Writing Beginner

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

Blog post cover image of a man laying in a battle field - How to Write Death Scenes

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

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5 moving, beautiful essays about death and dying

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creative writing description of death

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

sacksquote

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

kalanithi quote

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 quote

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

lopattoquote

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

gawandequote

"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 tragic death scene

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

Become an Unstoppable Writer!

creative writing description of death

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creative writing description of death

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.

creative writing description of death

Thank you so much, Sandrina!

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

creative writing description of death

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!

creative writing description of death

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!

creative writing description of death

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

Thank you, Scoutillus!

creative writing description of death

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……)

creative writing description of death

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! 😀

creative writing description of death

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! 😀

creative writing description of death

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.

creative writing description of death

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*

creative writing description of death

“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*

creative writing description of death

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.

creative writing description of death

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

creative writing description of death

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

creative writing description of death

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 😭.

creative writing description of death

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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Describing Death in Writing: Metaphors, Impact, and Emotion

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By Happy Sharer

creative writing description of death

Introduction

Death is a difficult topic to write about. It is often a taboo subject, and it can be difficult to find the right words to accurately portray the emotions that come with death. Writing about death doesn’t have to be uncomfortable or awkward. With the right techniques, you can effectively and accurately describe death in your writing.

This article will provide tips on how to describe death in writing. We will discuss the use of metaphors and similes, focusing on the impact of death, showing rather than telling, avoiding cliches, and including emotion.

Use Metaphors and Similes

Metaphors and similes are powerful tools in writing. They allow you to describe something in an interesting and unique way. When writing about death, metaphors and similes can help evoke emotion in the reader and make them feel more connected to the story.

For example, instead of saying “death is dark,” you could say “death is like a black hole, swallowing everything in its path.” This comparison conveys the same message, but in a more vivid and emotional way. You can also use metaphors and similes to describe the feeling of grief that comes with death. Instead of saying “I felt sad,” you could say “my heart was heavy like a stone.” These comparisons give the reader a better understanding of what you are feeling.

Focus on the Impact

When describing death, it is important to focus on the impact that death has on those who survive it. Death affects everyone differently, and it changes their lives forever. Acknowledge this in your writing by exploring the various ways that death can affect people.

Think about the impact that death has on family members, friends, and other loved ones. Focus on the emotions that come with death, such as grief, sorrow, and sadness. Describe how these feelings can linger for years after the death has occurred. Show how death can change someone’s life, and how they must learn to cope with this new reality.

Show Don’t Tell

When writing about death, it is important to avoid telling the reader what to think or feel. Instead, you should utilize vivid descriptions to paint a picture for the reader. Show them what death looks like, how it smells, how it feels. Put yourself in the shoes of the characters, and show the reader what they are going through.

You can also use sensory details to make the scene more realistic. Describe the sights, sounds, and smells that come with death. Use detailed language to evoke emotion in the reader and make them feel like they are part of the story.

Avoid Clichés

Clichés are overused phrases that don’t add anything to the story. When writing about death, it is important to avoid clichés such as “the light at the end of the tunnel” or “time heals all wounds.” These phrases have been used so many times that they have lost their meaning. Instead, use unique language to convey your message.

Think of creative ways to describe death and the emotions that come with it. Utilize figurative language such as metaphors and similes to make your writing more interesting and engaging. By avoiding clichés, you can ensure that your writing stands out from the crowd.

Include Emotion

When writing about death, it is important to include emotion. Death is an emotional experience, and it is important to capture that in your writing. Show the reader what the characters are feeling, whether it is grief, sorrow, anger, or sadness. Make the reader feel like they are part of the story and experiencing the emotions first-hand.

It is also important to include a sense of hope. Show how the characters are able to move forward and cope with their loss. This can be a powerful message for readers who may be struggling with their own grief.

Writing about death can be a difficult but necessary task. The key to success is to focus on the impact that death has on those who survive it, and to evoke emotion in the reader. Utilize metaphors and similes, show rather than tell, avoid clichés, and emphasize emotion. With these tips, you can effectively and accurately describe death in your writing.

(Note: Is this article not meeting your expectations? Do you have knowledge or insights to share? Unlock new opportunities and expand your reach by joining our authors team. Click Registration to join us and share your expertise with our readers.)

Hi, I'm Happy Sharer and I love sharing interesting and useful knowledge with others. I have a passion for learning and enjoy explaining complex concepts in a simple way.

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creative writing description of death

How to Write a Death Scene That's Meaningful

creative writing description of death

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.

creative writing description of death

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 .

creative writing description of death

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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creative writing description of death

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Sensitivity writers are more prevalent than ever before, and for many authors, they're an essential part of the editing process. But what do they do exactly? And how do you know if you need one? We've got those answers right here.

creative writing description of death

When it comes to improving the quality of your prose and your story's readability, few are as capable as line editors. In this article, we discuss what line editing is, how it helps, and what working with a line editor is like.

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Whether you're looking for a fresh fantasy story idea or just need a bit of prompting to unclog that writer's block, we've got your back with 50 different ideas spread across five different categories: worldbuilding, characters, plot, twists, and magic.

creative writing description of death

37 Ways To Write About Grief

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

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

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

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

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

How do we  write about grief  in an authentic way?

A) What Is Grief?

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

Words associated with grief include:

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

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

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

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

B) Body Language

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

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

C) Ways To Create Conflict With Grief

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

D)  The Importance Of Grief In Plotting

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

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

E) Exercises For  Writing About Grief

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

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

creative writing description of death

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

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

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

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

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Writing Tips Oasis - A website dedicated to helping writers to write and publish books.

How to Describe a Dead Body in a Story

By A.W. Naves

how to describe a dead body in a story

Are you writing a murder scene in your novel? We want to help. We’ve included some words you can use below. Continue reading to find out how to describe a dead body in a story.

Decomposed, rotten ; in a state of physical breakdown.

“The decayed body had been lying in the basement for weeks before the caretaker discovered it.”

“The smell of the decayed corpse filled the room and wafted down the hallway.”

How it Adds Description

The word “decayed” creates an image that evokes a sense of repulsion in the reader. It highlights the passage of time since death and the natural process of decomposition that followed. The advanced state of decay can introduce plot points related to why the body remained undiscovered for an extended period or show that the death occurred under mysterious circumstances.

2. Mutilated

Disfigured, mangled ; having suffered severe damage.

“The mutilated body of Emily’s former lover was barely recognizable.”

“Sheila screamed as she stumbled upon the mutilated corpse deep in the woods.”

The word “mutilated” suggests that the dead body has been severely damaged or disfigured. It indicates a horrible death that may create a sense of shock, horror, or revulsion in the reader. This might serve as a catalyst for the story’s plot, as it often indicates foul play or an unforeseen external force at work that must be sought out and brought to justice.

