are free to go.” Once her awareness returns, she realizes she is back to being 23 with absolutely no family, completely alone, and the memories of her current life return. When the reader finished the short story, his only critique was that he "didn't understand". I can't tell if the lack of understanding would be from the type of writing prompt I was responding to, or the detail of the death being confusing whenever the character turned out to be alive.  

Mental Landscaper New Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); I have a rather macabre quote from an anonymous source that may be of interest to you. As somebody who's been clinically dead before, let me describe what it feels like. A "death rattle" is what you hear when the air is released from somebody's lungs because they can no longer hold it in. I've heard my own death rattle. Prior to the death rattle, you get tunnel vision. Your brain is wired on so many chemicals that your vision starts to blur and get hyper focused. Around that time, you start losing motor functions and probably focus very hard on one limb or on your injury. They stop being able to move after a while. The reason isn't just your nerves - it's bloodflow. I think. All I know is when I died I felt my heart beating fast and then slow and hard. You start to feel, after or during your death rattle, your blood slowing down. You feel it slow to a crawl and thicken and you know that if you could move you could pound on your chest and everything would get moving again, but you can't move. You feel it stop and it -hurts-. It burns, because it's sticky and gumming up your veins. You feel your heart stop and then you feel it burn because it's being tugged on by the blood inside of it giving in to gravity and pulling on it just like the rest of the blood in your body. You feel yourself go. If your brain doesn't go first, if you don't fall asleep, you feel yourself die. I'm just lucky I died in a hospital surrounded by doctors. I was dead for only a few seconds, but I died. No heart activity, no brain activity. I was gone. I neglected to mention your lungs. Your death rattle happens because all the air leaves your lungs. When that happens, they start to burn too. Death is burning and death is slow, no matter what. Unless your brain goes, you feel it until you feel nothing ever again. Click to expand...

sprirj Senior Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); I don't understand either lol Why 23? Who held her prisoner? I hope you just washed over this because it's a forum and your book answers it.  

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); sprirj said: ↑ I don't understand either lol Why 23? Who held her prisoner? I hope you just washed over this because it's a forum and your book answers it. Click to expand...

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); Mental Landscaper said: ↑ I have a rather macabre quote from an anonymous source that may be of interest to you. Click to expand...

JE Loddon Active Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_be6b7990bacab60b8d595571a18a15b6'); }); I would have them decribe the feeling of all weight and burden suddenly lifting.  

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What Fanfic Can Teach Us About Writing Fantasy

Our Flag Means Death has a devoted fanfic community.

Everyone who reads both books and fanfiction knows there’s a clear difference in reading speed. While a 500 page book might take a week to get through, reading at “fanfiction speed” can allow a reader to devour a similarly sized fic over the course of one night. How is fanfic routinely able to defy the bounds of eye strain and the need for sleep?

It’s possible because fanfiction is some of the best writing out there, excelling at hooking readers and keeping them enthralled. Given that this is the goal for any writer who wants to gather and grow an audience, studying fanfiction and how it pulls off this particular magic trick can help unlock the secrets to telling a story that captivates fans. Over the years, I’ve consumed a massive amount of fanfiction, which I think differs from many traditionally published stories in three ways—all of which are lessons that SFF authors can take to deepen their connection with their audience.

First, fanfiction isn’t afraid to unabashedly give readers what they crave. In fact, I’d argue that the primary reason that most fanfic is created is because the writer has an idea they can’t let go of that they would have loved to see in a property. Sometimes these are relationships—especially queer ones—which never appeared on-screen or on the pages. Other times, it’s an exploration of marginalized identities and the ways in which marginalized individuals might fit into the world. But most of all, fanfic writers delight in playing in the trope sandbox. Whereas many authors may be afraid of being labeled “tropey” or “predictable,” fanfic writers and readers actively create and search out fics that feature popular tropes.

Readers can easily scratch particular itches on Ao3 (Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works), one of the most popular fanfic hosting sites, using the tag filtering feature. There are nearly 150,000 stories on the site tagged “family of choice,” 133,000 tagged “enemies to lovers,” 195,000 tagged “mutual pining,” and 133,000 tagged “idiots in love.” There are a staggering 310,000 fics on Ao3 tagged “emotional hurt/comfort,” a style of fic in which characters help each other salve emotional wounds. With this kind of demand, I would argue that when SFF writers embrace tropes, they’re liable to attract a large audience who happily consumes anything that can easily be made into a trope map.

Second, different elements of craft are emphasized in fanfiction—there’s a heavy focus on dialogue, character development as opposed to plot, and deep worldbuilding and atmospherics. For example, there are currently over 51,000 works on Ao3 under the tag “banter,” and readers of fanfiction routinely rave over writers who can craft the kind of bouncy, jaunty repartee that fanfiction is known for. Crafting compelling dialogue is tough—which is why authors should study just how good fanfic writers are at it. Part of this comes from knowing the characters fully, which gels with fanfiction’s emphasis on character development and interaction over an insistence on plot driving the narrative. Some of the most gut-wrenching fics I’ve read have had little to no plot—taking place in a single night or entirely in dialogue, for example. The best fanfics leave readers feeling like they know and love the characters featured even more, which generates an emotional connection. It’s often aided by a special focus on worldbuilding and atmospherics, explaining and building out minutiae of an existing world so that readers can more fully imagine it and immerse in the all-important vibes.

