Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

I couldn’t quite wake up this morning so I did what I usually do on days where I don’t actually have to get up and get going. I stayed in bed, thinking about my stories. I read reviews from my friends here on LJ. I read them in my groups on Goodreads and I’ll look at them at my various book buying sources. One thing I see often is the complaint of ‘I couldn’t get emotionally involved’ or ‘the characters were emotionally flat.’ That is something that I would like to avoid.


In some ways, I do think I can evoke emotions pretty well. I look at my fanfiction and at the various original characters I create for them. Ignoring the people who won’t even read a story if it has an OC (not every OC is a Mary Sue/Gary Stu in spite of what some people think), I look at my reviewers and more often than not I have managed to make them like (or hate) my OC’s. That tells me I’m doing something right. I’m emotionally involving my reader.

The scenes that played over in my head this morning were emotionally charged. I should only hope to be able to write them with the same emotional fervor as I imagine them. (Also the book says it’s actually two books at which point I started rolling my eyes at the characters). In just thinking about the scenes, my eyes welled up. I want that same reaction in my readers.

The question becomes how best to capture that. Can I make my readers cry when appropriate? In my sex scenes can I get them to at least think it’s hot if not outright arousing? Can I make them angry at the villains (or at the heroes’ not-so-smart choices)? Can I do any of this without it feeling like a cheat or that I’ve contrived things to purposely cant the emotions one way or the other.

It’s hard enough to put emotions into words. It’s harder still to describe how to write emotionally impacting scenes. I’m not really sure how I go about it. I think part of the trick is to have characters people will care about it (most often if I put a book down it’s because I either didn’t care about the characters or the writing style annoyed me). Give those characters something to care about themselves. If they care, hopefully the reader will too.

Taking some of the more recent stories I’ve been working on I have a whole range of emotions I want and need to work with. For example:

Until the Ice Breaks - Makai has to deal with the feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. Being a teenager, he feels them acutely and hopefully is something that will resonate with the readers.

Splinters of Silver and Cold Iron - Killian is dealing with the shame of abuse and the feelings of guilt of not doing more to stop his attackers.

Beneath the Torn Sky - Placid has to deal with the loss of a leg and the deep impact it had on him as he realizes he has used it as an excuse to isolate himself from those he loved.

The unnamed story I was thinking about this morning has a protagonist who knows in spite of all he’s been doing to right the wrongs of his teenaged years, in the end he will probably be charged as a war criminal and put to death. (This is one I’m thinking of doing for nano this year). Hopefully by that time the readers will have liked him well enough that this will have a big impact.

How do you all deal with imbuing your work with emotion?

Still trucking away at the hapless space pirate story. I’m no longer worrying about it being too long. If it is, I’ll just market it to the ebook novella publishers.

Yearly word count -

28301 / 125000 words. 23% done!

Comments

[marynachaotica.livejournal.com]

Well when I wrote my book years ago I got into the heroine's head...examined her life and how it motivated her actions, words and interactions with those around her. I made myself the heroine and walked through everything through her eyes. It's exhausting, to say the least, however you get the desired impact.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

sounds like a good way to do it

[marynachaotica.livejournal.com]

If you haven't tried that method, give it a whirl!

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

All the scenes I struggle with and rewrite over and over are the emotional scenes. It's so hard to get the words pitch-perfect to convey the feeling you want the scene to have. All I can say is that you have to know exactly what emotion you want to project, and avoid cliches like the plague. Nothing flattens a mood like stereotypes and cliches, even if they're perfectly sound ones. And if the characters aren't well-drawn and involving, readers aren't going to relate to or care about their joys and sorrows anyway, so I guess dimensional characters are really the key to this thing.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I guess dimensional characters are really the key to this thing.