3. Desiccated

Dried up, withered ; lacking any signs of moisture.

“The desiccated body was found in the scorching desert, but police had no idea how it had ended up there.”

“The desiccated corpse resembled a mummy from some late-night horror flick.”

The word “desiccated” imbues a dead body with a sense of extreme dryness and deterioration, as if it has been drained of life and moisture for a prolonged period. It can set the scene and signal the passage of time or hint at the cause of death. The discovery of a desiccated body may prompt an investigation, forcing characters to confront dark secrets or sinister powers.

Foul-smelling, rancid ; having a strong, offensive odor.

“The putrid stench led them to the bodies of the missing hikers.”

“Flies swarmed around the putrid corpse as it lay hidden for days among the rows of corn.”

The word “putrid” serves to underscore the vile nature of the corpse’s condition. It paints a clear picture of the nauseating smell, bloated and discolored flesh, and the presence of maggots that often accompany such a scene. This sets an ominous tone for the story, signaling that something sinister or tragic has occurred.

5. Skeletal

Bony, emaciated ; resembling a skeleton due to extreme thinness or absence of flesh.

“The skeletal remains were all that was left of the man policed believed to be Keith Sanderson.”

“The body appeared skeletal as if it had been starved for weeks before succumbing to death.”

The word “skeletal” adds a vivid description of a body that has been stripped down to its very essence. It underscores the finality of death but also hints at a backstory, where the body has lain undiscovered for a long time. This might be a pivotal moment in the story, as it creates a sense of mystery and intrigue regarding how the body died and remained hidden for so long.

Rigid, inflexible ; lacking in free movement.

“Tom’s stiff body showed that rigor mortis had begun but it was a mystery how he died.”

“He tried to move the stiff corpse but couldn’t, so he resorted to dismemberment.”

The word “stiff” conveys the lifeless state of the corpse, emphasizing the rigidity that comes with death. This chilling detail not only sets the scene but also hints at the amount of time since the person’s demise, as rigor mortis has set in. It can aid the plot by introducing a timeline around a death that has occurred, tying it to other elements of the story that have occurred.

Swollen, distended ; abnormally enlarged.

“The bloated body floated in the water among the debris from the crash days before.”

“He was taken aback by the sight of the bloated corpse as it bumped against his fishing boat.”

The word “bloated” implies that the death occurred during a certain timeframe, thus prompting an investigation, or triggering a chain of events that drives the narrative. This single word not only sets the tone for the scene but also paves the way for character reactions, interactions, and subsequent developments, making it a powerful tool in storytelling.

8. Unrecognizable

Indistinguishable, distorted ; impossible to identify or recognize.

“The body was so unrecognizable that they needed dental records to confirm the identity.”

“The unrecognizable corpse made it difficult to determine the cause of death.”

The word “unrecognizable” evokes a sense of horror and mystery for readers. It conveys the extent of the damage or decay inflicted upon the body, often implying a violent or gruesome end. This can further the plot, prompting characters to find out what occurred and consider whether they may also be in danger.

9. Festering

Rotting, putrefying; undergoing decay or decomposition.

“The festering body was a breeding ground for maggots and had begun to attract vultures overhead.”

“He covered his nose as he approached the festering corpse of the body that had remained undiscovered until neighbors complained of the smell.”

The word “festering” enhances the reader’s sensory experience but also effectively communicates the passage of time, suggesting that the body has been left to decay and smell. This level of detail may foreshadow a darker, more sinister turn in the narrative, as the decomposing body may symbolize a metaphorical decay or corruption that permeates the story’s setting or characters.

Pale, ashen ; lacking color or liveliness.

“The pallid body looked lifeless and cold against the gray concrete of the abandoned factory.”

“Her once rosy cheeks were now pallid and sunken in a mask of death.”

The word “pallid” effectively conveys the lifeless appearance of a dead body, providing readers with a vivid mental image. It emphasizes the contrast between the vibrant hues of life and the dull, colorless tones of death. This detail not only enriches the narrative but also serves to heighten the reader’s emotional response to the character’s demise.

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

dying - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

  • death penalty
  • terminal cancer
Dying is a messy and often painful process, living as we do in world that is yet to embrace euthanasia. So, loved ones, remember me as I lived. Remember that I loved you. Recall that I loved life, creation and the happiness that comes of simple pleasures. We all get recycled at some point. The soul moves on, the matter and the legacy remain. One dispersed and the other expanding, sending good ripples ever onward.
You have until your dying day to build your legacy, to create vivid rainbow colours that will echo for eternity.
For those whom have lived a life with love as their supreme first principle, dying is but a transition into another way of living. It can take a warrior soul to live all of those days, to keep going through tough challenges, yet we earn our places in heaven by what we do for others and for future generations.
Dying can be fast or slow, painless or painful, yet lover, no matter how I go, I'll be okay. Heaven comes after, and we remember these things not. I'll be there. Our journey is ever onward together, you are my eternal friend.
From whence I was sent my soul shall return, to the Ancient of Days, and dying is the gateway.
When you die, come sit with me in heaven as long as you wish. You are such wonderful company. Then, there will come a time when you want to chose a new mission, and you will have your pick of any. Then we do it all again. It is a fine way to spend eternity, yes?
Dying is part of the ecosystem of living, of matter and souls. We are born and return to rebirth by this channel. Even the warrior angels still return, though heaven they have earned. For they are the tools that fix a broken universe, and they make the choice to do what they do from a sense of love.
I will live with you every day our creator bestows to me, yet when my time comes, when dying is set before me, when my breathing becomes a sporadic rasp, look beyond the physical and see that I am in the arms of angels.
Fools make romance of death, for it is brutal and cruel. That I say be at peace with my passing is not such a thing. But once it is done, I will be safe and sound once more. I will live as long as I can, be with you as many days as we are sent, then keep me in your good memories. I will see you again.

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creative writing description of death

Write that Scene

May your writing spirit live on forever

creative writing description of death

How to Write a Dying Scene

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  • Establish the method of death.

» A. The death can happen at the end of another scene or in the midst of a highly charged event. In this case it would be best to start with short choppy sentences and then lengthen the sentences in order make time seem to slow down, allowing you to focus on the moment of death.

Example 1:    The sword was glowing. She could see it in her hand. She knew what she wanted, she wanted this man to die. He had to die, but she didn’t know why. Crash. The swords slammed together. One came up, the other down. The racket was loud. Impressive displays flew about. She jumped. He ducked. It felt like it would go on forever. “You can’t win.” Her eyes grinned with delight.

“I don’t want to beat you.” He was pleading and it didn’t sound very regal.