Third, as a result of craft techniques mentioned above, fanfiction is driven by the emotional resonance that both the writer and the reader have with the work in question. For writers, fanfiction has allowed a generation to cut their teeth as authors, completing stories over the course of weeks or months or years. It taught a generation of writers not just how to craft good stories, but also that their stories were both important and valued by readers, and that there was a market for content that subverted the overwhelmingly white, cis, heteronormative paradigm of books, movies, and TV shows in the early 2000s. Not all of us were fanfic writers—I wasn’t, merely an avid consumer—but seeing the kudos and bookmarks and comments pile up on stories that were quiet, or queer, or any number of other things, had an undeniable impact. They proved that there was an audience for the kinds of stories we wanted to write and share with the world. And now some of those fanfic writers and readers, me included, have taken these insights and gone on to publish—my debut adult fantasy, The Sins on Their Bones, comes out on May 7, 2024, and features banter, pining, hurt/comfort, and each and every one of my favorite tropes (lovers to enemies/friends to lovers, anyone?).

For readers, fanfic delivered the kind of connection that everyone hopes to have with a favored book—a deep and lasting resonance that can lead to rereads upon rereads. Fanfic readers want to sob their hearts out, scream over the romance of imagined pairings, and feel when they consume stories. The best fanfic writers know this, and they angle their works to evoke precisely those emotions as a driving goal. It makes for great stories that readers don’t want to put down—and what author wouldn’t want to know that real human tears were produced over something they wrote?

My hope is that the writing community can take the lessons of fanfiction—craft, content, and otherwise—and use them to continue to transform the publishing industry. In the best sense of transformative works, and giving readers what they want to read, fanfiction’s inspiration can lead to even more traditionally published books that speak to readers. And then maybe things will come full circle, and those books will inspire fanfictions of their own from a new generation of creators.

Laura R. Samotin’s The Sins on Their Bones releasesMay 7; you can pre-order a signed, personalized copy from Brooklyn’s Ripped Bodice bookstore here .

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R.O. Kwon Is Writing Into Desire

By Keziah Weir

All featured products are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Vanity Fair may earn an affiliate commission.

“I’m so obsessed with every word, every comma of a novel, that it was initially hard for me to contemplate letting go,” R.O. Kwon says of the screen adaptation of her best-selling 2018 debut novel, The Incendiaries. “My first reaction for half a day was like, ‘Well, guess I’m just going to learn how to make TV shows.’” But publishing has brimmed with lessons in surrender for the writer. “I was just like, ‘Well, no, I've read exactly one script in my life. I’m not versed in this.’” She relinquished control to two filmmakers whose work she admires. A collaboration between screenwriter Lisa Randolph ( Jessica Jones , Prodigal Son ) and director Kogonada ( Columbus, Pachinko ) is now underway.

She’s found other outlets for her comma tinkering. In 2014, Kwon started writing Exhibit (Riverhead) , and over the intervening decade has polished it so it glitters like a garnet in firelight. “I want the prose to get to a place where I can pick it up at random, read two sentences and not want to change anything about those sentences.” In the novel, a Korean American photographer named Jin finds herself creatively blocked at the same time her husband’s longing to become a father diverges painfully from her own desire to remain childless. An injured ballerina named Lidija, whom she meets at a party, unleashes both an artistic and a sensual awakening.

Kwon, who lives in San Francisco (“the long-term plan is to be here until climate change chases us out”), says that Exhibit bloomed from her longtime appreciation of photography and its “complicated and fraught relationship to reality, and to hanging on to a little bit of time, a little bit of the past” along with a more recently discovered love of dance. While watching a San Francisco Ballet performance of Alexei Ratmansky’s Shostakovich Trilogy, “I had this full body experience while watching, where I thought the dancers’ bodies—like, the cells —were directly talking to my body.” Kwon took introductory photography and ballet classes in an attempt to capture the bodily sensation of creating both art forms.

Earlier this year, Kwon wrote an essay about why she hopes her parents won’t read the book, given its frank depictions of lust and queerness—subjects into which Kwon took an exploratory dip with the best-selling 2021 story anthology Kink, which she co-edited with Garth Greenwell. It comprises fiction that explores desire from such authors as Alexander Chee, Melissa Febos, Roxane Gay, and Chris Kraus. Kwon’s own story, “Safeword,” was first published by Playboy and centers on a man navigating his girlfriend’s newly disclosed submissive sexual desires with a joint visit to a dominatrix.

“One of the strongest antidotes to the deepest kinds of loneliness, the worst shame I have felt, has been the fellowship I have found in literature and other people’s art,” Kwon says. “That's a guiding principle for me in my work. I so badly want to meet other people’s loneliness and other people’s solitude and other people’s shame.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Vanity Fair: Where did the book start for you?

R.O. Kwon: One of the first sparks for the book was that I was interested in what, as a woman, I feel allowed and encouraged to want, and what I feel pressured to hide my desire for. I wanted to have women on the page who want a great deal, to see what happens if they're given a space to run after what they desire. Ambition continues to feel like a really fraught thing for, I think especially, my woman artist friends and woman writer friends to even say out loud. Saying the words, "I am an ambitious woman" still feels really dangerous.

Jin, like the narrators in The Incendiaries and in your short story “Safe Word,” was raised Christian and lost their faith, which I know is something that you experienced too. But both of those narrators were white men. Of course, I understand that Jin is fictional, and that you are not Jin, but I am curious about the difference between writing a narrator who feels biographically, on paper, different or more similar to you.

With The Incendiaries, it wasn't as though I walked in telling myself, I'm going to write a book from the point of view of a white man. It was actually initially told from Phoebe, the Korean woman’s point of view, and that ended up changing. I believe very strongly in following the book's desires and needs, and not imposing what I think the book should be.

But with this book, I wanted very much to write from a Korean woman's point of view, and to not let the book morph again, in that way, if at all possible. In retrospect, I thought that maybe part of why that happened with The Incendiaries, it could have been some part of me was trying to protect myself a little. A lot of people seem to assume that Phoebe was a stand-in character for me, which was definitely a little wild because I was like, I haven't bombed an abortion clinic! That was definitely the most common question: How autobiographical was this book? And my goodness, well, I haven't done that.

