[ SECRET POST #3088 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3088 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 020 secrets from Secret Submission Post #441.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. http://i.imgur.com/lTVSegz.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I get that but for most people, going over the grieving/healing process is going to be either painful to write/read about or just poorly done. It also has the potential to take YEARS, most of that time taken up with very mundane things. You rarely see a good portrayal of it in any media. It's the stuff of montages for a reason.

[(Anonymous)]

This is likely the same reason why there are so few well done rape/abuse recovery fics.

[intrigueing]

Sure. But who says it has to show the ENTIRE grieving process? What's wrong with showing just part of it?

[herpymcderp]

The grieving process is boring, OP. It's boring and lengthy and never really resolved until perhaps decades later. Even then, it still comes up sometimes during transitional moments.

It's not like it's really remarkable or marked by any specific changes of psychological state either. One person's grief process is not really generalizable, so there's always the possibility of having it not be relatable to your readers if you want to write it realistically. Someone might not experience any grief for months to years before finally having a breakdown. Some people begin grieving before someone has died and are already more or less done with it by the time the event actually rolls around. Most of the time, nothing spectacular happens, there's no "healing", and it's just a matter of doling out additional responsibilities and going about daily life.

That would make for one hell of an uninteresting story, honestly.

[(Anonymous)]

This. It's not the fascinating, profound process it appears to be in the movies/TV/books. Sometimes it's just really boring and ordinary. This is not to say there aren't some touching moments or moments that would break your heart, but they're interspersed with a LOT of time spent trying to get your life back together. Not all pain is newsworthy, it's just pain.

[herpymcderp]

I've generally found it to be the exact opposite of profound. There's a funeral (or a wake), some people say some things about the deceased that might be nice or might not be nice (and usually aren't even true), and then it's up to the individual to sort out how to proceed from there.

Death is rarely an affirmation of life or beliefs, like media loves to portray.

The only time it gets remotely interesting is when it exacerbates pre-existing psychological conditions... but even in those circumstances it's almost more pitiful than interesting because it usually means the recovery process will be more protracted.

[(Anonymous)]

Uh.

You just wrote a comment saying that everyone's experience is different and the process is not generalizable. Now you're claiming that grief is this way and not another way.


I mean, in the space of a few minutes, really?

[herpymcderp]

Read harder. Events happen one way...

and then it's up to the individual to sort out how to proceed from there

I know you can do it, I believe in you.

[(Anonymous)]

Herpy was talking about how you can't generalize grief, and then they referenced their own specific personal experience. The clue was in the phrase "I've generally found it..."

Look, if you're going to troll herpy's comments at least have the decency to read them thoroughly before you attempt to point out inconsistencies.

[herpymcderp]

Thank you for being literate, anon.

And yes, I was referencing my own experience there.

[(Anonymous)]

doesn't it smell up your own ass

[(Anonymous)]

I find this a baffling comment since so many TV programmes or radio sitcoms are all about the grieving process. The writers find the concept obviously interesting or else they wouldn't have written them.

For instance,
After Henry,
Smelling of Roses
Cucumber recently had a good section of its run devoted to grieving
It's a regular subject of soaps

And most of these are comedies!

I agree that grieving is boring and painful to have to go through in real life, but it does make for great fiction and huge potential comedy situations and it's often been mined for that.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't understand. I thought most deathfic was about the mourning afterwards? Well, that or the dying character's thoughts/experiences/afterlife. I mean, either it's about the dying character and so stops with their death (or jumps to their afterlife), or it's about the other characters and how they react to the death, ie mourning. What kinds of deathfics skip that part? Is it just ... character dies, blank shock for a bit, then everybody forgets they were there?

[(Anonymous)]

In my experience, death fics usually end very shortly after the death, maybe one or two scenes afterwards at the most, even more often they end as the dying character slips into final unconsciousness.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, almost every deathfic that I've read has been about grieving (abbreviated grief, but still). It's shows and movies that have someone die and everyone's over it quickly afterward.

[intrigueing]

I'd say it's near-impossible to write a good story about the entire grieving process, because it's not very finite, but there's absolutely no reason why a good story would need to show the entire grieving process -- that's weirdly narrow interpretation of what a story about grieving can be.

A story that has a lot of post-death grieving in it, rather than ending right after the death like most death fics do, would be great. There are plenty of good post-death stopping points for a story like that -- the first time the grieving character does something they hadn't done since before the death, the conviction or capture of the dead character's killer, or just an ambiguous non-ending that leaves off in the middle of the character's grief. Lots of variety there.

Actually, I think I have a rec -- for Data, after Tasha's death in TNG: http://sloanesomething.livejournal.com/190281.html

[(Anonymous)]

I think I've seen a fair variety of grief in fic? Depends on the fandom and the characters, but I've seen stories about the shock of disbelief and confusion and anger in the immediate aftermath of a death, I've seen stories set days/months/years later dealing with the smaller, longterm kind of grief (though I think this may be more common in reaction fics to a canon death?), and I've sometimes seen pre-emptive grieving, when the other characters know in advance that one of them will die (either through longterm illness/old age, or because they know in advance they're going to have to sacrifice their life because of circumstances). That last one gets bait-and-switched a lot, when the character is somehow saved at the end, but when done well the grief in advance still feels real.

Like I said, it depends on the fandom and the characters. I think canon deaths tend to result in more of the longer term grieving processes in fics. I've seen extreme, depressive grief being used as a hurt/comfort tool, especially when the surviving character is a fan favourite (not sure how I feel about that one, but it's sometimes done well). Survivor's guilt tends to come up a lot in various types of h/c fic. Grief for a dead loved one is also used a lot in some pairing fics, where one character had a canon spouse/lover that died, and their new lover in the story has to deal with that (again, this one is often not done well). Fics involving immortal characters have a tendency to dwell on how many people they've seen die.

I don't know. It depends where you're looking, I guess. I think for fics dealing with grief, you might have to go outside the actual deathfic itself. It's a slightly separate genre? Deathfic deals with the death as it happens. Grief fic maybe happens separately. Ah. If you're on AO3, try looking for the 'grief/mourning' tags, or a combination of 'canonical character death' and 'hurt/comfort' or 'emotional hurt/comfort'?

[(Anonymous)]

I just read an Inception fic the other day that was similar to what you might be looking for. Downpour by rageprufrock (it's Arthur/Eames). Idk.