“I don’t care what you want, you murderer.” She had spent her entire life waiting for this moment and it was going to come. She brought the weapon down. There was no way he could recover in time. He wouldn’t be able to block.

He must have known what was coming. He must have known that he couldn’t stop this fight, that he couldn’t prevent his own death. It wasn’t until later that she would realize exactly what that meant, for now she just wanted revenge. She wanted to destroy him and everything that he stood for. She hated him.

» B. Establish the location of the death scene.

Example 2:    (No Example, but feel free to add your own).

  • Turn around, change the scene here?

» A. Give hints to the final outcome. Allow the reader to hold onto some kind of hope.

Example 3:   

She grinned as the weapon flew down with great force. She wanted something great and powerful to hurt him with. She knew that she deserved this, but she was too devoted to her swing. There was no way to recover when he rolled to the side. She groaned and knew in that moment that it was lost. He swung up and slammed his hilt into her side. She went down, hitting the ground with a sharp rush of air. She knew that the world was going dark. Her eyes closed for a moment, just a brief glimpse of time. When her eyes flew back open and she knew that this was not going to end well.

     “What are you going to do?”

     He thought for a moment before kicking her in the side. “I’m not sure yet.” He shrugged.

     There was fear in her eyes. A good reason for it existed behind that fear. She was afraid of the fact that her own hatred had sealed her own fate. Still she wasn’t going to let it happen easily. She reached up and tried to grab at his leg, trying to pull him down to her level. It didn’t work. He shifted his weight and moved to the side. She had nothing left up her sleeve. No more plans presented themselves to her. She would have to do the most despicable thing in the world. She was going to have to beg. She reached up toward him and wanted something from him. She knew what she had to do. “Please, don’t do this?”

     “What would you do in my situation?” He was teasing her.

     “Fine, just get it over with.” She was done with this entire situation. She wasn’t going to give anything up. She wasn’t going to beg anymore. He had given her the answer that she had asked for. He wasn’t going to let her live.

     “Maybe I want to wait.”

     “Maybe you should just get this over with. If you wait much longer I might get a chance to escape.” She looked up the sword, trying to find some way to turn the fight around. There was nothing.

» B. Slow down the moment of death.

       I.            This is a time to take a paragraph to explain a single snapshot in time, something that means something special. Remember that each method of death will have different effect on a body. A sucking chest wound will affect the body a lot differently than poison. Keeping this in mind will help you describe the death the right way and keep the story realistic to the reader.

    II.            This is the time that works to make last words, any last plea for life or something that needs to be said. Remember that the dying character still has a personality. It should remain constant to the end. It should be very clear that the dying character is still the same person they were before they died. If they have a specific behavior or personality quirk, add it to the scene. Keeping the character constant will maintain the emotion that the death is supposed to provide.

 III.            The moment of death is a difficult moment to capture, so it is important to know the exact moment that the life leaves the body.

Example 4:   

She watched as the blade slipped closer to her throat. She closed her eyes, trying to get the sight of her impending demise out of her mind. She wanted to remember something happy, but the only thought in her head was the fact that the cold hand of death was reaching out to her. She needed to feel something deep, but there was only fear. She needed something that meant something, but she could only see the glinting of the blade that seemed to hover in time for a long moment, she wasn’t ready to die.

     The blade came closer, seeming to inch through eternity, moving closer with the precision that only the end can bring. She knew that it was the end and a single glimmering tear shimmered out of her eyes. She knew it was over. When she felt the first sharp sting of the pain in her chest she knew that it was over and she fluttered her eyes. Her strength was faded and she fought against the pain. She had something that she needed to say, a curse that she needed to utter, and last words to send out into the world. She parted her lips, but couldn’t find the right thing to say. Nothing was coming, and she didn’t have any time to figure it out. “Noooo….” She let the word drain off into nothingness. It was all she could say. It was all that could be said in that moment.

  • Emphasis the reactions to the death.

» A. Any surrounding characters should react someway to the death?

       I.       They can pull back away from the blood or enjoy the spectacle. Loved ones could cry at the sight of their loved one who just breathed their last breath. This should be the place that builds empathy. It can be built in from the previous parts of the tale, but if a character sticks by their beliefs or if a villain has a sudden change of heart at the end it means something and should affect the effect.

    II.            Death is never something that is easy to write about. The body stops bleeding soon after the heart stops beating and there are numerous other effects of death on the body. The body will react to each method of death in a different way and it would help to do some research on the particular way that a character is dying in the scene. Still, there are a few specifics.

A dead body does not void their bowels immediately after death in most instances. The face will not be frozen in a specific expression, but the muscles will relax until rigor sets in. Immediately after death the color starts to fade from the face and extremities. There are other effects that the moment may be focused on.

 III.            Any rituals that happen after the death in the characters culture should be respected or disrespected as necessary. The rituals are there to give loved ones of the dead character some time to grieve and to remember their loved one. This can be a great time for characterization, not only of the character that died, but also of the loved ones that are attending the funeral. The surrounding characters should feel pain. A lost life is nothing to joke about, unless one of the surrounding characters is just callous and cruel. It is important to show that the death affects surrounding characters.

 Even a villain’s death can tug at the heartstrings if it’s played right. Previous tragedies can be referenced here to bring the entire situation into the focus required by the story. This allows for the demonstration of growth in the dying character or the surrounding characters. It is important to see the characters progress and change and this can allow the change that is necessary to carry the story forward or to leave the characters where they need to be.

There is a chance here for reminiscing about the character and to reveal things that might not have been known previously. This will encourage empathy towards the dying character and allow for the reader to see exactly how each of the remaining characters reacts to death. Death is strange and can change characters for the better. It also gives a generally good character the ability to examine the darkness inside of themselves.

Generally the “dark” characters will either be the killer or one or more of the characters that were close to dead character. Remember that grief is always played out in the surrounding characters, not in the dead character. The dead cannot speak or grieve without the addition of scientific or magical help on the subject, but the characters closest to the dead character are going to be affected deeply. The remaining characters might be traumatized by the loss.

 IV.            The dying character might have some kind of legacy, something special about them that they can pass on to the other characters. It might be something as simple as a few last words, or it might be something more, an item or character quality that is passed on. Legacies can either start adventures or complete them.

Example 6:   

He looked down at the body, carefully examining the flesh that was slowly being covered by blood. She wasn’t dead yet, but she would be soon. He smiled, but there was sadness behind his grin. This wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t something that he had planned, but here he was, in this place, dealing with this woman, this vile woman who had caused him pain.

A part of him knew that this wasn’t his fault. She had attacked him first after all. He had defended himself. Still he wondered if he should have let her go. If he could have done something different he would have done it, but there wasn’t much choice. “I’m sorry.” His voice was soft and low, something that begged for forgiveness. “I should have stopped. I shouldn’t have done it.” He groaned in agony. She was dead, the bleeding was stopping and her heart had stopped, pierced on his blade.