By Eve Batey

By Kase Wickman

By Bess Levin

I wanted to let myself be much more unprotected in this book. Sex is at the center of this book. And being Korean, ex-Catholic, and ex-Christian, part of the journey of this book has involved some of the most overwhelming anxiety and panic that I've ever experienced in my life.

I'm sorry!

Part of me would just be watching myself and being like, you did this to yourself. Why? No one made you do this. No one made you write this very queer, kinky novel.

It's still true that every cell in my body seems to feel convinced that…honestly, a message I keep hearing is: You're going to be killed. It wasn't that long ago that a Korean woman could be divorced for talking too much. You could be divorced for—this one kills me, I flew into a day’s outrage about this—you could be divorced for moving during sex. And at the time, being divorced was a death sentence. I'm just not that far removed from when that was true. And my body's fully aware that giving any hint to the world that I've ever had sex is such a rule-breaking thing. I'm pretty sure I haven't even told my grandmother I’m queer. I just let her live her life in peace. She almost certainly thinks being queer is an illness. It's just not that uncommon. It's not just my grandmother's generation, at all.

Part of the deep anxiety about this has also come from the ways in which I write about sexuality and kink, especially Jin's sexuality, is that it can be misinterpreted as aligning exactly with some of the most harmful stereotypes about people who look like me. That we’re submissive, hypersexual, compliant, that we’re up for being mistreated. But I do believe that turning away from naming what I feel compelled to name, that itself brings its own harm.

I think a lot about something that my friend Garth Greenwell said. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like, "I'm not writing for people who think I'm disgusting. I'm writing for people who already think I'm beautiful." Jin clearly has very conflicted feelings about her desires, and is working through those conflicted feelings. I hoped that this book would at least in part turn into or turn toward a celebration of our bodies, and a celebration of bodies who are told that we don't get to want what we want.

In talking about her lack of a desire to have a child, Jin says that she can't argue the urge into being, which felt like such a parallel to the surety or lack thereof about faith in God.

That was one obsession of the book, these different ways—with faith, with wanting children or not, with sexual desire, with appetites in general, including for food—that our bodies are so powerful. I haven't been able to—and I've tried—I can't argue myself into believing in a Christian God. Again, I can't argue myself into or out of sexual desire. I am fascinated by the ways in which I haven't been able to ever reason or argue myself out of who I seem to be and what I want and what I believe.

I have friends and loved ones who so desperately want kids. And I know how absolutely, with all my being, I've never had that desire. With Jin and her husband, she, even more adamantly than I do, doesn't want kids. I always said if my partner woke up one day realizing he definitely wants kids, then I've told him, we will work with that and figure something out. But for Jin, it's further along on the spectrum than I am. She's just like, "I can't imagine this." And so there's the profound heartbreak of what do you then do when your life becomes incompatible with someone you love very much?

There’s another love story of sorts—the ghost of a kisaeng starts speaking to Jin.

The kisaeng story, the bare bones of the double suicide, with someone who was going to marry her, that's very loosely based on a family story. It has been fascinating to me, in part, because some of the family stories I've heard most often, and I really haven't heard that many family stories, have to do with people blowing up their lives for love. This became especially personal to me when the conflict that Jin has with her parents, where they didn't want to, where they say, "If you don't have a marriage in the church then we won't come." My parents said that to me. I took a less hard-line position. I’m so not Christian. That said, I thought, if this matters so much to y’all, then all right, whatever. We can have a priest involved.

The kisaeng who plays this large role in my own family's mythology, her name hasn't survived. I plunged into research, which itself started feeling really restrictive, because I just became increasingly obsessed with needing the historical details to be exactly right. And at one point, what became very liberating was I read about Korean men in Korea looking through Korean history and anointing people of the past as queer ancestors, because of all the ways in which queer people are erased from history. That really liberated me. I was like, You know what? We're talking about a ghost, channeled through a shaman, and she can fly. I can make some things up.

One of my biggest pleasures in a book is finding a character from another one of the author’s books—and I got that in The Exhibit, with a visit from the world of The Incendiaries.

There's a part of me that almost believes that an ideal version of a book pre-exists me. And I feel less that I'm making anything up with fiction, and that I’m more working my way toward a book that's already there. Honestly, that feels more reassuring than...

That you're liberating a form rather than having to find it yourself.

That way it’s not the wide open vista of infinite choice, but instead working my way toward liberating, like a sculpture out of a rock. The world of The Incendiaries feels to me as though it almost exists. When I feel extra down about the world, I sometimes turn to quantum physics for consolation, the articles and books that are for lay people. I love reading that there are infinite versions of the world, and in ways that almost exceed language. In The Incendiaries, a world where those abortion clinics were bombed, that version of the world, it seems to exist to me. It still felt so vibrant, that it felt natural for the world of Exhibit to also belong there.

I'm most likely working toward either a trilogy or triptych, or a quartet, of books where they're very loosely connected. But where what happens in the past, in these past books, continues to exist in future books. I think Jin's photos—I mean, who knows, it's early days—I think Jin's photos will show up in the next book.

It sounds like you're already working on that third book.

I'm having more trouble really pulling myself into fiction than I've ever had. It's been really disorienting. It just remains such a central terror, that terror Jin feels in Exhibit , her fear that the photos have left. Because it does happen sometimes. Every now and then, there are artists who just don't ever write again, don't make their art again. I’m so afraid that the words have left. But I'm trying to be patient, and I've been storing up, and I've been collecting accounts of writers who fall into years of quiet, because I know my mind and body are at their best when I’m writing fiction every day. And currently I’m not able to, but I'm trying.

