How to Write Death Scenes

One of the most emotionally fraught scenes in both books and movies involve death. Besides being a very easy way to add tension and drama to a story, death is also something writers just love to write about, and so it’s everywhere. If you think of one of your favorite books, there’s likely a death in there, and there’s likely a death scene. Harry Potter, Little Women, The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, you name it.

If you haven't watched Up, maybe go do that before reading this.

But how do we write a good death scene? Those words seem weird together, but as writers, we want to make our readers feel, and we want to make the story the best it can be. That means writing a “good” death scene. So where do you start?

Diving into Death Scenes

Delilah sat beside Gramps’s bed, where he lay dying.

What’s your reaction?

Say it with me: “That’s sad.”

What, that’s it? Someone’s dying, and you just say “That’s sad”?! How coldhearted are you? Fine, I’ll give you another chance:

Delilah sat beside Gramps’s bed. His eyes were closed, his chest barely rising. She stared at his hands, thin and dark skinned. Those hands had taught her how to play arpeggios on the piano, how to count the old coins in her violet piggy bank. They’d patted her cheek when she said something right, clenched together when she said something cruel. She’d been cruel too often this past year. She wished she could take back all those words.

Delilah reached out and took one of his hands.

What’s your reaction now? Hopefully something a tad stronger than “That’s sad.”

We all have death in our lives. As a fellow editor once said, “We’ve all got dead people.” You’re not going to illicit strong feelings from your reader by plopping a dead body into your story. So how do you make a death scene meaningful, something that might actually make your readers cry?

Donald Maass talks about this in his book The Emotional Craft of Fiction (highly recommend). Maass points out that there’s a difference between sadness and sorrow. If I hear that someone died, I’ll feel sad (hopefully). If a close family member dies, I’ll feel sorrow. As Maass says, “Sorrow happens when we have not only lost someone, but also miss them” (p. 142). So you know what you have to do, right? You have to make your reader, through the character, miss the dead person. How do you do this?

Show Me Some Life!

You have to show more than the character’s death. You have to show their life. You show the relationship the character had with this person they’re losing. You show what will be missed once the person is gone.

The ideal way to do this is throughout the entire book. But a “shortcut” authors often use in death scenes, as I did above, is to let the viewpoint character think on those times spent together or the dreams unrealized. That’s what moves sadness to sorrow. Of course, if you’ve set up the life lived well enough, you won’t even need that. The loss will be enough on its own.

Why do you think so many cried during the montage scene in Pixar’s Up? Think hard about what they did. They showed the life spent together. They showed dreams unrealized. They showed the sorrow of losing a beloved life partner.

Why was Dumbledore’s death scene so powerful? We’ve been with his character for six books. He was always the one who was invincible, the one person who ensured Harry’s safety. Then we read this (The Half-Blood Prince, pp. 608–609):

Harry reached out, straightened the half-moon spectacles upon the crooked nose, and wiped a trickle of blood from the mouth with his own sleeve. Then he gazed down at the wise old face and tried to absorb the enormous and incomprehensible truth: that never again would Dumbledore speak to him, never again could he help....

Ugh. Here, have a tissue.

What Harry will miss, what he had for so many years, was Dumbledore’s protection and wisdom. Now he’s on his own. But look closer at that first line, and you’ll see something beautiful. (And this is pure Reader-Response Theory since I don’t know if Rowling intended this.) Until this moment, Dumbledore was in the parent position. He was in the caretaking role. And now he’s gone, leaving Harry to fill that role. So what does Harry do? He fixes Dumbledore’s glasses, cleans his face. Harry can no longer be the protected child. He must now be the protector. And that should hit the reader right in the feels.

Moving on. Another thing to consider about death scenes is that you don’t always need them. (Say what?) When I say “death scene,” you might think of being in that room when the person dies. But we don’t always need that in books. This is the beauty of controlling the narrative. Look at how Joan Bauer does it in Hope Was Here (p.180):

He smiled at me with such promise; I felt at that moment he was going to rise up from the bed all well, but he didn’t. “I’ve got to tell you selfishly, Hope, if Gleason Beal hadn’t done what he did, you and Addie wouldn’t have come up here and I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without the two of you.”

I took his hand; it felt cold.

I was crying so bad I couldn’t say anything, just squeeze his big cold hand.

He died the next day. Addie was with him. I was in my room getting dressed. But somehow I knew.

I closed my eyes; felt in my heart a brush of angels’ wings, and sensed those angels coming up the welcome stairways, one from the left and one from the right, to guide G.T.’s spirit on the flight up to heaven.

This is a different type of death scene. We get a scene at G.T.’s deathbed, then move softly over the actual event. But this moment is so meaningful because Bauer makes sure, over the course of the book, to build the relationship between G.T. and Hope. She makes sure to show what was gained and, therefore, what was lost.

As Donald Maass so beautifully says, “To make death poignant, make living beautiful. To make us miss characters who will die, make them the very best thing about being alive” (p. 144).

So that’s the foundation of writing a death scene. But now let’s move into some technical tips.

Actually Writing the Scene

How do you go about actually writing a good death scene? Like, really writing it?

