On writing: the sad stuff

[StillStunned]

I tend not to be very emotional in real life. My mother bullied the empathy out of me by the time I turned ten, and school beat any notion of happiness or sadness down to very limited bandwidth. The redhead puts up with this, bless her.

But when I actively try to empathise, it tends to become overwhelming. I find myself blubbering over some of my stories because I wrote the characters and it's easy for me to engage when I reread them. I try to explain it to the wife, but she doesn't get it. At least she doesn't mock me, though.

So anyway, now that I've overshared, on to the topic of making the reader cry. Is it more difficult than making them horny? Are there any quick tips and tricks you use? How do you feel about the cheap established tactic of killing off an endearing character early on to create engagement? (Who else was scarred by Bargle killing Aleena? And it works just as effectively when you're in your forties, as I discovered when the banderbear dies in "Beyond the Deepwoods".)

Right, now that I've wiped my eyes and blown my nose, where was I? Right, tugging at the reader's heartstrings. How do we go about it? Are there any stories that you feel do it very well, and any that try and fail? Have you ever been surprised by your readers' responses? Do you enjoy reading or writing sad scenes, or sad stories, or sad endings? Have you ever written an intentionally sad character, while secretly mocking their mopiness?

Share your thoughts!

 

[TropicalTwist]

It has always been my thought that people are at their most beautiful when they're sad. There's a certain air, just so poignant and so captivating.
So sad stories have had a soft spot.

Writing wise, I think that when I'm not doing it on purpose there is an underlying current of tragedy. Not entirely sure why.

Practically speaking for right now given my lack of effort, it's definitely easier (albeit probably same level of effectiveness) for me to inspire a melancholic mood than rustle up arousal.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Shared experience and relatability, every time. Something people have dealt with, or, in some cases, know is coming for them or their loved ones. The most bittersweet story I've written was The Goat Who Came for Christmas, about a guy living alone in his old childhood house because his dad got rapid-onset dementia and he lives in his childhood room, still decorated the way it was, all his possessions stuffed in boxes, literally has to flip over pictures on the walls. Oh, and because I'm a mean dino, his mom died in childbirth and he blames himself for it. Easily understood, and sets up the way for healing, acceptance, and closure, which is really where the emotional punch is. You can write things that are sad, but what really gets the reader is catharsis after being with that character for a time. If you're going for tears, sad set up > endear the character to the reader, let them live in their head for a bit > closure/catharsis.

Trauma is where I live with almost everything I write. The world is cruel, it always has been, and it almost certainly always will be, people know that, and have lived experience with it. It's why there's so much escapism in entertainment, and yet, so much of that pain as well. Pain points: loss, suffering, denial, rejection, desperation, debasement, they're all good to hit a good chunk of readers if you play it right. It's where that shared experience comes into play. Most of us have been rejected: crush, love interest, partner, job, family, we know what that feels like, and evoking it with viscerality is gonna get you pain points. That viscerality is also part of it. You don't just tell people what happened, that can be good for setting up catharsis later on when you're introducing the character (re: The Goat Who Came for Christmas), because telling is kinda sad, but doesn't really do much unless that experience is very specific to someone and is still a raw point in their life, you make them experience it. Showing, like with most emotions, is where the gut punches really land. You see the man's father, chipper and well, except he has no idea who his children are. They talk, see the kids put on happy faces, but roll in the trenches of their pain and sorrow. It's an experience or fear of most people in one way or another.

So: take something common, shared, relatable, add viscerality, expose the reader to interiority to connect them with the character, then sweep in with catharsis, and you have a recipe for near-guaranteed tear-jerker.

Granted, the execution is where you'll get the true emotional response from the reader, but this is a good recipe, tried and true.

 

[BeechLeaf]

There are several ways of deploying sadness. Perhaps the most common in stories here is for it to be a break between the main characters - a rupture, a misunderstanding, a lack of acceptance - and by the end of the story it gets resolved. A number of onehitwanda's story use this, very effectively.

