From this author's point of view, in order to write "broken", you have to be or have been broken. For a short or long time, you had to have "been there" where everything hurt so badly you thought it might never go away. That the pain was so intense, it took your breath away, your appetite for food and everything else gone. Broken. And to capture that in words and portray it in a character or characters to allow the reader to experience the depth of such sorrow in the soul? It takes a special kind of writing. So few can do it well.
That kind of writing if done correctly is not melodrama. It feels so real, the reader has to set the book down to remind him/herself this is fiction, it's a story. But those readers know how deep that pain must be because they can feel it from the words on the pages.
Writers can do this "from a distance" to that kind of pain, but then it's just imagination. In order to convey true soul-searing pain, you have to have felt it that deep. And that is this author's opinion.
Father, above all, you know that pain. And you know when each of us experiences it. You, Holy Spirit, are the Comforter and only you can provide the kind of comfort each of us needs in the midst of that pain. Jesus, you're the Friend that sticks closer than a brother. Only you can knowingly walk alongside us when we're in that kind of pain. Thank you is never enough. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.