How I Write Sad, Depressing, & Intense Scenes

There is no magic wand when writing to make the words suddenly make sense, or give the right kind of feels. Sometimes all the words can be there but the way they are written makes them fall incredibly flat in application. But why? Well, the answer is pretty simple. The writer must be feeling something similar to truly portray the characters feelings, the scene's sadness and general grief over death or loss of a mission. We hold the power! It all flows through our hands. To see it all in front of us, making sense of what we've wrote but the readers hate it. In truth, it's because it isn't natural.

Consult the grief wheel to understand natural responses to huge loss.

But what do I do?

Personally, to get myself in a depressed mood isn't too difficult. I'm like an empath, easily affected by others emotions in the smallest ways. For me, there is a SURE FIRE WAY. Works every single time.

MUSIC.

Yeah, that's right. I write the best devastating scenes when I'm destroying my mood with the sadness songs I can find. The best songs to use are ones that you have an emotional attachment to, that makes the feeling even more severe inside yourself. Watching the music videos helps tenfold for me. 

Take Me To Church - Hosier : Music video gets me in tears. Every. Single. Time.

Sound of the Bugle - Bryan Adams : Emotional attachment through childhood movie. Killer.

The Last Goodbye - Billy Boyd : My love of LOTR will never die. 

Charlie Boy - The Lumineers : Just listen to the lyrics. It's sad!

Burning House - Cam : The song speaks for itself. Death, and dying, and toxic relationships.

Hurt - Johnny Cash : Because that voice just gets me. Instant intense emotion.

Zombie - The Cranberries : Music video content and lyrics. Real world application hurts worst.

Top of the World - Dixie Chicks : What, I'm not crying. You're crying!

Together Again - Evanescence : Listen to it. It just sounds depressing. 

What It's Like - Everlast - Content is 100%

Runaway Love - Ludacris : Listening to this song makes my heart ache for the girls he talks about.

Now I'm sure you get the point. This is just my like go-to list to get some tears coming, and intense feelings growing. If you want more suspenseful kind of feelings, listen to horror movie music. Without words, just the music. That is geared to make people feel things without seeing anything. It should help!

 

Get out there and write that sadness! Make those readers cry. That's the only way they'll love you!