: Re: How can I emphasize the horror of a ritual without getting too overly graphic? A person is born with a certain amount of mana, which increases with age and peaks at a certain point. Individuals

@Hamaas631

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Don't describe the scene, describe the reaction to the scene.

There is no need to explicitly "show" any more graphic details than you choose to. Simply focus on the most important thing in the scene: the reader's portal to the scene itself, which is the character through whose eyes they are experiencing it. The literary version of the movie trick where an awful scene is going on, and the director reverses the shot and shows us nothing but the face of the actor reacting to what must be going on. Our imaginations fill in the rest with worse things than the director is probably capable of showing.

In a novel, this is primarily done through showing us the characters' emotional reaction to whatever is happening. Snippets of stream of consciousness, explaining their feelings, etc, all serve to very effectively transmit the horror without needing to tediously explain the entire tableau. In fact, a grisly magical ceremony is likely to be very detailed, with a lot going on, and if you simply tried to describe the scene itself, in all it's gory detail, it would most likely come across as boring. You can only read so many details of anything, even blood and guts, before it becomes a list and your eyes glaze a bit.

On the other hand, if we relate to the characters in some way, just showing their emotional turmoil is itself almost enough to elicit a similar reaction in the reader if done properly.

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