{"id":957,"date":"2018-07-30T21:27:49","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T01:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/dremadeoraich\/?p=957"},"modified":"2018-07-30T21:42:20","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T01:42:20","slug":"how-to-empower-authentic-emotional-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/30\/how-to-empower-authentic-emotional-scenes\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Empower Authentic Emotional Scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p> $\"\"$ I\u2019ve always poo-pooed the saying \u201cWrite what you know.\u201d Bull, I\u2019ve said. I\u2019m pretty sure Mary Shelley never built a Creature from human cadavers in her basement, yet Frankenstein has become a classic. Great writers always write things they don\u2019t know. If they can do it, so can the rest of us.\n

It only recently occurred to me that there\u2019s another way to read that statement. What if \u201cWrite what you know\u201d is about descriptions (like the beach details from last week), or a city layout, or \u2013and here\u2019s where it hooks into this week\u2019s post\u2014feelings and emotions?<\/p>\n

Almost everyone has been in love. Has been angry, even pissed beyond all reckoning. Has lost something or someone close to them whether to circumstance or to Death. Has achieved something they worked their butts off for, and damn well deserved. Just about any emotion I could mention, you\u2019ve likely felt it numerous times in your life.<\/p>\n

So why is it so hard to write scenes with deep emotion?<\/p>\n

Because putting those very personal feelings into words and then exposing them to the world is hard. It\u2019s scary. It makes you vulnerable. Doesn\u2019t matter. If you want to pluck your readers\u2019 heartstrings, you gotta face that dragon.<\/p>\n

In a recent critique class, a fellow student\u2014 Natalie\u2014submitted a chapter from her work in progress wherein three teenaged girls are in a horrific car accident which leaves one of them dead. I\u2019d read this segment of Natalie\u2019s manuscript before, and each time the feedback from other students and the teacher confirmed what I felt myself: that the accident scene left me cold, and not in a good way. I just didn\u2019t feel the horror, the anguish, the terror, the pain, the shock. This time, however, the teacher said to Natalie, \u201cI know it\u2019s going to be hard, but you\u2019re going to have to relive your own accident if you want to get this right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natalie had an accident? Wow. I never knew. She told me later that she plans to go back to the scene of the crash, look back through all the photos of her devastating injuries and relive it so that she can inject her own experience into the scene. She knows it will be difficult, upsetting, traumatic. But nobody ever said writing great fiction would be easy.<\/p>\n

Another person in the class described using the death of her own sister, the unresolved issues between them and the persistent anger that followed to inform a similar death and lingering anguish in her own work. As she spoke about it in the class, her tone, expression, posture, body language, everything changed. Clearly, she said, I still harbor some resentment in this issue. It shows in her story.<\/p>\n

So if you want your reader to surf the waves of your character\u2019s emotions, you have to \u201cbleed on the page.\u201d If you don\u2019t feel it, neither will the reader.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t just say, \u201cJane was sad that her cat Buttons died.\u201d You have to show us her anguish, her memories of bonding with the lost feline, or how saving the kitten from the shelter saved Jane from suicide. Make us feel how empty Jane\u2019s house will be now, without Buttons to greet her at the door every day. If you\u2019ve ever lost a pet, you know the hole left in your life by their passing. Draw on that. Use your memory of that sadness to describe Jane\u2019s grief and how she mourns.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t just tell us Jane is in love. Show us how she misses her subway stop because she\u2019s daydreaming about her new partner, or texting them. Show us how Jane sings in the shower, even though she\u2019s never done it before and can\u2019t carry a tune in a bucket and doesn\u2019t care if anyone hears. Show us how she\u2019s eager to get out of bed in the morning because she knows she\u2019ll see her lover after work. Don\u2019t just tell us her heart is full. Fill our hearts with Jane\u2019s joy, and we\u2019ll feel it too.<\/p>\n

Whenever you write any scene where emotion is key, put yourself in Jane\u2019s skin. (Ewww!) Think with her brain, but use your own experience to feed hers. Maybe you have gone through something similar to Jane\u2019s situation, as Natalie had with the character in her story. That\u2019s personal gold right there. Mine it, painful thought it might be, for every nugget of drama or trauma that can inform your scene. Then filter it through Jane\u2019s point of view to put your reader in Jane\u2019s skin, too.<\/p>\n

When Jane is angry, does her skin get hot? Her face flushed? Does she grind her teeth and spit her words? Does she cuss like a sailor? Is she vengeful?<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

When she\u2019s sad, does she cry? Retreat? Does she refuse to face whatever made her sad? Stay busy until the pain recedes? Wallow?<\/p>\n

When she\u2019s afraid, does her heart race? Does her breathing grow shallow? Does her mouth go dry? Does she tremble? Get goosebumps? Grow cold?<\/p>\n

Another trick to find different ways of demonstrating the expression of emotion is to ask other people in your life how they feel inside in emotional moments. Poke them until they give you all the gory, embarrassing details, and write them down. Call on those lists when you\u2019re writing an emotional scene.<\/p>\n

You can also check out the Emotion Thesaurus<\/a>, by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman. The authors also co-host a website with Lee Powell, creator of Scrivener for Windows, on One Stop for Writers<\/a>, where writers can access the Emotion Thesaurus and other resources online. A few features are free for visitors, but if you want full content, you\u2019ll need to subscribe.<\/p>\n

Robert Frost said, \u201cNo tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.\u201d You can make your reader cry, or laugh, or scowl, or gasp, or tremble.<\/p>\n

In fact, that\u2019s your job. Be the best at it you can be.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weeping photo by Karen_Nadine<\/a>. Fist photo by WenPhotos<\/a>. Pictures courtesy of Pixabay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"