Then there's the past that can't be altered: anthrodisiac's above, or The Last Song She Ever Wrote by redgarters. The present time of the story can be ultimately redeeming or joyous, but can't change the sadness that had to come before.

Then there are the ones where the sadness is still there at the end: it's not happily ever after, it's some disaster, or some denial, or something that means we the reader have to process that the sadness is continuing, we can't wave it away. Offhand I can think of one small example of this I recently read, but none where it was the major effect.

 

[onehitwanda]

Shadow gives shape and depth to things. How can you know joy if you've never known pain?

 

[EmilyMiller]

On writing: the sad stuff​

The things I write that make me cry are normally not killing off a character, but a character being brave by confronting some issue, one that is hurting them, holding them back. I tear up re-reading those types of scenes more than deaths, which can seem a bit designed to artificially create drama.

 

[NotWise]

If tears are what you want, I've found that either bitter-sweet or joyous emotions work better for me than sadness.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I'll admit it, I'm a hopeless romantic, but I don't like the romance fantasy. At first, I found it usually boring, and it tends to get underwhelming for me, but dark romance is where I'm at my best. And I don't mean the CEO, mafia, serial killer type of dark romance that everyone seems to love so much... the bad boys and girls and "I can fix him/her" type of thing... No, I'm talking about stuff out of Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, or Sin City, I'm talking about a bigger emphasis on the dark part instead of the romance. The reasons for me to love that is because I learned that love is just like fire. People treat love like it's the most noble thing ever, but I've experienced a love that made me better, and at the same time, it nearly killed me. Fire doesn't burn because it's evil, it burns because fire is hot. Love is just like that, and that's what I love to show.

That's what gets me. I hid an acrostic in Nightcall as a way of me realizing how much I shipped Tanya and Natalya, even though both are killing each other emotionally with the very same love they have for each other. It's also why Cupid is the way she is in No Heroes in Love: it's an eldritch being, a primordial force. It ruined the life of Sabrina just because it was tied to follow a single concept: provide everyone with exactly what they ask for. And those things always break me because life is exactly that: a series of crucibles where you either die, or get stronger. It's always about how much bullshit can my characters go through, and they'll always end up a broken mess, but at least they're better...

I didn't do those things because I wanted to deploy sadness though. I deployed those things because that's the story. I don't believe in HEAs, in fact, I'm being more and more bitter towards them. I'll write those if a story demands a HEA, but a HEA from me always comes with a price tag. It's something my characters earn in hell.

 

[Britva415]

How do you feel about the cheap established tactic of killing off an endearing character early on to create engagement?

This doesn't create engagement. This does basically nothing unless you have already created engagement.

I guess that's the "endearing" part?

Anyway, empathy on page works like it does face to face. Empathy is recognizing shared experiences, shared emotions, shared vulnerabilities.

For some people, their sense of empathy is strong enough that they don't have to feel or sense these in the other person, they can go on just the idea that they're both human and they must share something of those things. Other people won't develop empathy for another particular person unless they do sense and feel the shared conditions from them.

Some people don't evoke empathy because they don't project their humanity, they keep it to themselves. Others are naturally expressive and are relatable. And still others discourage empathy because they present something alienating: They could be creepy, or, too demonstrative (performative) to take seriously.

So anyway, how do you achieve the endearment and engagement so the cheap trick will "work?" Expose the character's humanity. They don't necessarily even have to be endearing or likable, they can still be compelling if flawed and reticent. Show or tell what's motivating them. Show or tell how they react emotionally to things that happen. Show or tell what they care about, what makes them irritated, what makes them comfortable, what makes them relate to others.

Those don't have to be the same things the reader experiences: The reader still experiences being motivated, reacting emotionally, caring, being irritated, being comfortable, relating to others. Those are common experiences even if the specific things that drive the character aren't what drive the reader.