** !You might have to scroll down the textbox with your mouse!

The sword was glowing. She could see it in her hand. She knew what she wanted, she wanted this man to die. He had to die, but she didn’t know why. Crash. The swords slammed together. One came up, the other down. The racket was loud. Impressive displays flew about. She jumped. He ducked. It felt like it would go on forever. “You can’t win.” Her eyes grinned with delight.

A part of him knew that this wasn’t his fault. She had attacked him first after all. He had defended himself. Still he wondered if he should have let her go. If he could have done something different he would have done it, but there wasn’t much choice. “I’m sorry.” His voice was soft and low, something that begged for forgiveness. “I should have stopped. I shouldn’t have done it.” He groaned in agony. She was dead, the bleeding was stopping and her heart had stopped, pierced on his blade. 

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Thanks a lot.I am a budding writer from Kenya.

No problem 🙂

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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: Google Podcasts | 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.

death dying grief

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 .

kobo writing life

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.

What Really matters

  • 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.

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Reader Interactions

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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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creative writing description of death

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Story Embers

May 24, 2019

creative writing description of death

Story Embers

creative writing description of death

By Sophia White

Last August, a young man in my church killed himself. He came from a large family, and our community loved him. I decided to chronicle the impact of his death, because a Christian suicide is a troubling situation. If the gospel is a message of hope in the midst of ultimate suffering, what happens when a Christian commits the ultimate hopeless act? My manuscript is now around fifty thousand words long.

Suicide is a rampant problem, and mature writers shouldn’t shy away from addressing it simply because it’s violent and dark. That’s taking Philippians 4:8 out of context. Like me, God may place a story on your heart that involves a character who is either struggling with suicidal thoughts or coping with a loved one’s suicide. As Christians, this bleak part of reality may seem difficult to reconcile with our belief that God made human beings in His image and that the taking of life is a grievous sin. Even unbelievers recognize that suicide damages everyone it touches. But our role is to shine light into the shadowy corners of this world.

When we approach this subject, we must understand that suicide is not merely an abstract issue with rising statistics. People who end their own lives are driven by pain that overpowers the fear of death. They long to escape even if that means facing the grave and eternity. We should show compassion toward these individuals instead of looking down our noses at them in self-righteous confidence. The people who have battled overwhelming depression for any length of time—even if they lose—are stronger than we realize.

Within the constraints of an article, I can’t provide exhaustive advice on writing about self-murder and its aftereffects, but I want to help you be discreet in how you depict it in a single scene.

Guideline #1: Exercise Caution

Except in extremely rare circumstances, describing a suicide on-screen is unwise. Please note, however, that I’m not  urging you to avoid writing stories that include suicide. Nor am I implying that you should never explicitly state that a character killed himself, because shrouding the truth with euphemisms causes more harm than good.

Many people are so entrenched in despair that overexposure to violence through the media dissolves any lingering restraints they have. ( See the recent study on 13 Reasons Why . ) Although a suicide may or may not be the result of a personal trigger, I think we should treat hurting and broken souls with empathy. Graphic suicide is at least unsettling, if not outrightly disturbing, to those who have been (or are) tempted to commit the act.

Regardless of the reader’s emotional stability, though, writers need to tread carefully. Suicide and murder are both attempts to destroy God’s image, except murder involves two people: the killer and the victim, who is usually innocent. As long as the killer lives, he has a chance to seek forgiveness, whereas a suicide victim is guilty and forfeits the opportunity to repent. Moreover, self-murder is violence directed toward oneself. Unlike executions and vengeance that may seem justified, suicide is deeply personal and uniquely horrifying.

In view of these factors, evaluate whether a suicide scene would be gratuitous. What is your goal? To reveal that the character died by his own hand? No one witnessed my friend’s suicide, and few saw the body, but several thousand people know he killed himself. So this doesn’t seem like sufficient reason to recount a suicide play-by-play. Are you trying to impress upon readers that suicide is horrible and unnatural? That’s a better motive, but still not enough.

A vivid suicide scene is only necessary when you need to communicate a point that can’t be conveyed any other way. The alternatives are often more effective at establishing the gravity of the situation.

Guideline #2: Focus on Others’ Reactions

People’s responses to tragedy surpass events, and highlighting the anguish of the friends or relatives who discover the corpse will be much more powerful than watching the character die. As Hope Ann says in her article on darkness , “Don’t concentrate solely on events, but also the characters’ emotions, whether they’re victims or witnesses of the aftermath. No matter how appalling a death, blood spatters and crushed skulls won’t stir empathy, whereas palpable grief and alarm will.”

One little detail or line of dialogue can strike readers harder than gruesomeness.

  • An EMT finds his brother’s remains and calls their father to tell him that the casket will need to be closed.
  • A mother remembers how she trimmed her daughter’s hair for the last time a couple weeks before, feeling a strange compulsion to save some of it. She chided herself for sentimentality and didn’t do it, but now she wishes she had.
  • The news of a teen’s death reaches a bakery, where an employee grips the counter and whispers, “He called me Grandma. He called me Grandma.”
  • A once calm and collected businesswoman secretly visits a counselor after work, confessing that she used to believe suicide was unselfish and that everyone would return to normalcy in due time.
  • A man who hasn’t been heard from in years shows up at his former church with a carful of cake on the day of a cousin’s funeral, deposits the dessert in the kitchen, and wordlessly drives away.

By zeroing in on the surrounding characters, you can emphasize that a valuable life has been cut short, that we don’t have license to end our lives when we wish, that each of us matters even if we feel useless. The desolation of a suicide victim’s last moments will pale in comparison to numbering the people at the funeral and the distances they traveled from.

Maybe you want to assure readers that, despite the awful final act, the story isn’t over for a Christian. Bring readers to the graveside, where the pastor reads, “In the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend our sister to God and commit her body to the ground.” Afterward, show the group of artists in her church expressing their grief through poetry, stories, and music. Let readers follow their steps toward hope.

Think about the temperaments, habits, and flaws of your characters, and you’ll be swimming in poignant moments. If you dwell on the right ones, you won’t need to preach that suicide is selfish and heart-wrenching because readers will absorb those truths through the characters’ experiences.

Guideline #3: Show the Continuing Effects

A traumatic death creates fertile ground for character development. People are irreplaceable, and loved ones won’t recover from the loss within a page or chapter—and perhaps not even by the ending. Memories will haunt them every day, altering their reactions to random and ordinary things like Subway sandwiches, UPS trucks, and church bells. Maybe a mother’s hands tremble whenever ambulance sirens pass her house. Maybe a teenage girl is afraid of being alone in the dark. Maybe certain hymns bring a brother to tears. Maybe a pastor can’t give a benediction without becoming emotional, because he recited it at the funeral. Maybe a husband resorts to drugs or drinking. Maybe an aunt keeps an eye out for people who are behaving oddly and intervenes with kind words and gestures whenever possible.

