That's a good way to put it. It's certainly good to give the readers what they don't expect in terms of what happens—but it does also need to satisfy the story's overall purpose. As a writer, you are in control of that. (As a person on our real planet, suffering the death of a loved one, you're not in control, unfortunately. If real life was as easy as writing, eh?) The notion of justice is also important to consider when writing about death—although it's not always an issue. But when it is, it can range from legal executions to some really good person dying of a horrendous disease, which seems so bloody unfair. Or the opposite: some horrible person dying in his or her sleep, after going to bed feeling on top of the world. Or a horrible person getting a horrible disease that makes them suffer as badly as their earlier victims suffered, etc. All of these notions can colour the way you present a death in a story. As I said in my earlier post, regarding writing about death : Keep in mind it's the 'effect' of the (story character's) death that's important when you're writing about it. What effect are you trying to create in the reader? Do you want them to cry? Or get angry? Or blink in disbelief? Or want revenge? Do you want them to think, "Oh NOOO!" Or do you want them to feel the end was inevitable and for the best? Or do you want ding-dong the witch is dead? Once you make that decision, it will help to determine how you handle the death when you write about it.
This is very hard topic to me just now when things are quite fresh. And that is one reason I can't express myself clearly. Sorry about that. My main point was not giving readers what they don't expect in terms of what happens but emotionally. We all have read + seen in TV and movies so much fake deaths that we expect certain kind of fake emotion + very small fake empathy + easy steps forward after that. That is not what death is. That is not how death effects. If we take reader near death, it should have an effect that has something similar as facing death in real life. Not too much, but some. If you think about Pratchett's Death... It's fun. It's comical. But it does have some of that majesty and finality of real death. Or if you think about "All Quiet on the Western Front". There is that. Or the works of Leon Uris or Solzenitzyn or Richard Wurmbrand or Stephen King or... Confronting death - even fictional - is confronting all your value structures, confronting your own life, confronting deep meanings that lurk behind shallow things... That is some kind of shock. It's a revelation. It stops you for a while. You need to pull yourself up before you can go forward. You read a book. Someone dies. Reader is expecting that to be a plotpoint. And it is. But it can and should often be also a personal shockpoint, evaluation moment, a mirror of your own life and values. Then it has been written well.
I agree with what you say, and can certainly appreciate the fact that death, for you, is still very raw, having just lost somebody who mattered to you a great deal. This feeling will certainly inform any writing you do that touches on this subject—if, and when you can bear to write about it at all. If real death has a 'good' aspect for writers, it's that a writer's direct experience of death can provide insight to others about what it feels like to witness death (for those who haven't) and also what it feels like to lose a loved one (for those who haven't yet done that.) All the best to you as you work your way through the bereavement process, which is different for everybody. It sounds as if you're not afraid to face your present feelings. That is considered a very healthy part of this experience. I worked for GPs (family doctors) who were compassionate, but insisted grieving is an experience that bereaved people need to 'go through' as fully as possible. Bottling up sadness in a stoic manner (or masking it with medication—which many patients insist they must have) usually produces problems later on. Sometimes these problems crop up many many years later, and in odd and unexpected ways. The doctors I worked for would usually give the requested medication, but only short-term, so people could cope with a funeral, etc. After that, people need to grieve. Feeling terrible and sad is, unfortunately, part of that grieving process. You seem to be accepting your difficult feelings, while trying to put death in perspective. You have my admiration and support.
It was good, and I was impressed with how it managed to transposed the name reveal from Chinese to English and make it work. But, I must say, the original Hong-Kong version is better. I also prefer the Hong-Kongese ending where the morality of the whole thing is a lot more ambiguous. (Not to be confused with the approved ending aired in China.) Anyway, death scenes. I have two in my book. One's a suicide, so there's nothing sudden about it and I spend about 300-500 words on his thoughts/actions before the end. The other comes at the end and he just dies, no preamble, no thoughts or poetry. The first, I wanted the reader to grieve. The second, I wanted the reader to feel the same bitterness my MC feels in that moment. No telling if it's effective - we'll see when I send it out to betas!
