The Hidden Craft of Writing Grief

I’ve been reading the Oscar-nominated screenplays since we put them on the site last week. As I was reading Hamnet, a profound story about grief, I realized there really aren’t any monologues or speeches about grief. There aren’t characters delivering long explanations of what loss is or means to them. Too often grief scenes collapse into characters explaining their pain instead of embodying it.

Instead, the Hamnet script does something much harder. It writes the feeling in a way that the reader feels grief through the actions of the characters. It’s one thing to tell someone, “I’m sad. I’m grieving. I’m lost.” It’s another to express that grief through the actions a character portrays. Today, let’s break down the Hamnet script to uncover a set of tools for writing emotional scenes and trusting your reader to make them stand out. 

The Action Lines Carry The Emotion

As you read the Hamnet screenplay, you’ll notice that much of the emotional weight is embedded in the action lines. There aren’t any cathartic confessions or declarations of feeling. The script leans into exploring grief in a way that allows the reader to comprehend and understand it without being told what to feel.

Make note of what characters do when they have nothing left to say. Keep an eye out for details like hands touching objects that once felt ordinary, moments of stillness and physical proximity to other characters without any connection remaining. The writing in Hamnet resists emotional labeling. You won’t find lines that summarize inner states or emotions, such as “she is devastated” or “he is shattered.” Instead, the script describes behavior with a specificity that allows us to see that a character is grieving.

For example, after Hamnet’s death, Agnes grips his hand and listens for something that never comes. On page 76, it reads:

There’s no line explaining how she feels. The grief is entirely behavioral. We get touch, pressure, and listening.

In another example, Agnes prepares her son’s body after his death. On page 77, it says:

Then on page 78: 

Again, she isn’t articulating her sadness. The ritual action is the emotion.

In these examples, grief shows up as a pause that lingers, a character sitting where someone used to sit, a gesture that stops halfway and is interrupted.

Don’t write the feeling when you can write the symptom. When you describe the action of what a grieving person does, you allow the reader to experience the emotion rather than be told about it. And that makes it much more powerful.

Trust The Reader: An Exercise

If you’re writing an emotional scene, ask yourself a simple question: Where is the emotion living on the page?

Is it in dialogue that explains it? Or is it in a character's behavior that reveals it?

Try this exercise.

1. Take a scene where a character experiences something painful.
2. Cut any line where they name the emotion directly.
3. Remove the sentence that summarizes what the moment means.
4. Then add one precise physical action in the action description. A gesture. A task. Anything. Something small and concrete.

You may find that the scene grows quieter but heavier.

Hamnet reminds us that the most powerful emotional writing doesn’t perform the feeling, it embodies it. It's trust that if you show us the behavior clearly enough, the audience will do the rest.