Below, Kwon shares some of the creative inspirations behind Exhibit.

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Book News & Features

Ai is contentious among authors. so why are some feeding it their own writing.

Chloe Veltman

The vast majority of authors don't use artificial intelligence as part of their creative process — or at least won't admit to it.

Yet according to a recent poll from the writers' advocacy nonprofit The Authors Guild, 13% said they do use AI, for activities like brainstorming character ideas and creating outlines.

The technology is a vexed topic in the literary world. Many authors are concerned about the use of their copyrighted material in generative AI models. At the same time, some are actively using these technologies — even attempting to train AI models on their own works.

These experiments, though limited, are teaching their authors new things about creativity.

Best known as the author of technology and business-oriented non-fiction books like The Long Tail, lately Chris Anderson has been trying his hand at fiction. Anderson is working on his second novel, about drone warfare.

He says he wants to put generative AI technology to the test.

"I wanted to see whether in fact AI can do more than just help me organize my thoughts, but actually start injecting new thoughts," Anderson says.

Anderson says he fed parts of his first novel into an AI writing platform to help him write this new one. The system surprised him by moving his opening scene from a corporate meeting room to a karaoke bar.

Authors push back on the growing number of AI 'scam' books on Amazon

"And I was like, you know? That could work!" Anderson says. "I ended up writing the scene myself. But the idea was the AI's."

Anderson says he didn't use a single actual word the AI platform generated. The sentences were grammatically correct, he says, but fell way short in terms of replicating his writing style. Although he admits to being disappointed, Anderson says ultimately he's OK with having to do some of the heavy lifting himself: "Maybe that's just the universe telling me that writing actually involves the act of writing."

Training an AI model to imitate style

It's very hard for off-the-shelf AI models like GPT and Claude to emulate contemporary literary authors' styles.

The authors NPR talked with say that's because these models are predominantly trained on content scraped from the Internet like news articles, Wikipedia entries and how-to manuals — standard, non-literary prose.

But some authors, like Sasha Stiles , say they have been able to make these systems suit their stylistic needs.

"There are moments where I do ask my machine collaborator to write something and then I use what's come out verbatim," Stiles says.

The poet and AI researcher says she wanted to make the off-the-shelf AI models she'd been experimenting with for years more responsive to her own poetic voice.

So she started customizing them by inputting her finished poems, drafts, and research notes.

"All with the intention to sort of mentor a bespoke poetic alter ego," Stiles says.

She has collaborated with this bespoke poetic alter ego on a variety of projects, including Technelegy (2021), a volume of poetry published by Black Spring Press; and " Repetae: Again, Again ," a multimedia poem created last year for luxury fashion brand Gucci.

Stiles says working with her AI persona has led her to ask questions about whether what she's doing is in fact poetic, and where the line falls between the human and the machine.

read it again… pic.twitter.com/sAs2xhdufD — Sasha Stiles | AI alter ego Technelegy ✍️🤖 (@sashastiles) November 28, 2023

"It's been really a provocative thing to be able to use these tools to create poetry," she says.

Potential issues come with these experiments

These types of experiments are also provocative in another way. Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger says she's not opposed to authors training AI models on their own writing.

"If you're using AI to create derivative works of your own work, that is completely acceptable," Rasenberger says.

Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission

But building an AI system that responds fluently to user prompts requires vast amounts of training data. So the foundational AI models that underpin most of these investigations in literary style may contain copyrighted works.

Rasenberger pointed to the recent wave of lawsuits brought by authors alleging AI companies trained their models on unauthorized copies of articles and books.

"If the output does in fact contain other people's works, that creates real ethical concerns," she says. "Because that you should be getting permission for."

Circumventing ethical problems while being creative

Award-winning speculative fiction writer Ken Liu says he wanted to circumvent these ethical problems, while at the same time creating new aesthetic possibilities using AI.

So the former software engineer and lawyer attempted to train an AI model solely on his own output. He says he fed all of his short stories and novels into the system — and nothing else.

Liu says he knew this approach was doomed to fail.

That's because the entire life's work of any single writer simply doesn't contain enough words to produce a viable so-called large language model.

"I don't care how prolific you are," Liu says. "It's just not going to work."

Liu's AI system built only on his own writing produced predictable results.

"It barely generated any phrases, even," Liu says. "A lot of it was just gibberish."

Yet for Liu, that was the point. He put this gibberish to work in a short story. 50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know , published in Uncanny Magazine in 2020, is a meditation on what it means to be human from the perspective of a machine.

"Dinoted concentration crusch the dead gods," is an example of one line in Liu's story generated by his custom-built AI model. "A man reached the torch for something darker perified it seemed the billboding," is another.

Liu continues to experiment with AI. He says the technology shows promise, but is still very limited. If anything, he says, his experiments have reaffirmed why human art matters.

"So what is the point of experimenting with AIs?" Liu says. "The point for me really is about pushing the boundaries of what is art."

Audio and digital stories edited by Meghan Collins Sullivan .

• large language model
• mary rasenberger
• chris anderson
• sasha stiles
• authors guild

Writer and journalist Rex Murphy dead at 77

Murphy wrote for newspapers, also appeared on radio and tv during decades-long media career.

Rex Murphy, long-time CBC Radio host and commentator, dead at 77

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Rex Murphy, the controversial Newfoundland-born pundit and wordsmith whose writing and often-blistering commentaries were the focus of a decades-long career in Canadian media, has died at the age of 77, according to the National Post.