But this is a limited selection of outward responses. What about characters’ inner monologues? How do they process the death? Some will deny it, while others will accept it immediately. And a few may have one outburst upon receiving the news and then carry on with life, seemingly unmoved. Are these people stronger than the others who openly display sorrow? Do they lack words to express their emotions? Do they suppose that life will be normal if they pretend the catastrophe didn’t occur? No, they’re only being private about their grief or anger—they can’t suppress it entirely.

In contrast to an accidental or natural death, characters who are dealing with suicide will be plagued by moral questions. Is suicide selfish? Is it wrong, and why? Can a person be pro-choice and against suicide? Can a Christian who commits suicide have been truly saved? How the characters solve these quandaries will lead to changes in their lives, either bolstering their faith or destroying it.

People have invented trite answers for every problem under heaven—except suicide. But when hearts are shattered, people become unusually receptive to discussions on deep topics. They desire assurance that hope and healing are attainable, and as Christians, we’re able to deliver precisely that message. In a society that’s shallow and searching for substance, we have a mission to fulfill.

Turning Evil Inside Out

I haven’t explained how to enter into the despairing character’s mind and suffer alongside him without inadvertently suggesting that suicide is reasonable or moral. I’m in the early stages of drafting my story, so I don’t feel equipped to tackle that. I would, however, recommend that you peruse the relevant portions of St. Augustine’s City of God .

With any creative endeavor, we ought to heed Dorothy Sayers’ words in The Mind of the Maker : “We must not try to behave as if the Fall had never occurred nor yet say that the Fall was a Good Thing in itself. But we may redeem the Fall by a creative act. That, according to Christian doctrine, is the way that God behaved, and the only way in which we can behave if we want to be ‘as gods.’ The Fall had taken place and Evil had been called into active existence; the only way to transmute Evil into Good was to redeem it by creation.”

More than an average death (I feel heartless for writing that phrase), a suicide (particularly a Christian’s suicide) forces people to reconsider everything they’ve ever believed. Does their view of the universe account for this? Does their consolation still console? Christians talk of having comfort in times of grief, but what words avail when a person has chosen to violently depart this earth?

This gives us a place to show, without Bible-pounding, the source of our inner peace.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart, And all is darkened in the vale of tears, Then shall you better know His love, His heart, Who comes to soothe your sorrow and your fears. Be still, my soul: your Jesus can repay From His own fullness all He takes away.

Sophia White, known on the KP and SE forums as Northerner, writes both fiction and nonfiction of various sorts. In her spare time, she holds philosophical debates, does medieval living-history, and tries to get a job not based on her Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing. Her current works most actively in progress are “So that Others May Live” (nonfiction that seeks to answer the question, What happens to a church when a Christian commits suicide?) and “The Two-Legged League” (in 1920’s Britain, four traumatized friends try to spread a Chestertonian joie de vivre), both of which you can read about in greater detail at her blog, Of Dreams and Swords .

Related Posts:

5 Guidelines to Consider When Portraying Mental Illness

I’m so encouraged! I’ve recently been thinking about this topic, and wondering about the necessity of my portrayal of suicide. Even though I’ve seen friends who I thought were happy believers end their own lives and have been depressed myself, I wasn’t sure how writing about suicide would help other readers who may not fully understand. This article has really helped me see the importance of not omitting it, but rather dealing with the root issues springing from it and offering hope to not only the characters, but future readers as well.

Thank you!!!

Northerner

Hey, I’m glad it helped, and I’m so sorry you’ve been through this too. If you’ve ever got further questions feel free to look me up and I’ll be glad to help.

Thank you for the offer! I’ll be sure to look out for more of your writing from this point on!

I, David

Thank you for this hard yet necessary article, Ms. Sophia. These are difficult and essential things we must deal with, both in writing and in life itself, and I’m grateful that you took the time to give them to us so thoughtfully.

Thank you. I have had to think about these things myself quite a lot lately, and if it helps anyone else, and so on, you know.

Ariel Ashira

Wow, I am so sorry your friend died that way! How are you handling it? Thank you so much for this article!

Thank you, and if you want to learn more, hop over to my blog (linked in bio) and look in the “So That Others May Live” category. There should be another post on the subject coming soon, once I get the mental space for it.

Malissa Hyatt

We really disagree when it comes to suicide. I don’t see it as an unforgivable act. Desperate yes…but forgivable. Only God has the last word on this. I’m not angry. Only stating what I believe. 💙

Brianna Storm Hilvety

Thank you for your honesty, Malissa. But I think you may have misunderstood the intent of the article. Sophia mentions that “a suicide victim is guilty and forfeits the opportunity to repent.” She means that the person can’t seek forgiveness prior to death, not that they’re incapable of receiving forgiveness. As you pointed out, that part is up to God.

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Euphemisms for Death: 200+ Ways to Describe Death & Dying

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Euphemisms for death abound. This is because there are many ways we talk about death.

Sometimes we talk evasively, in a way that avoids  really  talking about death. Other times we are trying to be polite and sensitive, especially around the family of the one who has died. Still other times we turn it into a big joke, blunting the razor edge of death’s horror with humor.

We can talk about death clinically, with a focus on the physical symptoms that avoids the emotional aspect. And of the flip side we can use purely emotional, whimsical terms like “living on in our hearts” as a way to deflect the crushing reality.

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How We Talk About Death

Many thinkers, speakers, and authors have addressed the way we talk about death. That’s not my purpose here. If you would like to pursue the idea of why our culture talks about (and avoids talking about) death the way we do, and how to talk about death with friends, family, and loved ones, here are a few resources:

  • The Art of Dying Well (website) – Chock full of articles and resources
  • Talking About Death (book) – Well-received book by journalist Virginia Morris
  • What Grieving People Wish You Knew (book) – our 5-star review here
  • Talk About Death While You’re Still Healthy (TED talk) – video and transcript
  • Remember Death (book) – How thinking about death helps us treasure the Gospel

But in this article, I am simply listing the many ways we can say that someone has died. I’ll include the following categories:

  • Synonyms and descriptions of death
  • Polite euphemisms for death
  • Old-fashioned and quaint euphemisms for death
  • Snarky and humorous euphemisms for death

With nearly 300 euphemisms for death, this is the most complete list of its kind on the internet. Writers, funeral professionals, and family members who are looking to engrave an inscription on a cremation urn or headstone .

Euphemisms for Death

Synonyms & descriptions of death, polite euphemisms for death.

