: Describing a Traumatic Silence I am finishing a short story by describing how the silence of a deceased character is more unnerving than that character's cries before he died. Is there a simile

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Consider putting in blank lines and/or many spaces between words to represent the silence. That makes the reader read “silence” and experience it along with the character. It is a fairly common poetry technique but is also used in prose.

Example:

he breathed and breathed and then

nothing

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I'd call this "The silence of the lambs". While recent, this simile has wormed it's way into many heads.
Reference: www.imdb.com/title/tt0102926/

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You could mention that it's like a beating heart being ripped from someone's chest. One second beating, the next silent and still.

There's something conclusive about dead silence. When a dying person cries, there's still hope for survival but in the silence that follows death, it's a hopeless black void.

The silence symbolizes the shift from life to death.

You could describe it as "jarring". Like the shock of a bucket of ice water being poured over your head. I think "unnerving" fits pretty well too.

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Silence itself can be unnerving.
A ghostly slice or emptiness can be eerie. Or perhaps the calm after a tornado surrounded by the visual display of destruction.

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