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Suicide and Storytelling: Writing Hope in Dark Places (Guest Post by Rocky Callen)

 Content disclaimer: discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation.


If we are writing for young people, especially about suicide, we are not just telling stories. We are shaping how someone might understand their pain or whether they choose to survive it.

 

I grew up with suicidal thoughts as a soundtrack in the back of my mind. Sometimes I could lower the volume. Sometimes I could shut it off. Other times, the words blared out of the speakers and I’d jam all the buttons hoping for relief, but the soundtrack played on, taunting. As someone who has lived with and battled depression and who has lost many loved ones to suicide, I remember seeing media that used suicide for shock value or glamorized it. It looked almost romantic in how it was portrayed, poetic in its finality.

 

 I know I have dressed it up that way in my own mind before, but that’s the problem. That’s the danger. We should not make suicide look appealing to young people in our stories.

 

            When we write for adults, we trust them to manage their consumption in a way that best serves them. We can also trust young people. However, when we write for them, we need to be mindful that, unlike adults who have years of proof that they can overcome hard and devastating moments, teens are sometimes encountering these experiences for the first time.

 

We can give them proof.
            Proof that hope exists.
            Proof that their lives matter.

 

We have devastating statistics to recognize while we navigate writing this topic for young adult audiences:

Overall, 20.4% of high school students reported having seriously considered suicide in the past year (Verlenden et al., 2024).

Overall, 40% of high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year  (CDC, 2024).

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for teens and young adults, ages 10–34 (CDC, 2023).

These statistics show the dire need for sensitive stories.

I do not believe in censorship or sugarcoating reality. In fact, teens often shove aside stories when they feel they are diluted or dishonest. But if we want to write sensitively, what we should think about is what belongs on the page and how we frame those pages so they have a positive impact on the collective conversation.

Sensitive storytelling does not…

romanticize suicide.

make it a tool for revenge.

 include it for shock value.

make suicide feel like the inevitable conclusion for trauma or mental illness.

I will not say that there aren’t good books, entertaining books, even valuable books that sometimes touch on the above. But I see too much media dive into the deep end of these things and then wonder why it has dragged people down with it.

Other Things to Consider When Writing Suicide in YA:

●      Avoid detailed (or any) depictions of method

●      Show ripple effects of loss

●      Include support systems

●      Show complexity beyond the suicidal moment

If we are writing stories that include suicide and our intention is to create a narrative that gives people an outlet, an opportunity to connect, hold their own pain, or understand someone else’s, we want to make sure that the story is…

Honest. Whether the story is centered on the person struggling or someone in proximity to the person struggling, the emotional experience should be honest, informed, and nuanced. Are you the right person to tell this story? Do you have experience or access to people who have experience who can inform your storytelling? Share the roots of the pain and the evolution of it.

Necessary. Ask yourself why you are including this in your story. What is your aim or hope with its inclusion? Is it convenient for the plot? Something to shock the reader? Does it seem trendy? If any of this is the case, I’d exit hard left. Rework. Go a different way. If, however, your aim is to help struggling kids feel less alone, show hope in desolate situations, or inspire young people to stay and seek help, then you are on track to writing a story that can help shift the statistics.

Hopeful. Young people need proof that hope exists beyond hardship and pain. This doesn’t mean the story needs a happy ending or that the conclusion needs to feel bright and neatly tied up in a bow. A Breath Too Late does not include a happily ever after, but what it does show is that there is so much life bursting at the seems worth fighting for. That was the mission of the Ab(solutely) Normal mental health anthology. Across the short story genres and themes, the core of it is that hope exists.

Dr. Sonia Patel, child psychiatrist and novelist, once said on a panel we were on together that often young people feel suicidal not because they actually want to die, but because they want the pain to stop.

Our stories can be a way to hold that pain and show that there is hope beyond it.

When I wrote A Breath Too Late, I wrote it for those who struggled like me. I wrote and held my pain honestly for the first time. I wrote this story as a way to write myself out of a dark place. I took the very things that my mind gravitated toward and followed the thread all the way through until what we saw wasn’t relief or romance, but the jarring, unfixable, undeniable truth that death would be my own tragedy.

Ellie in A Breath Too Late dies on the very first page:

Death,
As blackness eats my last sliver of consciousness, I realize
I regret.
You aren’t beautiful, free, or romantic like in all of the novels I have read. You are a girl who had no hope left, who realized, too late, she wanted to live. I thought you would save me, Death.
But you are a liar.
Just like everyone else.

I immediately tackled the thought that death would be poetic, a thought I often held.

The rest of the story retraces her steps as she figures out what led to her final day. The flashbacks and present-day experiences, as she observes the life she left behind, not only spell out the timeline and contributing factors that led to her suicide, but also show her all the moments she didn’t see.

Often when someone feels suicidal, they have tunnel vision. They can’t see the good in themselves, in the world, or in their life. The story, even with all of its pain, lingered on those moments. It showed the importance of perspective. It showed all that exists around us, even when we are too tormented to see it.

I needed this reminder as someone who kept thinking tomorrow was not something promised. A reminder that good exists and tomorrow could be better.

The last page of A Breath Too Late acknowledges that:

Life,
You were broken, often ugly, and always too much, but
you also hid promises in pockets, tucked hope under mattresses, and crammed a thousand perfect moments between the shards of sharp and treacherous ones.
I am sorry I had forgotten them.
I am sorry I didn’t even see.
And a breath too late, I realized . . .
I loved you.

Even though A Breath Too Late is a tragedy, it is, as author Alison McGhee described it, “a love letter” to life and the brokenhearted.

I mentioned that often my suicidal ideation feels like a soundtrack in my head. But with time and experience, I have been able to switch up the playlist.

As you type, remember that each word is a potential love song to your reader.
A ballad that says, “stay.”

Write on because our art can save lives. It certainly saved mine. 


Rocky Callen is a critically acclaimed author, speaker, and writing consultant. She has hosted writing workshops and retreats from Washington, D.C. to Bali and has spoken on regional, national, and international stages on writing and books, mental health, and art and social impact. 


She is the author of the YA novel A Breath Too Late, which was named a Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Year, a Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year, and was featured in The Mujerista's 2020 list of the Ten Best Young Adult Books by Latinx Authors. She was a contributing co-editor for the mental health YA anthology Ab(solutely) Normal: Sixteen Stories that Smash Mental Health Stereotypes (Candlewick).  Her latest YA novel, Crashing Into You, received two starred reviews. She recently sold her first two picture books to Simon & Schuster.


She founded HoldOn2Hope, a project that unites creatives in suicide prevention and mental health awareness. She has an MFA from the Vermont School of Fine Arts. Find out more about her at http://www.rockycallen.com.


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