This does depend on multiple factors, the nature of the story around the death, the way the character is dying, and more besides. Confessions of a Funeral Director collects real life death stories as well as discussing things from the other side of the funeral direction business. In the absence of tracking down someone who is dying, I think reading the blog, and maybe the book of the same name, might be insightful not only on actual deaths, but stories on society's views on it. Another option is volunteering at a hospice.
I think your recent experience may have you romanticizing real death as if it doesn't have the same range of reactions we see in fiction. Many real deaths are met with humor, relief or simply no strong reaction at all. Death is literally whatever we make it. The famous season finale of Seinfeld where George's fiance, Susan, dies and everyone just seems okay with it. That is amazing comedy. But it is also a moment in peoples' lives that is as real as any other - just one that writers strenuously avoid unless they want to depict the characters as bad people, because writers do bring their moral judgements to what they write. I think that Seinfeld brought more realism to the depiction of death in fiction than anything else I can think of.
'You know, your recent experience of death may have you romanticizing real death...you know?' 'Go fuck yourself.' 'Oh. Just that real death doesn't have the same range of reactions as we see in fictional death.'
Possible. I can't believe that it could be common. The knowledge about real deaths are met with all kinds of feelings but not as many kinds of emotions. And professionals who meet death often have they own ways to deal it. Using humour to distance is very common. But when somebody meets death - not the information about it but the process and result itself - well... it is what it is. We can fool ourselves that "we make it something".
My cousin died two weeks ago. She had cancer for nearly a decade, and when we'd talk more recently I strongly sympathized with the pain she was clearly feeling and did what I could to help. When she passed, I didn't really feel sad, or angry, or relieved. It felt as if a story had ended for me, and I felt sympathy for the other people in her life who may have been having stronger feelings than me. I don't think my reaction was actually cold or unusual - I had strong feelings about her life, and much less feeling now that it is over. I am simply resigned that she doesn't exist anymore and that no set of feelings I could have will ever change that. But feeling like that is something that I would normally avoid discussing because it will be judged as a hallmark of lacking empathy, when it is more of a reaction to the way I perceive the passage of time and events. And I think lots of people have similar non-reactions, but we hide them lest they reflect on us poorly. Which is why I think writer's should feel a certain freedom to present the reaction to death more broadly than I think they do. But I could certainly be wrong about what is being written out there, and also whether my feelings are remotely typical or not. (And thank you for not reading offense into my previous response to your post. None was intended.)
1. Sounds normal. 2. I agree. 3. I agree. 4. I did not see any offence. So I had no reason to react as if there was any. I think we have been talking about a bit different things. I was talking about what it is like to be there, to be present while the process of dying is going on. And I understood that maybe Jannert was talking about the same thing. It is tough. I have lost my father, my mother, tens and tens of friends and some relatives. I have lost pets which have been very dear. And all these are "death through window" no matter how close or dear they have been. With my mother I was in the same room. About 10 days and nights many hours a day and sometimes many hours at night. That is not "death through window". You hold a hand. You breath in a same rhythm - and it is not an easy rhythm. You pet hair and skin. You talk. You smell the presence of death. I can't explain this, but you do smell it getting closer. Somehow you are present in the process of dying. You share it. You are there. You don't just know it. You feel it. You share it. Some part of it happens to you. If you are there, you share some of it. It is totally different thing to get information about loosing someone and being present in that process. I was talking about latter. If we talk about death, write about it or even experience things because of someones death, it is not the same thing if the distance is different. It is not ok to take reader too close to death. But I think that sometimes writers should take reader close enough. EDIT: Everything I have written has been about this: And my point has been: We should go realistic often, but to do that we should really know what is realistic and what is only an illusion of realism. There is an element of illusion if you see "death throug a window". But to actually be there... Then there is only what is real. And it is tough to meet anything unmasked and real.