  • Asleep In Christ
  • At Home In Christ
  • Bravely Fought ___ (insert the applicable condition or disease)
  • Called Home
  • Came To An End
  • Came To Rest
  • Entered Into Eternity
  • Feeling No Pain
  • Fell To ___ (insert the applicable condition, disease, or accident)
  • Gone, But Not Forgotten
  • In A Better Place
  • In Our Hearts
  • In The Clouds
  • Laid To Rest
  • Late (as in, “The late Mr. Robinson”)
  • Left This World
  • No Longer With Us
  • His/Her Hour Came
  • Passed Away
  • Reached The Finish Line
  • Resting In Peace
  • Returned To The Earth
  • Slipped Away Quietly
  • Taken By ___ (insert the applicable condition, disease, or accident)
  • With Christ
  • With The Angels

Old-Fashioned & Quaint Euphemisms for Death

  • A Race Well Run
  • Angels Carried Him/Her Away
  • Ashes To Ashes ,  Dust  To Dust
  • Asleep In The Arms Of Jesus
  • Bereft Of Life
  • Bid Adieu To Earthly Scenes
  • Bid Farewell To This World
  • Called To His/Her Reward
  • Called To Heaven
  • Ceased To Breathe
  • Ceased To Be
  • Changed A Fleeting World For An Immortal Rest
  • Closed This Earthly Scene
  • Crossed Over
  • Crossed The Bar
  • Cut Down In The Prime Of Life
  • Departed From This In Hope Of A Better Life
  • Departed This Life
  • Departed This Stage of Existence
  • Departed This Transitory Life
  • Ended All Her/His Cares
  • Entered Into Glody
  • Entered Into The Joy Of His/Her Master (a reference to Matthew 25:21)
  • Entered The Regions Of Immortal Felicity
  • Eternal Sabbath
  • Eternal Rest
  • Exchanged Worlds
  • Fell Bravely Fighting For The Liberties of His/Her Country
  • Fell Victim To An Untimely Disease
  • Finished a Long And Useful Life
  • Finished The Race (a reference to II Timothy 4:7)
  • Finished This Life
  • Finished A Life Of ___ (such as “ Exemplary Piety “)
  • Fought The Good Fight (a reference to II Timothy 4:7)
  • Gathered To His People
  • Gave Up The Ghost
  • Get Your Wings
  • Go The Way Of All Earth
  • Go The Way Of All Flesh
  • Go To Abraham’s Bosom (a reference the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31)
  • Go To Meet One’s Maker
  • Go To One’s Just Reward
  • Go To One’s Home
  • Go To One’s Rest
  • Going To The Big Mansion In The Sky
  • Her/His Longing Spirit Sprung
  • Hurried From This Life
  • In The Grave
  • Innocently Retired
  • Joined The Congregation Of The Dead (a reference to the fate the one who wanders from the way of understanding in Proverbs 21:16)
  • Left This Mortal Coil
  • Left This Earthly Coil
  • Made His/Her Exit
  • Met His/Her Demise
  • Met His/Her End
  • Met His/Her Maker
  • Obit (from the Latin  obire )
  • Out Of His/Her Misery
  • Paid Charon’s Fare
  • Passed Into The World Of Spirits
  • Passed Onward
  • Passed To The Summer Land
  • Paying A Debt To Nature
  • Reached The Heavenly Shores
  • Rejoicing (as in, rejoicing in heaven)
  • Released From This Life
  • Relinquished This World
  • Removed By ___ (insert the applicable condition, disease, or accident)
  • Resigned Her/His Soul To God
  • Rested From Her/His Labors
  • Rested From The Hurry Of Life
  • Resting In Peace (R.I.P.)
  • Returned To Dust
  • Rose Upon The Horizon Of Perfect Endless Day
  • Sailed Into the West (a reference to  The Lord of the Rings )
  • Second Birth (a reference to the Christian ideas of resurrection and being “born again”)
  • Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil
  • Slain By The Last Enemy (a reference to I Corinthians 15:26, “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.”)
  • Sprouted Wings
  • Submitted To ___ (insert the applicable condition, disease, or accident)
  • Summoned to Appear Before His/Her Judge
  • That Good Night
  • Took A Harp
  • Traded To The Angels
  • Turned To Dust
  • Unveiled (a reference to II Corinthians 3:18)
  • Vanquished This World
  • Wandering The Elysian Fields (a reference to the final resting place for the heroes of Greek mythology)
  • Was Called To Close His/Her Eyes On Mortal Things
  • Went Rejoicing Out of This World
  • With The Ancestors
  • Yield One’s Breath
  • Yield Up The Ghost
  • Yielded Up Her/His Spirit (a reference to Matthew 27:50)

Snarky & Humorous Euphemisms for Death

  • Annihilated
  • At Room Temperature
  • Baste The Formaldehyde Turkey
  • Became A Root Inspector
  • Become Living-Challenged
  • Began To Dissolve
  • Bills Of Mortality
  • Bite The Dust
  • Bless The World With One’s Heels
  • Bought  The Farm
  • Breathed One’s Last
  • Buy A Pine Condo
  • Cash In One’s  Chips
  • Checked Out
  • Checking Out The Grass From Underneath
  • Climb The Golden Staircase
  • Crossed The River Styx
  • Dance  The Last Dance
  • Deader Than A Doornail
  • Decided That Hell’s Got A Better HR Policy Than The Office
  • Definitely Done Dancing
  • Drowning In Dirt
  • Drowning In Worms
  • End One’s Earthly Career
  • Fallen Off Their Perch
  • Final Chapter
  • Final Curtain Call
  • Finally Eligible For That Management Position He/She Was Always After
  • Finally Got His/Her Tab Called At The Bar Of Life
  • Gathering The Asphalt
  • Getting Bagged
  • Go Home Feet First
  • Go Home In A Box
  • Go Into The Fertilizer Business
  • Go Off The Hooks
  • Go Out Like The Snuff Of A Candle
  • Go To A Necktie Party
  • Go To A Necktie Social
  • Go To  Davy  Jones’s Locker
  • Go To One’s Last Account
  • Go To One’s Long Account
  • Examining The Radishes From Below
  • Go To The Happy Hunting Ground
  • Go To The Last Roundup
  • Gone To Take His/Her Free Kick At Hitler’s Backside
  • Got A One-Way Ticket
  • Hop The Twig
  • Immortally Challenged
  • In The Horizontal Phone Booth
  • Is Now A Stiff
  • It Was Curtains
  • Joined The  Choir  Invisible
  • Joined The Majority
  • Juggling Halos Now
  • Just Got Stamped “Return To Sender”
  • Kicked The Bucket
  • Kicked The Oxygen Habit
  • Left The Building
  • Living-Impaired
  • Off The Twig
  • On The Unable To Breathe List
  • On Vacation
  • Past His/Her Sell-By Date
  • Permanently Out Of  Print
  • Picking Turnips With A Step Ladder
  • Pushing Clouds
  • Lincoln Lying In State
  • Popped Their Clogs
  • Pushing Up The Daisies
  • Put Him In Cement Boots
  • Put To Bed With A Shovel
  • Returned To The Source
  • Run Down The Curtain & Joined The Choir Invisible
  • Riding The Perma-Pine
  • Quit The Stage
  • Shooting His/Her Star
  • Six Feet Under
  • Sleeping With The Fishes (a reference to the film  The Godfather )
  • Slipped His/Her Moorings
  • Snuffed Out
  • Stiff As A Board
  • Taken Out Of Production
  • Taking A Dirt Nap
  • Taking An All Expenses Paid Trip Aboard Stygian  Cruise  Lines
  • Tending Towards A State Of Chemical Equilibrium
  • That Was All She Wrote
  • The Big Nap
  • The Lone Couch Of This Everlasting Sleep
  • Trip The Light Fantastic
  • Turn Up One’s Toes
  • Turned Over The Perch
  • Turned Their Toes Up
  • Turning Up Daisies
  • Wearing A Toe Tag
  • Winning One For The Reaper

