How to Write a Sad Story

Writing a sad story is truly a great art in itself; an art to bring tears into someone’s eyes by your words and not many writers have successfully achieved the reward of doing so. Greatest sad stories that have ever been produced are the ones that are written by the writer’s heart. I will be sharing with you what I believe are the essentials to write a sad story.

As I just said a story can only have enough sadness and pain in it if the writer is writing with all their heart. When writing a sad story one should bring themselves to feel any sort of agony and sadness they have ever felt in life. It could be out of loss of a loved one, being parted from a loved one or a best friend, leaving school or leaving childhood town, a loss in the business, loss of a dear pet and so on. It can be an endless list of reasons that ever made you sad. The more closely one relates to painful moments in their life the sadder their story will be.  Example of this is that most of the sad stories are experience from people’s lives; their sufferings in times of hunger, prison or being abandoned.

A sad story should be simple and easily understandable to the readers and the character sketches for each character should be well built so that the reader builds a link with them. By making the story understandable it means that one should employ a descriptive writing style that paints clear pictures of scenes and characters so that the readers can actually visualize them in their minds. Remember that your words should have a powerful impact like it does in sad movies. The characters as you line them up in your story should be done in such a way that audience should ‘feel’ for the characters; only then will your story be touching enough to make them cry. Make your characters more human than superficial and heroic.

A big No-No for Happy Endings! Yes, a sad story is sad because it does not end happily ever after so bear this simple rule in mind. Your story should leave a yearning and a vacuum only then the audiences feel sympathetic towards the characters involved and cry on their ill-fate and misfortune. The sudden death or a similar twist in the story goes a long way in guaranteeing the success of a sad story but this works best only if the characters are well developed and the audiences are kept intact throughout. Their interest should be maintained at every level; if they lose interest then the story will not have the desired effect.

So, what are you waiting for? Pick up your pen; take your imagination to all the points in life when you got sad and felt pain and you will find yourself creating a great sad story that will have the ability to move its readers.