: Re: I want to write about a suicide, how should I do it? I want to have a book (or multiple) have a suicide in it, and I want to write the suicide. I don't know how exactly to go about that.

@Dunderdale623

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This is indeed a real danger if you write about suicide. The effect is known as copycat suicide or suicide contagion, and it can indeed be triggered by reading - one of the most famous early examples was The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, a novel in which the protagonist commits suicide which came out near the end of the 18th century and caused a spike of suicides among young men at the time. (You'll sometimes find the phenomenon called "The Werther effect" as a result.)

The good news is that because this is such a risk, you're not alone. If you Google "suicide depiction", "suicide depiction fiction" and the like you will find many guidelines compiled by interested parties such as mental health organizations for how to write about suicide without triggering this. A lot of them are for journalism, in order to prevent suicide clusters arising from careless reporting (example: WHO guidelines, Reporting on Suicide website), but some of the journalism advice is applicable to fiction as well. There are also some guidelines specifically for fiction, such as the Action Alliance Recommendations for Depicting Suicide or the Samaritans Guide to Depicting Suicide in Literature.

Some of the advice:

Do not show the method of suicide. (This varies from "don't depict it in detail" to "don't in any way say or allude to what the method was" in different guidelines, but basically everyone agrees that this is the big one to avoid.)
Don't show the suicide note, if there is one.
Depict it as a complex situation that was the result of multiple factors instead of caused by a single issue or event
Try to avoid portraying the suicide as having a positive outcome - bullies regretting their behaviour, estranged parents getting back together, any way in which the character gets what they want by suicide
Don't glamorize it. Don't show it as a quick, painless escape from the character's problems.
Include a content warning, but be aware this isn't a fail-safe - not everyone vulnerable to suicide contagion at that moment may be aware of it.

Of note: I haven't found anything specifically talking about the emotional depiction as of yet, but a lot of the guidelines are for journalism or movies where it wouldn't apply. My past experience as a depressed teenager leads me to think an in-depth depiction of someone deciding to kill themselves and carrying it out could also be highly dangerous - at the very least, it's the sort of thing I would have steered far away from for safety reasons when I was depressed.

In general, I urge you to do the research because there really are a lot of resources here. And regarding your specific question... I'd suggest you really think about whether showing the actual suicide is necessary for your story. You can achieve a ton of emotional impact by fading to black at certain points or using another POV, with far less risk.

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