Agreed. If a character is nothing more than a walking cliche, I'm not going to be invested in that character. Even if I'm reading fanfic and someone's writing a character I like, if they're not giving me at least what I've seen of this character before, I'm going to stop reading. If the writer can give me what I've seen before plus uncover something else, that's way more better.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

no argument. Having depth to characters is a key element and a conversation, perhaps, for next week.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I think it'd be a great discussion - what makes a character well-rounded enough that people are going to invest in that character?

Particularly when sometimes, in a first person POV, we're only seeing what the narrator is telling us?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

good point. I think that's one of the things a lot of people don't like about first person, we only get alimited perspective

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

It depends on the story, definitely. Even limited POV can be constraining (I constantly wanted to know what was happening to other people besides Harry in the HP novels).

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

this is also true

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

agreed. If the characters are flat no one will care. Even a cliche might be forgiven if there is some depth to the character otherwise.

But yes, emotions are very hard to capture with words.

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

I think writing affecting and effective emotional scenes depends a great deal in the writer's understanding of that character, which speaks to the writer's skill in understanding people, period. Writers with an intuitive, or at least informed, grasp of human personalities will write their characters believably. They won't break character and have a character they've presented as stoical get all mushy, or a warm-hearted character inexplicably fail to react to a friend's misfortune. Emotional reactions will be true to the characters' personalities. Readers resent being presented with plot puppets who break down or carry on with a stiff upper lip at the author's whim instead of being true to who they are. You've complained numerous times about supposedly intelligent characters who inexplicably turn stupid when an author needs to hide a plot point. That's a flashing neon example of plot puppetry right there.

I know writers on contract timelines get rushed and sometimes force the events in their stories, but to do it consistently is hack writing. There is so much power in a brave, strong character finally breaking down in tears, or a reserved, serious one showing a glimpse of pure joy, that it's a shame more stories don't contain honest characters and honest writing. There's nothing that shows a writer's skill more than writing characters that ring true.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

so very well said. There's nothing more I can add to this (other than to say YOU are probably the one who should be writing the writing posts).

contract timelines are a pain in the ass. Right now I feel my space pirate story is SO rushed in the romance dept. next time the two people already know each other and are rekindling it. Damn it, plot gets in my way every time.

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the romance-from-scratch thing. That's exactly what's giving me such hell in my first Toshi/Maru story. Falling in love and establishing a relationship is such a complex process, it's way too easy to make it pat, flat and unconvincing if you leave out any of the choreography.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

and in erotica short stories you HAVE to leave it.

hell even in the novels I've caught hell for you know actually building up to it instead of having the romance standard of one glance and the 'omg I MUST have you now '

[silvrethorn.livejournal.com]

Actually, where two men are involved, it probably _is_ one glance and "OMG I must have you!" It's not universal by any means, but lots of men do fuck with their eyeballs instead of their hearts (or brains). Women complicate things.

Actual relationships, however, as opposed to one-night stands, are a whole other kettle of fish. Erotica has its own standards, and relationship-building isn't part of it. Erotica is geared to the fast and easy kill.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

snort, well yes there is that with men.

Even romances which are SUPPOSD to be for the long haul still have that immediate attraction deal written into the contract. Oh well.

At least the next time I write Templ, Caleb & Agni they WILL be established so I can write whatever and have as much erotica upfront as I want

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Getting into the emotion of the character is often very easy for me (although occasionally somewhat draining); when I'm writing an emotional scene, I like to get as deep into the head of who I'm writing as possible, sometimes to the point of crying and shakes. I say "easy," in that it's never been something I've had trouble with, but it's not something I could ever explain easily.

Emotions are the easy part for me, maybe because I am myself a very emotional person; finding the right place for these emotions are the harder thing. And I've been told my emotional scenes are "over the top" even when it's been something I actually experienced myself infused into my writing (in fact, those are usually considered the worst!).

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I think you and I approach this in a similar manner (and yes it is hard to put this into words isn't it).

I was upset the whole morning over what I plan to do to these poor characters. But on the flip side is what you just mentioned, being over the top.

