Sadness in Stories

[Robinne Weiss]

This is a lovely little article about the importance of sadness in children's stories. Thought it was worth sharing, not just for the children's writers, either.

Why Children’s Books Should Be a Little Sad

 

[Paul Whybrow]

It's vital, that children are introduced to sadness and how to deal with the emotion. In recent years, Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls has assisted children in coping with bereavement, in book and film form.

It's not just young ones who need to be led by the hand through sadness. In my own writing genre of crime, I've tried to convey how my protagonist detective is saddened by the murders he investigates. He's a human being, with more than his usual share of empathy, an attribute I included as I dislike the shallow portrayal of character that happens in a lot of crime writing, where the good guy copper is an unfeeling robotic avenger.

My favourite crime authors, such as James Lee Burke, John Connolly, Michael Connelly and Henning Mankell all reveal how their heroes are troubled by the evil that's torn apart the lives of the victim's family, as well as their personal insecurities that affect mood. Some of these authors convey ongoing sorrow extremely effectively. Henning Mankell closed his Kurt Wallander series of novels about a police detective, by revealing that he'd been diagnosed with dementia. I shed a tear as I read this, suddenly appreciating how all the clues about his slow deterioration fell into place, from previous strange incidents in earlier stories.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Re children. Absolutely. 'Goodbye Mog,' by Judith Kerr. But mine refused to even contemplate reading it. So, a non-starter, lol.

Police officers with the equivalent of PTSD.

My brother was telling me how proud he was of one of his team; a young WC, who was called to a house where a man had died, been dead some days.

He had lived alone, a double amputee, and died not wearing his legs. Empty tins, empty biscuit wrappers. He had not eaten well his last days. My brother warned the young WC to stand well back when the paramedics came to remove the body. He knows what is going to happen the minute they move a dead body that's none too fresh.

He tells me he has to regard it as interesting. All very interesting, what happens to the body after death. He makes himself like stone and thinks, what is he learning here? That's how he manages the sadness. And he is completely sensible of the sadness, but cannot, as a matter of equilibrium and self preservation, afford that attrition, year in, year out, trawling ponds for murdered girls and the murderer smiling in the back of the car because he knows where there is another dead girl, but if he takes them there, they will have their hands tied by a legal technicality because due process has been breached. And if they don't, he won't tell them where she is, and the family won't get her body back.