Read next: What Happens When You Die? 10 Things to Know

300 ways to say "died"

Daniel has been working in the funeral industry since 2010, speaking directly to grieving families as they made funeral arrangements.

He began researching and publishing funeral articles on this website as part of his role as product and marketing manager at Urns Northwest.

Having written hundreds of articles and growing the site to multiple millions of views per year, Daniel continues to write while providing editorial oversight for US Urns Online’s content team.

6 thoughts on “Euphemisms for Death: 200+ Ways to Describe Death & Dying”

Thank you for collecting all this. very helpful in my work with the dying (and their loved-ones). Enough with “s/he passed”.

Has anyone else heard either term: “6 Foot South and permanent” or “Stiff toad city” It seems I’ve known them all my life but never been able to locate a source for either.

Good ones! I’ve heard “6 feet south” or something like that, but not the full phrase and not “Stiff toad city.”

“Shortened Santa’s list by one” “Discovered their expiration date”

Hey…that second link you put up there, the one from “You can be funny”….well it takes you to a porn site! And that was not funny. You ought to check it and fix the link.

Oh my! Thank you for alerting us. It appears a spammer has taken the domain name and made it do redirects for ad money. We have removed the actual link.

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The Write Practice

Write About Life and Death

by Joe Bunting | 83 comments

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.

Life and Death

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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Show

Show Contributor Contributor

Describing death from the pov of the person dying.

Discussion in ' Plot Development ' started by Show , Nov 11, 2008 .

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); Ok, in my serial, I have just killed off a major character. The character's death is slow in the hospital. I wanted viewers to sort of see this death from a lot of different POV, not just the character's friends and family, but also his own. Seeing as I've never died, I can't really know how it feels, to die. I wrote the scene but I don't know if it really came out alright or not. Has this issue ever crept up in your writing and do you have any advice for me? How do I describe what it feels like to die, to slowly feel your life leave your body until you're consciousness is gone?(your body then having died) (BTW, the character dying is a boy around 12 years of age.) Any advice you have would be really appreciated.  

Rem Nightfall

Rem Nightfall Banned

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); 'Ello bare with my help, its very unnatural help. The feeling you are exhausted, and the thought in your mind on how you want to go on. Your body slowly, giving up. Mentally you don't want to give up. Denial of death. Then acceptance, you give up and its just like falling asleep. Your eyes feel heavy, and the world begins to disappear under your closing lids. The world surely unfocus, like squinting your eyes shut. And then its black. Though everyone's experience with death is different for those who died. Please don't ask me what revival is like, it will sound just as unnatural as this did. Sounds more story like then advice, I tried though. Hope I helped, if I haven't please ask me to clarify, I will try. Here and Now ~Rem Nightfall  
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); Nah that's a pretty good. I'll see how everyone else responds. Collective knowledge is a good thing and everyone who responds is part of that.  

Cogito

Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

creative writing description of death

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); One of my first stories, in fact the very first one I posted on this site, focuses on the death of one of the two characters from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It is basically a horror story, Forever in a Heartbeat . I don't know if it will help at all, and as I said, it's one of my first stories. I'm sure it could stand another complete rewrite, but it probably will naver happen.  
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); Hmmmm, suicide is a bit different then being the victim of a murder or crime. Suicide, IMO, is an entirely different emotional issue. Whereas, when you're the victim of a murder, or die of a disease or something, the feeling is different. Those who committ suicide might embrace death eagerly where those whose lives are taken from them may not want to die but have no choice due to their bodies giving out. I want this scene to be intense and I think that includes giving a realistic take on what the person dying is thinking and feeling as they die. Anything else, I feel, would take away from the full potential of the scene so this is something I feel extra important I do extra carefully.  

silver quill

silver quill New Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); Taking the reader thorugh death in the first person is a very fragile topic i think. you have to go about it very carefully and you have to pull it off flawlessly. generally i don't touch on the subject because i always cater for the difficult reader who's going to ask "If they died, how are they still telling the story?" unless the genre is fantacy or supernatural or something. i never tried it because i haven't yet found the perfect way of bringing it across without leaving any questions in the reader's mind but i've always found the topic intriguing and it's something i'd like to write about sometime. as for you doing it, i admire you and my advice to you is this: Keep it simple, don't drag it out too much because the reader will get bored and it will also give them more things to criticise. and taking into consideration the fact that the character is only 12 it means that he wont be able to fully describe it as artistically as a grown person would because of ignorance. but as a child, he should be very scared and yet very detailed because children will describe every single thing just as they see them. the wording should also be simple because i doubt whether a child would know to describe in medical terms the shutdown of their body. the reader must be sorry for the child because of his innocence and the fact that he doesn't yet know what he is experiencing. all in all, good luck with your piece and i hope to read it sometime. sorry to make this so wordy but i hope i helped even if just a bit...  
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); lol Thanks, I hope it turned out ok. It's not really done in the "first person" per say. But I tried to show the POV of the person dying. But I also tried to capture the POVs of those around him. I guess you could say that it's from an invisible POV or something like that, but it gets really complicated with what you try to label my writing as. I guess I'm a writing maverick sometimes, lol. My writing can be a bit crazy, mainly cause there is like this TV show playing in my head, and I'm just trying to get whats happening down into words. My goal is to take the reader into the kid's mind. It feels less intense if he's telling the story, IMO. But I still want people to sort of see things through his perspective as well. So it's definitely hard. I'll probably edit the scene a couple times before I release the final version in April. The kid is a bit more mature than most 12 year olds would be, mainly due to the many traumas he's experienced in the past. (His overcoming of said traumas is intended to make the death more tragic.) I know it may come off as a bit drawn out, I'm hoping the way I did it will work. As I said, my writing is well, different, than most. So it's not done in 1st person, but I still tried to make it from the POV of the person dying. Maybe if this was a novel, it wouldn't work. But this is a serial, and I try to write like an actual television serial. I guess if you're used to my quirky style, like my few readers are, it should work. From an outside perspective, it might get more criticism. I'm letting somebody not invested in the characters review the episode. I'm still waiting to see how they'll rate it. Thanks for all your help though.  
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); sure no prob... i'll go read something of yours right now to prepare mysefl for your upcoming piece. you'll see me comment in one of them most likely  