I hear that more with my male characters yet to be honest, watching fights, watching Cops and the like, men DO cry when they're confronted not as easily as women but they do cry (something male readers seem conditioned to deny)

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I was recently told it was over the top for Sean Patrick to cry, but seriously -- that's the kind of guy he is, extremely emotional. I obviously need to write some of my other male characters, who are not as obviously emotionally driven as SP is to show that "tears shining in SP's eyes" is pretty much right in character.

But you won't catch MATT crying in such a circumstance! And Matt does like watching the fights and NASCAR, but he also likes cats. Every guy is different, just like every woman is.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

exactly. I think that's one of the more annoying critiques 'guys dont' do that' um yeah well the ones I've known would/have done so.

Everyone is different and to be honest I expect SP to cry, Matt not so much so. Ditto Killian, he's more easily moved, Vito and Ben not really

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Those kind of critiques are the hardest to fight. I write a lot of male characters and have always felt a stronger affinity to my male characters than my female ones, and on the whole, my male readers seem to like my male characters, but once in a while I get that "guys don't do that" from some uptight fellow, which always throws me for a spin.

And I definitely see Killian crying, but Ben being the kind of guy who says "guys don't do that."

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah you and I are very much the same here. I have no idea why I shoudl feel stronger affinity to my male characters but I do.

Ben probably would. Vito definitely would even though he KNOWS better, seeing any number of perps cry and purposefully had made them do it

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I've found that in expressing character's emotions, either from a third- or first-person point of view, that it helps if I describe how the emotion feels physically to the person having it. That often relies on metaphors, but if the reader has felt that way, they feel it again when reading about the character feeling it.

If I am in the POV of one character and it's another character feeling the emotion, I again go back to description--what a person looks like, how they behave when they are feeling the emotion. Again, it's about getting the reader to feel the way they would feel if they saw someone's face, body language, etc during that other person's emotion.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

metaphor is a really interesting way to try and capture the emotional pov.

I like the use of body language in this effort too. The one thing though, is that I find myself repeating myself with the body language. It's something I really notice in rewrites.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

OMG, me too. I have to brain storm ways to express similar emotions without having people behave the same way over and over again. Even if they might in real life, if the two descriptions are too close together in the book, it makes you look vocabulary-challenged.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes indeed.

I also need tohave people stop 'looking' at stuff. it gets to the point of ridiculousness

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

"Look" is the most common verb in my writing. When I get close to the final draft of my old novel or a TD episode, I always did a search on the word "look" and tried to replace at least half of them with another word.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

same here. Kind of relieved to know I'm not alone.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

When you actually observe people interacting with each other, most of it is talking heads not doing much except staring at each other. Makes sense. You have to be real creative to make a common yip-yap interesting.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

good point

[spiderling.livejournal.com]

I often imbue my characters with extremes of my own emotions and opinions. And I have gotten into the habit of writing in the questions the characters are asking themselves.

But when I say extremes of my own emotions I don't man that my characters are throwing themselves around the room and weeping. I just put a finer point on some of the things I've felt or my own personal attitudes.

I don't write- at least I hope I don't- melodrama. I used to. When I was a moody teen all my characters were ubertragic. As I've gotten older I've pulled back a lot.

I think I write in TOO much the physical feeling of feelings. For me every emotion I have hits in the intestinal tract- literally and metaphorically so I end up with that. And I have had the experience of hot and cold sweats and sinking feelings. I'm hoping I can edit better.

In a first draft I write whatever.

I also and up writing a lot less than I think I will. When I come to an emotional scene I think will be epic because I've been planning what the characters will say for so long- Inevitably the scene is half as long as I think and the dialog half what I wanted them to say. But that's fine. I think it's better. Big emotional scenes can wear out quickly. The story needs to move on.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Big emotional scenes can wear out quickly. The story needs to move on.


This is another very good point. Overdoing it serves no one.

As for too much physical feelings, some of it is good, too much well too much is usually never that good. I did recently read a very good mystery but it did have too many references to his 'waters bowels' every time he got scared.