"You might not agree with what Rex had to say, but oh, boy, could he ever say it," said comedian and fellow Newfoundlander Mark Critch, who performed an impression of Murphy on  This Hour Has 22 Minutes .

In a report published on the Post's website  on Thursday, the newspaper said Murphy died after a battle with cancer, and he had last corresponded with an editor there on Tuesday, inquiring about his most-recent column.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey posted a statement on the social platform X Thursday saying that people there "are mourning one of our own tonight, and sending condolences to his family and friends."

Murphy's "quick wit and mastery of words were unmatched, and his presence was significant — whether or not everyone always agreed," Furey said, echoing a theme that Critch touched upon in his own remembrances.

Critch told CBC News that he'd "only known a world with Rex in it," explaining that he grew up next to a radio station where his father worked, along with Murphy.

Comedian Mark Critch calls Rex Murphy 'the greatest wordsmith in a place known for talkers'

"As a little boy, I remember seeing this man with wild hair in a golden turtleneck, listening to music with dad at the house and he was larger than life," Critch said Thursday.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper, in a tribute posted on social media , remembered Murphy as "one of the most intelligent and fiercely free-thinking journalists this country has ever known."

In another social media tribute, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called Murphy "an icon, a pioneer of independent, eloquent and fearless thought, and always a captivating orator who never lost his touch."

Newspapers, radio and TV

Murphy graduated from Newfoundland's Memorial University before attending Oxford University as a Rhodes   Scholar in 1968 .

He got his start lending a hand at the private radio station VOCM in St. John's, backfilling a talk show while its host went on vacation.

Murphy would go on to spend many years working with CBC, including work on both radio and television. He was a National Post columnist at the time of his death and had previously written columns for The Globe and Mail.

"When Rex had something to say, he knew exactly what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it," Kevin Libin, a longtime editor of Murphy's work at Postmedia, told CBC News on Thursday evening.

Murphy hosted Cross Country Checkup on CBC Radio  for more than two decades and was a familiar face to longtime viewers of CBC's The National . His appearances on CBC-TV date as far back as the 1970s.

Controversies and criticism

Murphy's work drew criticism, at times, including for accepting paid speaking engagements for the oil industry.

In 2014, while still hosting Cross Country Checkup  and regularly contributing TV essays to The National , members of the public complained to CBC's ombudsman that Murphy was in a conflict of interest for doing paid speeches at oil industry gatherings.

Rex Murphy on Canadian values

Murphy had long defended the sector, including on CBC, saying the oil boom saved many of his friends and fellow Newfoundlanders from economic ruin when the East Coast fisheries collapsed.

As for the speeches, he said nobody controlled what he said — not the oil industry, and not the CBC.

Later in life, Murphy became a loud detractor of the federal Liberal Party — despite having twice run as a provincial Liberal candidate in the mid-1980s — and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government. 

But he still had Liberals who admired him, such as longtime politician Bob Rae who posted on X that while they disagreed on many things he never lost "affection and admiration for him. He loved Newfoundland and Canada and was fearless."

He was also an outspoken opponent of "wokeism," progressive ideology sensitive to systemic inequities, and argued in his column that conservative voices like his were being pushed to the margins.

In a 2022 column, he decried "the frenzy of woke politics and the cancel culture it has bred and nourished, the prescriptions on what may or may not be debated or talked about."

Two years earlier, he'd been at the centre of one such frenzy for another piece of writing in the National Post.

A week after Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd, a Black man, Murphy accused liberals — both in general and in the party — of trumping up racism in Canada.

"Most Canadians, the vast majority in fact, are horrified by racism and would never participate in it," he wrote. "We are in fact not a racist country, though to say so may shock some."

The column was widely decried, prompting an editorial review at the Post, which eventually added a note at the top of the piece saying it fell short of the newspaper's standards.

Rex Murphy, on Newfoundland outport fishing

With files from The Canadian Press

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When Prison and Mental Illness Amount to a Death Sentence

The downward spiral of one inmate, Markus Johnson, shows the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill.

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By Glenn Thrush

Photographs by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Glenn Thrush spent more than a year reporting this article, interviewing close to 50 people and reviewing court-obtained body-camera footage and more than 1,500 pages of documents.

• Published May 5, 2024 Updated May 7, 2024

Markus Johnson slumped naked against the wall of his cell, skin flecked with pepper spray, his face a mask of puzzlement, exhaustion and resignation. Four men in black tactical gear pinned him, his face to the concrete, to cuff his hands behind his back.

He did not resist. He couldn’t. He was so gravely dehydrated he would be dead by their next shift change.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

“I didn’t do anything,” Mr. Johnson moaned as they pressed a shield between his shoulders.

It was 1:19 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2019, in the Danville Correctional Center, a medium-security prison a few hours south of Chicago. Mr. Johnson, 21 and serving a short sentence for gun possession, was in the throes of a mental collapse that had gone largely untreated, but hardly unwatched.

He had entered in good health, with hopes of using the time to gain work skills. But for the previous three weeks, Mr. Johnson, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had refused to eat or take his medication. Most dangerous of all, he had stealthily stopped drinking water, hastening the physical collapse that often accompanies full-scale mental crises.

Mr. Johnson’s horrific downward spiral, which has not been previously reported, represents the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill. Many seriously ill people receive no treatment . For those who do, the outcome is often determined by the vigilance and commitment of individual supervisors and frontline staff, which vary greatly from system to system, prison to prison, and even shift to shift.

The country’s jails and prisons have become its largest provider of inpatient mental health treatment, with 10 times as many seriously mentally ill people now held behind bars as in hospitals. Estimating the population of incarcerated people with major psychological problems is difficult, but the number is likely 200,000 to 300,000, experts say.