Just show the readers a character who's perceptibly human and not a robot or a dry transcript of your "surveillance" of them. The more they think the character is like themselves, or the more the character is like how they (think they) want to be, the more the reader will relate.

I'm not talking about the superficial stuff like "well, I'm not an architect" or "I wouldn't pick up a gun," I'm talking about the closer-to-the-core stuff, the feelings, like "pursuing what I want is hard" or "a threat to my loved ones gets me pissed off."

 

[AG31]

For some people, their sense of empathy is strong enough that they don't have to feel or sense these in the other person, they can go on just the idea that they're both human and they must share something of those things. Other people won't develop empathy for another particular person unless they do sense and feel the shared conditions from them.

This might be hi-jacking the thread, but isn't "empathy" as vulnerable to mistaken assumptions as any other human interaction? "Empathy," I believe, is based on one's own personal situation. I'm guessing that it can be on target more than half the time, but not all the time.

 

[Dodola]

From a reader's perspective, some writers have what I consider to be an extraordinary insight into human nature and behavior. Their writing comes through so fluidly, that any writing techniques or intentional use of emotional triggers, never occur to the reader.
Amongst others mentioned here, THBGato is a master of this, imo. Her writing gives me the all the feels, which is the whole reason I read fiction.
To me, truly sobbing from sadness or grief can be almost as powerful as an orgasm, you're just wrecked in opposite ways.

 

[Britva415]

This might be hi-jacking the thread, but isn't "empathy" as vulnerable to mistaken assumptions as any other human interaction? "Empathy," I believe, is based on one's own personal situation. I'm guessing that it can be on target more than half the time, but not all the time.

It's possible, sure?

But yeah, I think it would be a hijack to indulge the question to the extent that it would ignore whether that's how readers relate to characters.

Of course it's true that an author can't impart 100% accuracy to the impressions every reader picks up from the writing. Different readers are going to react, to feel, at least a little bit differently about different characters. A handful are going to react very differently from others. But an author has way more influence over the impressions a reader forms than what happens face to face with strangers forming impressions of each other.

Because that's what characters are: They're strangers to the reader, until the story gets told.

 

[BeechLeaf]

I don't think I've read anything on this site where a character has been killed off. (There are a couple I can think of where a death occurred before the story began, and affected characters.) That would be an easy, and potentially effective depending on how well it was done, way of inflicting sadness. Possibly it's more common in categories I don't read.

In one of mine I implied a child died, as a way of fleshing out a character, a nurse. The sadness was more in the way it affected her. (Also, I pinched the basic idea from SugarStorm, a much better and more sensitive writer than I am.)

 

[bi_cathy]

I have a lot of complicated feelings about writing sadness.

I never want to write it. Ever.

Trauma, sadness, and losses are part of who I am; they have colored every memory of my life. A couple of months ago, I wrote something (not on Lit, not public, don't bother looking for it) to the effect of "I use [trauma] like other people use birthdays, to recall or place events on the timeline of my life." It's a big statement, but I have the receipts for it.

So when I sit down and write for Literotica, I don't actively want any of that. I don't want to dwell in it, relive it, think about it. I don't want broken characters and pain, I want to write healthy people who didn't live what I lived. And joy, and fun, and dramatic teasing, and horny, useless (but generally well-adjusted) women seducing each other. Many of my stories are that. So I try to bring depth and drama in other ways. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make the situation interesting without making sadness a focal point, by finding obstacles that aren't absolutely gut-wrenching and focusing on them. In a way, you're getting the end product of the happy healthy couple because I, personally, went through the worst to get there. You don't need to see how the sauce was made, do you?

I'd say I've succeeded quite a few times. Some examples, off the top of my head:

• My most read story to date, I Dare You, with nearly 500,000 views and 1,000 likes has zero sadness. I still get comments and feedback about how joyful it is to read.
• My longest series, Strings Attached has a few very minor moments of pain (maybe 2,000 words out of the 139,000 words). It acknowledges that pain, but it doesn't try to shape the happiness around it.
• The biggest hurdle in the 40K words of A Spectacular Pair of Tits is one of the characters' shyness. Zero trauma or pain.

