Trying to avoid "Angst? What Angst?" in a certain situation.

The story I'm writing has the lead fighting in an invading force in her homeland. Gradually she loses her close friends and her family members (the most tragic of which is her child) to the war. Eventually the only person she cares for who is still alive is her romantic partner (who fights alongside her). Said partner is in the same boat as her as far as losing people has gone.

I want to have a scene or two where the couple expresses how glad they are that they still have one another in spite of all the death they've faced, but I want the deaths of their friends and her family to be meaningful and not just glossed over. As in, I'm trying to avoid making the scenes come across as, "Oh, my father died, but it doesn't matter because I still have you!" As I've never been in a situation like this, I don't really know how to express it in text.

As a bit of extra information on tone or plot, I intend to have a scene like this just before the two face off against the Big Bad for the last battle. Said fight culminates with the lead's death to kill the Big Bad and her lover is the only major character who lives to see the end. The story ends shortly afterwards.

I think testimonials or stories of couples who have lost a child or a friend who was close to both of them would help me here. Does anybody know any such stories (real or fictional) that I could look to for inspiration? If not, do you have any advice for how I could write this?

If you need any additional information on this story, please let me know and I'll post what you request information about.

edited 28th Mar '14 10:20:21 AM by HijackThis

You could have the scene begin with one or both of them breaking down in the lull in the fighting before taking on the Big Bad, being unable to cope with suddenly stopping and the gravity of all the deaths washing over them, followed by them finding meaning and strength in still existing, in spite of the survivor guilt, and coming to terms with it by knowing that by defeating the Big Bad, they'll stop the war from causing others the same pain. You might then end that scene with them affirming that at least they have each other, and finding comfort in that, to make the lead's death even more dramatic and tragic. Perhaps causing her lover to emotionally lose it in some way, given the Pyrrhic victory.

Essentially, my advice is to start the scene off with them struggling to accept it, and then build to them coming to the conclusion of "at least we have each other" - making the deaths meaningful in that they have to be emotionally overcome by the characters, instead of glossed over.

Also, don't be afraid to make it as Angsty as possible first, because it's a lot easier to cut away too much emotion, than try put emotion where there isn't.

There are five stages of grief. One of them is anger, and the others aren't necessarily much better. Maybe, if the heart of the problem is mixing anguish and appreciation together, you shouldn't fight the strife between those extremes and instead have the characters deal with it more chaotically. Let them get frustrated, stressed, angry. Let them do the messy and illogical crying during an important discussion. Let them take it out on other people *and* each other. At the very least, saying sorry after a huge blow up is a very nice time to add in that you appreciate the person still being there. And, you know, hugging and stuff.

Or maybe you just need to embrace the melancholy inherent to the situation and make the admission both happy and sad, in a "so much went wrong, so many people are gone, no matter what happens tomorrow I just want you to know how much I love you" kinda way. It depends on who's who and what's what in that last scene, really — for all I know about the people involved, maybe it's totally in character for them to instead joke about how banged up they are and in the process somehow convey the same feeling anyways, who knows.

I think the main thing I need to get at here, though, is that in scenes like this it's never so much about the words as the feelings involved, which can be a hard butterfly to pin down no matter which way you go with it. A confession is a confession, but more often than not it's everything happening around and before it that gives it its real meaning. Probably the best advice I can offer is to make the scene flow from the moment it's happening in — injuries, dirt, exhaustion, heartache and all — and then put every last drop of effort you have into it. Hopefully from there you'll get a really nice scene to edit down to perfection.

When it comes to research, probably the best direction I could point you towards in psychology, particularly that of grief counseling. If you can find some good case studies centered around that, those might be some really good places to look too. I'd try linking to some, but the only place I can think of to reliably find case studies is inside a psych textbook.

edited 17th Apr '14 10:57:50 PM by Dec