Many of these institutions remain ill-equipped to handle such a task, and the burden often falls on prison staff and health care personnel who struggle with the dual roles of jailer and caregiver in a high-stress, dangerous, often dehumanizing environment.

In 2021, Joshua McLemore , a 29-year-old with schizophrenia held for weeks in an isolation cell in Jackson County, Ind., died of organ failure resulting from a “refusal to eat or drink,” according to an autopsy. In April, New York City agreed to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Nicholas Feliciano, a young man with a history of mental illness who suffered severe brain damage after attempting to hang himself on Rikers Island — as correctional officers stood by.

Mr. Johnson’s mother has filed a wrongful-death suit against the state and Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit health care contractor in Illinois prisons. The New York Times reviewed more than 1,500 pages of reports, along with depositions taken from those involved. Together, they reveal a cascade of missteps, missed opportunities, potential breaches of protocol and, at times, lapses in common sense.

Prison officials and Wexford staff took few steps to intervene even after it became clear that Mr. Johnson, who had been hospitalized repeatedly for similar episodes and recovered, had refused to take medication. Most notably, they did not transfer him to a state prison facility that provides more intensive mental health treatment than is available at regular prisons, records show.

The quality of medical care was also questionable, said Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, Sarah Grady and Howard Kaplan, a married legal team in Chicago. Mr. Johnson lost 50 to 60 pounds during three weeks in solitary confinement, but officials did not initiate interventions like intravenous feedings or transfer him to a non-prison hospital.

And they did not take the most basic step — dialing 911 — until it was too late.

There have been many attempts to improve the quality of mental health treatment in jails and prisons by putting care on par with punishment — including a major effort in Chicago . But improvements have proved difficult to enact and harder to sustain, hampered by funding and staffing shortages.

Lawyers representing the state corrections department, Wexford and staff members who worked at Danville declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s death, citing the unresolved litigation. In their interviews with state police investigators, and in depositions, employees defended their professionalism and adherence to procedure, while citing problems with high staff turnover, difficult work conditions, limited resources and shortcomings of co-workers.

But some expressed a sense of resignation about the fate of Mr. Johnson and others like him.

Prisoners have “much better chances in a hospital, but that’s not their situation,” said a senior member of Wexford’s health care team in a deposition.

“I didn’t put them in prison,” he added. “They are in there for a reason.”

Markus Mison Johnson was born on March 1, 1998, to a mother who believed she was not capable of caring for him.

Days after his birth, he was taken in by Lisa Barker Johnson, a foster mother in her 30s who lived in Zion, Ill., a working-class city halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Markus eventually became one of four children she adopted from different families.

The Johnson house is a lively split level, with nieces, nephews, grandchildren and neighbors’ children, family keepsakes, video screens and juice boxes. Ms. Johnson sits at its center on a kitchen chair, chin resting on her hand as children wander over to share their thoughts, or to tug on her T-shirt to ask her to be their bathroom buddy.

From the start, her bond with Markus was particularly powerful, in part because the two looked so much alike, with distinctive dimpled smiles. Many neighbors assumed he was her biological son. The middle name she chose for him was intended to convey that message.

“Mison is short for ‘my son,’” she said standing over his modest footstone grave last summer.

He was happy at home. School was different. His grades were good, but he was intensely shy and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school.

That was around the time the bullying began. His sisters were fierce defenders, but they could only do so much. He did the best he could, developing a quick, taunting tongue.

These experiences filled him with a powerful yearning to fit in.

It was not to be.

When he was around 15, he called 911 in a panic, telling the dispatcher he saw two men standing near the small park next to his house threatening to abduct children playing there. The officers who responded found nothing out of the ordinary, and rang the Johnsons’ doorbell.

He later told his mother he had heard a voice telling him to “protect the kids.”

He was hospitalized for the first time at 16, and given medications that stabilized him for stretches of time. But the crises would strike every six months or so, often triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication.

His family became adept at reading signs he was “getting sick.” He would put on his tan Timberlands and a heavy winter coat, no matter the season, and perch on the edge of his bed as if bracing for battle. Sometimes, he would cook his own food, paranoid that someone might poison him.

He graduated six months early, on the dean’s list, but was rudderless, and hanging out with younger boys, often paying their way.

His mother pointed out the perils of buying friendship.

“I don’t care,” he said. “At least I’ll be popular for a minute.”

Zion’s inviting green grid of Bible-named streets belies the reality that it is a rough, unforgiving place to grow up. Family members say Markus wanted desperately to prove he was tough, and emulated his younger, reckless group of friends.

Like many of them, he obtained a pistol. He used it to hold up a convenience store clerk for $425 in January 2017, according to police records. He cut a plea deal for two years of probation, and never explained to his family what had made him do it.

But he kept getting into violent confrontations. In late July 2018, he was arrested in a neighbor’s garage with a handgun he later admitted was his. He was still on probation for the robbery, and his public defender negotiated a plea deal that would send him to state prison until January 2020.

An inpatient mental health system

Around 40 percent of the about 1.8 million people in local, state and federal jails and prison suffer from at least one mental illness, and many of these people have concurrent issues with substance abuse, according to recent Justice Department estimates.

Psychological problems, often exacerbated by drug use, often lead to significant medical problems resulting from a lack of hygiene or access to good health care.

“When you suffer depression in the outside world, it’s hard to concentrate, you have reduced energy, your sleep is disrupted, you have a very gloomy outlook, so you stop taking care of yourself,” said Robert L. Trestman , a Virginia Tech medical school professor who has worked on state prison mental health reforms.

The paradox is that prison is often the only place where sick people have access to even minimal care.

But the harsh work environment, remote location of many prisons, and low pay have led to severe shortages of corrections staff and the unwillingness of doctors, nurses and counselors to work with the incarcerated mentally ill.