And then sadness slips in sometimes. Some storylines come in masquerading as fun, then reveal they're packing a darkness I did not expect. Others are pure pain from the moment I start writing them. They force me to go through feelings, empathize, and put my heart through the wringer and destroy it because I write in first person and I like to feel everything my character feels. Admittedly, that also results in some excellent writing.

I have published a very personal eulogy of my cousin who passed away from a meaningless house fire while making coffee one morning. There's a story about being the side lover to a woman in an abusive relationship. There's one about a Muslim woman battling her demons in one long, claustrophobic, semi-confession semi-speech scene. I have a big plan for a story centered around war trauma that I will start, one day, soon, hopefully. And so on...

Do these have more depth than the fun teasing stuff? Do readers relate more to them? I don't know. Ratings and views are excellent for both . I think each has its merits, and each serves a purpose. I don't believe you need the sad parts to build relatable characters or to write an interesting storyline. I don't believe pain is necessary for happiness in a story. And I don't think you need to break down a reader to bring them back up.

If you want to, do it, but don't cheapen out on emotions. If you don't, know that there are other ways to bring in drama and interest. And if, like me, you teeter between the two, that's fine too.

One last word: Healthy well-adjusted people deserve their representation, too

 

[BeechLeaf]

There are some writers who, otherwise good at story-telling, think it an easy target to kill people off for drama. It just doesn't ring true, and it doesn't produce the emotional oomph that a more carefully deployed tragedy would.

At the opposite end of that scale is our own beloved bi_cathy, who treats us to happiness and joy in almost everything she writes. But sometimes there is sadness, sometimes even horror or tragedy, because she has to. This is what the story demands, she can do no other. It is not trying for an effect. She is trying to write the truth, and the truth, sometimes, brings tears.

 

[bi_cathy]

At the opposite end of that scale is our own beloved bi_cathy, who treats us to happiness and joy in almost everything she writes. But sometimes there is sadness, sometimes even horror or tragedy, because she has to. This is what the story demands, she can do no other. It is not trying for an effect. She is trying to write the truth, and the truth, sometimes, brings tears.

Thanks for getting it, as always <3

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Right, now that I've wiped my eyes and blown my nose, where was I? Right, tugging at the reader's heartstrings. How do we go about it? Are there any stories that you feel do it very well, and any that try and fail? Have you ever been surprised by your readers' responses? Do you enjoy reading or writing sad scenes, or sad stories, or sad endings? Have you ever written an intentionally sad character, while secretly mocking their mopiness?

I love sad stuff for many reasons.

1 ~ Sadness always touches readers (except straight up porn readers, they're not interested in any sad) but happiness doesn't always. However, when you use sadness, then any happiness in the story that follows always touches readers.
2 ~ The best plots move up and down and up and down, so you need some sadness, some strife.
3 ~ The sad parts make the happy parts that follow even happier, and of course the happy parts make the sad parts that follow even sadder, which then provides the opportunity to follow with more happy which is potentially even happier.

4 ~ I like sad ends, not because I prefer them, but I just don't like predictable plot or predictable endings. When someone reads more than one of my stories, they have no idea if it will end happy or sad or ambiguous because I always vary it up. Because I mix in bad ends, the reader never sees it coming.

When stripped down, writing is really nothing but conveying emotions onto the page. If you want to provide an emotional ride, you need some sadness.

 

[Stanfield2025]

I've tried evoking all kinds of emotions in my Lit stories. I know I've evoked joy and a general investment. But I've no idea if my stories have provided sadness when I wanted them to.

