"For of all sad words
of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these:
'It might have been!'"
-- John Greenleaf Whittier
1. Sadness and crying
are linked in most people's minds. Select one of your characters or create
a new one for this exercise. Make them sad. Nothing in particular has happened.
Rather, the character just happens to be overcome by a sadness or melancholy.
Write a scene that does not use crying as an expression of sadness. Give
the reader fresh images and fresh language to evoke the emotion.
2. Using the same character
as above, or simply the same situation (a character suddenly melancholy
with no inciting incident), use crying to express the sadness.
3. Try to explain sadness.
Picture yourself talking to someone from another world who has no concept
of the emotion. You may need to do this several times before you find a
description that rings true for you.