In the early 2000s, prisoners’ rights lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois claiming “deliberate indifference” to the plight of about 5,000 mentally ill prisoners locked in segregated units and denied treatment and medication.

In 2014, the parties reached a settlement that included minimum staffing mandates, revamped screening protocols, restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and the allocation of about $100 million to double capacity in the system’s specialized mental health units.

Yet within six months of the deal, Pablo Stewart, an independent monitor chosen to oversee its enforcement, declared the system to be in a state of emergency.

Over the years, some significant improvements have been made. But Dr. Stewart’s final report , drafted in 2022, gave the system failing marks for its medication and staffing policies and reliance on solitary confinement “crisis watch” cells.

Ms. Grady, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, cited an additional problem: a lack of coordination between corrections staff and Wexford’s professionals, beyond dutifully filling out dozens of mandated status reports.

“Markus Johnson was basically documented to death,” she said.

‘I’m just trying to keep my head up’

Mr. Johnson was not exactly looking forward to prison. But he saw it as an opportunity to learn a trade so he could start a family when he got out.

On Dec. 18, 2018, he arrived at a processing center in Joliet, where he sat for an intake interview. He was coherent and cooperative, well-groomed and maintained eye contact. He was taking his medication, not suicidal and had a hearty appetite. He was listed as 5 feet 6 inches tall and 256 pounds.

Mr. Johnson described his mood as “go with the flow.”

A few days later, after arriving in Danville, he offered a less settled assessment during a telehealth visit with a Wexford psychiatrist, Dr. Nitin Thapar. Mr. Johnson admitted to being plagued by feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness and “constant uncontrollable worrying” that affected his sleep.

He told Dr. Thapar he had heard voices in the past — but not now — telling him he was a failure, and warning that people were out to get him.

At the time he was incarcerated, the basic options for mentally ill people in Illinois prisons included placement in the general population or transfer to a special residential treatment program at the Dixon Correctional Center, west of Chicago. Mr. Johnson seemed out of immediate danger, so he was assigned to a standard two-man cell in the prison’s general population, with regular mental health counseling and medication.

Things started off well enough. “I’m just trying to keep my head up,” he wrote to his mother. “Every day I learn to be stronger & stronger.”

But his daily phone calls back home hinted at friction with other inmates. And there was not much for him to do after being turned down for a janitorial training program.

Then, in the spring of 2019, his grandmother died, sending him into a deep hole.

Dr. Thapar prescribed a new drug used to treat major depressive disorders. Its most common side effect is weight gain. Mr. Johnson stopped taking it.

On July 4, he told Dr. Thapar matter-of-factly during a telehealth check-in that he was no longer taking any of his medications. “I’ve been feeling normal, I guess,” he said. “I feel like I don’t need the medication anymore.”

Dr. Thapar said he thought that was a mistake, but accepted the decision and removed Mr. Johnson from his regular mental health caseload — instructing him to “reach out” if he needed help, records show.

The pace of calls back home slackened. Mr. Johnson spent more time in bed, and became more surly. At a group-therapy session, he sat stone silent, after showing up late.

By early August, he was telling guards he had stopped eating.

At some point, no one knows when, he had intermittently stopped drinking fluids.

‘I’m having a breakdown’

Then came the crash.

On Aug. 12, Mr. Johnson got into a fight with his older cellmate.

He was taken to a one-man disciplinary cell. A few hours later, Wexford’s on-site mental health counselor, Melanie Easton, was shocked by his disoriented condition. Mr. Johnson stared blankly, then burst into tears when asked if he had “suffered a loss in the previous six months.”

He was so unresponsive to her questions she could not finish the evaluation.

Ms. Easton ordered that he be moved to a 9-foot by 8-foot crisis cell — solitary confinement with enhanced monitoring. At this moment, a supervisor could have ticked the box for “residential treatment” on a form to transfer him to Dixon. That did not happen, according to records and depositions.

Around this time, he asked to be placed back on his medication but nothing seems to have come of it, records show.

By mid-August, he said he was visualizing “people that were not there,” according to case notes. At first, he was acting more aggressively, once flicking water at a guard through a hole in his cell door. But his energy ebbed, and he gradually migrated downward — from standing to bunk to floor.

“I’m having a breakdown,” he confided to a Wexford employee.

At the time, inmates in Illinois were required to declare an official hunger strike before prison officials would initiate protocols, including blood testing or forced feedings. But when a guard asked Mr. Johnson why he would not eat, he said he was “fasting,” as opposed to starving himself, and no action seems to have been taken.

‘Tell me this is OK!’

Lt. Matthew Morrison, one of the few people at Danville to take a personal interest in Mr. Johnson, reported seeing a white rind around his mouth in early September. He told other staff members the cell gave off “a death smell,” according to a deposition.

On Sept. 5, they moved Mr. Johnson to one of six cells adjacent to the prison’s small, bare-bones infirmary. Prison officials finally placed him on the official hunger strike protocol without his consent.

Mr. Morrison, in his deposition, said he was troubled by the inaction of the Wexford staff, and the lack of urgency exhibited by the medical director, Dr. Justin Young.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Morrison approached Dr. Young to express his concerns, and the doctor agreed to order blood and urine tests. But Dr. Young lived in Chicago, and was on site at the prison about four times a week, according to Mr. Kaplan. Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, was not one of those days.

Mr. Morrison arrived at work that morning, expecting to find Mr. Johnson’s testing underway. A Wexford nurse told him Dr. Young believed the tests could wait.

Mr. Morrison, stunned, asked her to call Dr. Young.

“He’s good till Monday,” Dr. Young responded, according to Mr. Morrison.

