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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31526
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31526
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

As is the case with any scene intended to evoke strong emotion from the reader, 90% of the effect is achieved via the setup. If the reader is going to scream "please don't", it will not be because of how the death scene itself is written. It will be because of how they have come to feel about the character over the entire arc of the story prior to their death. Dickens inspired international mourning with the death of Little Nell without actually describing the deathbed scene at all. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Old\_Curiosity\_Shop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Curiosity_Shop))

This is part of a more general principle which I would describe like this: The power of story is far stronger than the power of words. Indeed, if words have any power at all, it is only because they invoke stories. The emotional moments in your story will get their emotional punch from the shape of the story, not the words you choose to describe them.

Indeed, the struggle to describe an emotional moment is really just a symptom of not having set it up properly. If the moment had been set up properly by the shape of the story, pulling the emotional trigger would be simple and straightforward. If you pull the trigger and nothing happens, it is because you failed to load the gun.

Original score: 20