 

[Rob_Royale]

The only story of mine that I have been told made readers cry, involves a reunion. A May/December affair, when the man is 20 and the woman 46, reunite accidently after twenty years and its all very sweet and loving.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Do these have more depth than the fun teasing stuff? Do readers relate more to them? I don't know. I think each has its merits as a story, and each serves a purpose. I don't believe you need the sad parts to build relatable characters or to write an interesting storyline. I don't believe pain is necessary for happiness in a story. And I don't think you need to break down a reader to bring them back up.

If you want to, do it, but don't cheapen out on emotions. If you don't, know that there are other ways to bring in drama and interest. And if, like me, you teeter between the two, that's fine too.

One last word: Healthy well-adjusted people deserve their representation, too

I agree that I don't think it's necessary to thrust sadness into a story to make the joy stand out. It's good advice that works well, but it's hardly the only way to do it, as evidenced by your success.

 

[anthrodisiac]

There are many ways to toy with evoke emotions in readers. Usually, when we bring sadness into a story, we also bring its opposite (whatever form that takes, because there are many emotions that are reflections of sadness) because the two can compliment each other beautifully. A joyful life plunged into the depths of despair is all the more painful than a sad life made sadder — you have further to fall, and the contrast makes the pain all the more gut stabby (technical term). Conversely, raising someone up from sorrow to the heights of joy makes that joy all the sweeter for surviving its contrast. But it's hardly the only way to approach it, and there are certainly readers who eschew bleak or painful stories (re: cozy stories as a massive force in the industry).

It's also possible to get too enmeshed in the misery, and then you get trauma porn. Admittedly, I've written a lot of it (not here), because unlike bi_cathy, my traumas are something I've leaned into as creative forces and infuse it in my works to inject pain and suffering into so much of what I write to varying degrees. It's a lot less gnashing teeth and rage and utter blackness than it used to be, and I think of those earlier stories with some embarrassment for taking it as far as I did. Too much sadness and bleakness can inure the reader to it; a lot of them will simply leave to find something less harsh and cruel, or it loses its impact when, for the twentieth time, the hero gets a gnarly kick in the metaphorical gonads by the forces of the universe. At a certain point, it becomes almost meaningless, and people dissociate because it's either too much, too unbelievable, or they don't want to vicariously experience that suffering. Which is, again, why we also tend to mix joy into sadness and darkness, not just to make that joy all the sweeter, but to keep the reader from checking out.

 

[AG31]

The only story of mine that I have been told made readers cry, involves a reunion. A May/December affair, when the man is 20 and the woman 46, reunite accidently after twenty years and its all very sweet and loving.

Just curious. Was this on Lit? Did it involve sex? If not, what category was it in?

 

[Rob_Royale]

Just curious. Was this on Lit? Did it involve sex? If not, what category was it in?

Yes. Follow the link in my signature line and find My Beautiful Debbie. Plenty of sex, in the First Time category.

 

[Callum_M]

Several of the stories I’ve been working on lately involve grief. I could probably write on that subject for the rest of my life due to both personal and professional experiences. I find myself wanting to peel away at it so often.

I seek out darker/sadder stories and find it cathartic. It then influences me more. But there often needs to be a light at the end of the tunnel too. Pain is an inevitable part of life but it shouldn’t be there solely to drag us down. Resilience should be rewarded and that’s what I plan to do with each of these stories.

I don’t think it’s a challenge to make the stories steamy either. If anything, it makes the characters relatable and vulnerable. So when they do find that connection, the reader (hopefully) has been cheering them on to get there. It feels more rewarding.

 

[StillStunned]

The only "sad" story I've written (as opposed to stories with sad bits) is Muffin, a 750-worder that I wrote when my wife was away on the other side of the world. That's not what the story is about, but that's where I drew the initial emotion from.

Not many people have read it (only 1.1k views), but 1 in 10 voted for an average of 4.53/111, and about 1 in 5 of those left a comment. I think that shows that people will engage with sadness. I think it also helped that I didn't spell it out until the end, but there were enough clues for the reader to figure it out. That let them explore the grief from their own perspective, and it amplified the "show" versus the "tell".