“Come on, come on, look at this guy! You tell me this is OK!” the officer responded.

Eventually, Justin Duprey, a licensed nurse practitioner and the most senior Wexford employee on duty that day, authorized the test himself.

Mr. Morrison, thinking he had averted a disaster, entered the cell and implored Mr. Johnson into taking the tests. He refused.

So prison officials obtained approval to remove him forcibly from his cell.

‘Oh, my God’

What happened next is documented in video taken from cameras held by officers on the extraction team and obtained by The Times through a court order.

Mr. Johnson is scarcely recognizable as the neatly groomed 21-year-old captured in a cellphone picture a few months earlier. His skin is ashen, eyes fixed on the middle distance. He might be 40. Or 60.

At first, he places his hands forward through the hole in his cell door to be cuffed. This is against procedure, the officers shout. His hands must be in back.

He will not, or cannot, comply. He wanders to the rear of his cell and falls hard. Two blasts of pepper spray barely elicit a reaction. The leader of the tactical team later said he found it unusual and unnerving.

The next video is in the medical unit. A shield is pressed to his chest. He is in agony, begging for them to stop, as two nurses attempt to insert a catheter.

Then they move him, half-conscious and limp, onto a wheelchair for the blood draw.

For the next 20 minutes, the Wexford nurse performing the procedure, Angelica Wachtor, jabs hands and arms to find a vessel that will hold shape. She winces with each puncture, tries to comfort him, and grows increasingly rattled.

“Oh, my God,” she mutters, and asks why help is not on the way.

She did not request assistance or discuss calling 911, records indicate.

“Can you please stop — it’s burning real bad,” Mr. Johnson said.

Soon after, a member of the tactical team reminds Ms. Wachtor to take Mr. Johnson’s vitals before taking him back to his cell. She would later tell Dr. Young she had been unable to able to obtain his blood pressure.

“You good?” one of the team members asks as they are preparing to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll have to be,” she replies in the recording.

Officers lifted him back onto his bunk, leaving him unconscious and naked except for a covering draped over his groin. His expressionless face is visible through the window on the cell door as it closes.

‘Cardiac arrest.’

Mr. Duprey, the nurse practitioner, had been sitting inside his office after corrections staff ordered him to shelter for his own protection, he said. When he emerged, he found Ms. Wachtor sobbing, and after a delay, he was let into the cell. Finding no pulse, Mr. Duprey asked a prison employee to call 911 so Mr. Johnson could be taken to a local emergency room.

The Wexford staff initiated CPR. It did not work.

At 3:38 p.m., the paramedics declared Markus Mison Johnson dead.

Afterward, a senior official at Danville called the Johnson family to say he had died of “cardiac arrest.”

Lisa Johnson pressed for more information, but none was initially forthcoming. She would soon receive a box hastily crammed with his possessions: uneaten snacks, notebooks, an inspirational memoir by a man who had served 20 years at Leavenworth.

Later, Shiping Bao, the coroner who examined his body, determined Mr. Johnson had died of severe dehydration. He told the state police it “was one of the driest bodies he had ever seen.”

For a long time, Ms. Johnson blamed herself. She says that her biggest mistake was assuming that the state, with all its resources, would provide a level of care comparable to what she had been able to provide her son.

She had stopped accepting foster care children while she was raising Markus and his siblings. But as the months dragged on, she decided her once-boisterous house had become oppressively still, and let local agencies know she was available again.

“It is good to have children around,” she said. “It was too quiet around here.”

Read by Glenn Thrush

Audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro .

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice. He joined The Times in 2017 after working for Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald and City Limits. More about Glenn Thrush

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Ohio State commencement speaker says he got help from psychedelics while writing speech

Ohio State's chosen commencement speaker for the class of 2024, entrepreneur Chris Pan, was high on ayahuasca while he wrote his speech, according to posts he made on social media.

"Got some help from AI (Ayahuasca Intelligence) this week to write my commencement speech for 60k grads and family members at Ohio State University next Sunday," he wrote in a LinkedIn post before graduation.

Ayahuasca is a psychedelic liquid made from heating or boiling multiple psychoactive plants from South America, according to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation of Australia.

Pan also said he tried using ChatGPT and artificial intelligence to write his speech, according to his LinkedIn post and an Instagram post.

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In the weeks preceding graduation, Pan shared multiple drafts of his speech on Instagram. His earliest posted draft included a lengthy section about the Israel-Palestine conflict and a moment where he removed his shirt.

But on Sunday, Pan did not explicitly mention Gaza, Israel or Palestine (or remove his shirt). Rather, he remarked, how after holding multicultural events over the past few months, we must "end suffering on both sides."

Here's what we know: Ohio State graduation death

"What I learned is that there is so much pain and trauma in both communities. Pain causes hate and violence. Hurt people hurt people. Healed people help people," he said. "When we heal ourselves, we heal the world. World peace starts with inner peace."

Pan also led the crowd through two brief musical numbers  — "What's Going On?" by the 4 Non Blondes and "This Little Light of Mine" by Harry Dixon Loes — and espoused how he thinks Bitcoin is "a very misunderstood asset class," which was met by groans from audience members. (He promised everyone in attendance a free bracelet from his company, MyIntent, "as an apology for listening to me talk about Bitcoin.").

Pan graduated from OSU in 1999 and went on to receive an MBA from Harvard Business School. He worked at consulting firm McKinsey and Company, PepsiCo and Facebook before starting his own business, MyIntent.org, in 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile.

MyIntent sells jewelry with a custom word of the customer's choosing etched in it, according to the company's website.

Dispatch reporter Sheridan Hendrix contributed to this report.

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@NathanRHart