Well, don’t do the following. (Maybe just focus on Edith’s lines. I had trouble following my own prompt and let Larry do his own thing.)

Larry crumpled to the ground.

Edith gasped in horror and fell beside him. “No, Larry! Don’t go!”

Larry’s eyelids fluttered. “Edith...it’s okay. You’ll be okay.”

Edith’s eyes were waterfalls of sorrow. She shook her head. “No, Larry! You can’t die! You mustn’t die!” She let out a wail.

Larry winced. “Please don’t be so loud. I’m dying here.”

“You have so much life left to live!” Edith sobbed. Her heart felt like it was breaking into a thousand pieces of absolute grief.

“Well, technically...I’m ninety-eight. I’ve had a good run.”

“Don’t say that!” Edith cried. “Oh, I may drown in my tears!”

“I certainly am,” Larry observed. “I haven’t been so wet since that time I nearly drowned in Lake Michigan.”

Edith laid her head on Larry’s chest as her shoulders shook with sorrow.

“Edith. Edith, this isn’t helping. That’s where I was shot, remember? Could you not lie on me?”

“How will I live without you?” Edith wailed.

Larry sighed and closed his eyes. It was time to go.

Okay, never mind. If you want to put that in your book, I have a feeling readers will be highly amused. But you can see why this would not make your readers feel sad. If anything, it would probably make them feel annoyed at Edith.

So what can we do to turn a not-meaningful death scene into one your readers will look back on with dewy eyes and soft winces of fiction-induced pain?

Keep the Drama Down

Many writers, in an attempt to inject emotion into a scene, will lean too hard on the “emotion” lever and bring us to “melodrama.”

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

And with melodrama, what do we have? Snickering readers. You do NOT want your readers snickering while your character dies!

Look at my example above and pinpoint where the melodrama comes in. (Hint: basically every one of Edith’s lines.) One problem with Edith is that she’s constantly sobbing and wailing. That turns her into Moaning Myrtle rather than a character to be empathized with over the loss of her husband. Instead of thinking, Poor lady. This is so sad, we think, Get a grip!

Second problem: We keep telling the reader about her grief instead of showing it and thereby letting the reader feel it.

“Edith’s eyes were waterfalls of sorrow.” Great example of purple prose. This dramatic description takes away emotion for the reader rather than adding it.

“Her heart was breaking into a thousand pieces of absolute grief.” Not only is this a cliché, but it in no way allows me to understand what Edith is actually feeling.

“Her shoulders shook with sorrow.” Stop telling me it was in sorrow! Did you think I thought it was with laughter? Trust your reader. So what’s a practical tip for keeping the drama down?

Get Small and Specific

You will not create an emotional death scene with big, dramatic words and actions. You will not make your readers feel anything but cynicism and annoyance if you write purple prose.

What you need is small and specific descriptions. You need to dial it waaaaaaaaaay back so that you’re introducing the emotion through pinpricks of light rather than enormous vats of drama. Choose small details the character would notice or feel in the moment.

Instead of “Edith’s eyes were waterfalls of sorrow,” try “Edith’s eyes burned, and she squeezed Larry’s hand.” Now I can actually relate to Edith; I know what it feels like for my eyes to burn with tears. It’s a small description that gives over large emotion.

Try to keep your language simple. Be very, very, very careful with degree adverbs (such as “very”). It can feel like exaggeration when what we need is genuine emotion.

Natural (or No) Dialogue

Again, less is more here. We don’t want speeches. We don’t want dramatic exclamations. What we want is subtext.

The way you inject real emotion is to...not inject it at all. Don’t try to shove the emotion into the dialogue. We’re placing lightbulbs beneath the cabinets so that the counter is illuminated but the light isn’t attacking your eyeballs. (How’s THAT for a metaphor?!)

“No, Larry! You can’t die! You mustn’t die!” I suppose someone somewhere might say that when someone is dying at some point. But I can’t connect to this. It just sounds unnatural. You know what’s natural? Not saying anything at all. Or dialing it back:

She shook her head. “No. No, no, no—”

He focused on her. “It’s okay.”

In times of high emotion, people tend to repeat themselves. Words, phrases—it can prove effective if you don’t overdo it. (That’s kind of the theme here: Don’t overdo anything.)

And try to avoid having the characters constantly using each other’s names. Writers try to bring it in to invoke that emotion when, in reality, using the other person’s name isn’t natural in that moment. They’re so close—they don’t need to say the other’s name at all.

Instead of having the characters say things straight out (“How will I live without you?”), bring in the subtext. What small action can Edith do to hint at that thought? Is there something about the setting you can bring in naturally that will stand in for that dialogue?

Remember your writer’s toolbox. You have so many resources. The five senses, brief lines of reflection, rhythm. You have control over this scene. Take command.

Ready for a challenge? Revise the scene with Larry and Edith, but aim for small details that give big emotion. Then email me your rewrite for feedback (adina@edelmanedits.com).

Whether you struggle to include emotion in a death scene or put too much of it in, remember: It’s the small things that count. The small words, the small actions. It’s like a mosaic. The beauty comes from little pieces making up a whole.