Carthonn

Carthonn Active Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); I would say something along the lines of - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. That would be pretty realistic to me and fit several POV's.  

browneyes106

browneyes106 New Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); I'm struggling with the same thing too. I'm a writing a story about a young woman's death and how her death affects the friends and family that always cared about her when she was alive and how her death affects the friends and family who never gave her the time of the day.  

de la vega

de la vega New Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); If you know your character well, you won't have trouble writing the scene. Don't make it generic. Don't seek out ways to describe death generically. You want to describe it as your character would see it. Not as a 12-year-old would see it; not as a boy would see it; not as someone dying a slow death in a hospital would see it. You want to seek out ways to describe your character's death the way he would see it. Take some time to get to know your character. Once you're as familiar with him as if he were a brother, then you'll know how to write the scene. It will come to you.  
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_ccf1a0956bf8401f1af958794083a7ff'); }); de la vega said: ↑ If you know your character well, you won't have trouble writing the scene. Don't make it generic. Don't seek out ways to describe death generically. You want to describe it as your character would see it. Not as a 12-year-old would see it; not as a boy would see it; not as someone dying a slow death in a hospital would see it. You want to seek out ways to describe your character's death the way he would see it. Take some time to get to know your character. Once you're as familiar with him as if he were a brother, then you'll know how to write the scene. It will come to you. Click to expand...

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Josh Burns

Publication of Jewish creatives WhatsApp group led to death threats, MP says

Josh Burns says one family is in hiding after contact information from a private group chat encouraging action over coverage of Israel and Palestine were leaked

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The publishing of a Jewish creatives WhatsApp group chat and the contact details of alleged participants has led to death threats and forced one family into hiding, Labor MP Josh Burns has said.

Writer and commentator Clementine Ford on Thursday published a link on her Facebook page to the log of a group chat of over 600 Jewish writers and artists. The Age, which first reported the story , alleged the link also contained a spreadsheet of links to social media accounts and another file that contained the photos of over 100 Jewish people.

Ford was not the only person to have shared a copy of the log, but she said it was to provide her 239,000 followers with an insight into “how coordinated efforts are to silence Palestinian activists and their allies” via a transcript of the leaked chat.

“This is a group of ‘creatives’ working to silence voices calling for Palestinian liberation,” she said.

Both the Bitly link and the host site for the document had removed the log at the time of reporting, on privacy grounds.

Burns, who is the federal MP for Macnamara, said it was “very distressing” to see people’s contact information be posted online

“This is beyond the sort of trivial social media posts that some people are putting up,” he said. “This has resulted in really serious consequences where people have received death threats.”

Burns said he had been in contact with a family who had to go into hiding after receiving an “avalanche of threats” and had to switch off devices and move to a different location.

“They were completely shattered by this whole experience, where … a sort of lynch mob of people were attacking them,” he said.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s co-chief executive, Alex Ryvchin, said there was “shock and disbelief” that a list of the names of Jews was being drawn up.

“We call on our fellow Australians to resist the harassment and bullying, and when asked to sack or blacklist Australian Jews, to say not in our time and not in our country,” he said.

A spokesperson for Victoria police confirmed it is investigating earlier reports of the personal details of people who belong to a private social media chat group appearing to have been released online.

Guardian Australia has not verified the other documents, but has seen the purported log of the chat, which are believed to be the same as those posted by Ford and others, albeit without the social media details of the members of the group.

The chat includes members of the group, similar to the Lawyers for Israel group , encouraging contacting Ford’s publisher and others in the media over coverage of Israel and Palestine and the response to the leaked WhatsApp chats for Lawyers for Israel and its alleged campaign to oust journalist Antoinette Lattouf from a casual on-air role at the ABC.

Guardian Australia has contacted Ford.

The president of the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network, Nasser Mashni, said APAN was concerned by purpose of the WhatsApp group saying it appeared to be focused on targeting and “attempting to silence” people speaking out on Palestine.

“Palestine supporters from a range of backgrounds have been targeted for months, sometimes leading to job losses, sometimes resulting in threats to people’s physical safety.”

One of the former members of the group, journalist Ginger Gorman, said in a statement published on X she joined the group after the 7 October attack on the understanding it was a Jewish creative group about human rights. She said she muted the group and only viewed it occasionally, and missed what she said was bullying and harassment in the group and the targeting of public personalities.

She said once she became aware, she left the group before it was mentioned in the media. She said she condemned the bullying and harassment of anyone.

“Now that I am aware of what was happening in this group, I want to apologise to those who were victimised or targeted. You didn’t deserve this,” she said.

But Gorman said she and her family were the target of online abuse and threats due to being a member of the group.

“Personally, I support all calls for a ceasefire. Innocent civilians should not be targeted and killed,” she said.

Burns defended the members of the group organising together to express their views.

“There’s been a number of groups where some have been really focused on defending the Jewish community against attacks. And I don’t think it’s true to say that they have been focused on shutting down Palestinian voices,” he said.

“We have to be very careful about attributing some sort of sinister motivation with democratic activity.”

He said encouraging letter-writing is different to publishing someone’s personal information in a public arena and defended the group chats.

“I don’t have any issue with people in any organisation and any who were involved in any part of this conversation or any other conversation to associate with one another,” he said.

“That’s one of the fundamental rights of being an Australian is to be able to freely associate with your fellow citizen, and to come together and express your view.”

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told Radio 3AW it had been a real tragedy that there had been rising social disharmony, and while people had strong views about the conflict it was unacceptable that people do not feel safe in their communities.

“It’s not the Australia I want to see,” he said.

“The great thing about our country is we can be a microcosm for the world. And by and large we are a peaceful country – we live in harmony.

“The great thing is that people whether they be Catholic or Jewish, or Hindu, or Buddhist or Muslim, live side by side and enriched by the diversity which is there and that’s a sort of Australia but I want to see.”

Lattouf’s unlawful dismissal case with the ABC returns to the Fair Work Commission on Tuesday.

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