7 Tips for Writing Emotion Into Your Story
Have you ever finished reading a book and walked away feeling nothing? No attachment to the characters, no joy in their success or sadness in their failings.
As a writer, this is one of my biggest fears. What if somebody reads my book and feels no emotion towards it? That’s about as large of a failure as most writers can imagine.
So how do we avoid this pitfall? How do we write emotions into our story? A difficult question, since “emotion” is a rather slippery word that is hard to define and even harder to teach people. But I think it's a question worth exploring. Ready? Okay, here we go:
1. Ask yourself why your reader should care. Before you start trying to write an emotionally engaging story, you have to know why it’s important that your readers are engaged. While the answer “Because if they aren’t engaged they won’t like my book and then I’ll never sell my stories” is a very profound and noble response, you’ll want to dig a bit deeper. Why should they care? What will they take from it? We didn’t feel sympathy for Faramir because he was in an unfair position. We were touched by his story because we witnessed that somebody can stay kind and brave through bad situations. We cheer on Black Widow, not because her past was hard, but because we like seeing that people can correct and rise above their mistakes. Do you see where I’m going with this? Give your story a few core themes that anyone can identify with. If people can’t identify with or learn from it in even a small way, they won’t care. People are just selfish like that. Sorry.
2. Be ready to be emotional yourself. If you aren’t emotionally engaged in your story, then there is no way that your readers will be. This is something that storytellers of all forms have come to recognize. I think it was best explained through the Stanislavski's system back in the early 1900’s: this actor and director taught his students to reach realism in their movies by bringing their own experiences and emotions to their roles. They were told to connect to their character and make it “alive” through their own thoughts and emotions. The same exact technique can be used for writing. Put yourself into the story and imagine what it would feel like to be this character or that character. Then write.
3. Come up with an anchor. If you are trying to write feelings into a scene, you’ll need a center emotion. All actions will come out of this center emotion. If there is more than one character in the room, then you’ll have more than one “center emotion.” Pick a word, a memory, an image, or a color that makes you feel that emotion. It will keep you focused and help prevent you from bleeding millions of emotions all over your page. When I wrote Skies of Dripping Gold , the anchor I picked for Gabriel was the picture of a man with a shattered black cloud sitting in his chest and oozing everywhere. For whatever reason, my brain connected that image with great amounts of confusion and anger and fear and determination, the very emotions I wanted Gabriel to come across as having. So whenever I wrote a scene focusing on him, that’s what I thought about. Not only did this help me accurately write his feelings, but it made the emotions so powerful that it ended up bleeding through into my readers. It’s only weird if it doesn’t work, right? Okay, everyone pretend that I didn’t just use Bud Light commercial logic to support my writing techniques.
4. Avoid being melodramatic. Say your character has just had a great triumph.We’re supposed to feel triumphant, too. But maybe you’re concerned that we won’t. So what should you do? Start talking about how the sun is pouring through the clouds and seems to pierce into his very heart, illuminating him and filling him with immeasurable triumphant-ness. Bad idea. If you feel the need to be overly enthusiastic about your emotion-painting, then you should probably look back at your story and see what went wrong. That being said, I know many writers who have made melodrama their style. That’s fine. But if you’re not a melodramatic writer and then randomly switch into melodrama, well, you have a problem.
5. Show rather than tell. As much as I hate writing rules, I think this one is pretty good as far as emotional writing goes. Don’t tell us you’re character is angry: Show her twitching right hand and the jutting out of her chin. Don’t mention the peacefulness of sitting under that tree: show us the way it’s leaves sway in the cool breeze. Don’t tell your readers about the feeling in the story, let them experience it for themselves.
6. Be concise. While you want to show your readers emotions, don’t show them too much. If a detail or emotion isn’t relevant to the scene or isn’t elemental in you moving your reader in a specific way, then cut it out.
7. Dialogue is key. In moments of heavy emotion, less dialogue is more. It’s not likely that your characters are going to sit down in a little circle and discuss their feelings. So make sure that whatever dialogue exists matters. It doesn’t have to be intelligent or even make sense: Emotions rarely do. It just has to make us feel. For example: [Warning: spoilers for Captain America: Civil War below] When Iron Man is tearing into Bucky after discovering that he killed his mother, he asks Bucky: “Do you even remember them?” Bucky could have responded in a lot of ways: “Yes, of course I do,” “Yes, and I feel so horrible and ashamed,” or “I’m so sorry, forgive me.” All of these would have been true statements, but they wouldn’t have felt right. What was his real response? “I remember all of them.” Add that to his tormented, confused, angered expression, and everybody in the audience feels like they’ve had their hearts ripped out. That, my friends, is how it’s done.
Just in case you didn't already feel sad...Writing emotions into a story is difficult work. Remember that the above are tips to help guide you: they aren’t hard and fast rules. Emotional writing is not entirely technical. Try not to overthink things. Just dive deep into your story and be ready to write hard.
And, if that doesn't work, you can always make both of your characters have mothers named Martha. Then they can scream the word "Martha" and it will be very emotional. Actually, no. Under no circumstances should you do this. Sorry Snyder.
How do you write emotions into your story? Do you find it difficult, or does it come naturally? Who are some writers that do it admirably? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Related articles: 8 Tips for Developing a Strong Theme for Your Novel11 Songs to Listen to While Writing Moving ScenesSaveSave
8 Kinds of Strength to Give Your Characters
Enjoy this post? Please share on social media and take a look around. If you like what you see, don't forget to subscribe by email for a new post every Friday!
As a writer, this is one of my biggest fears. What if somebody reads my book and feels no emotion towards it? That’s about as large of a failure as most writers can imagine.
So how do we avoid this pitfall? How do we write emotions into our story? A difficult question, since “emotion” is a rather slippery word that is hard to define and even harder to teach people. But I think it's a question worth exploring. Ready? Okay, here we go:
1. Ask yourself why your reader should care. Before you start trying to write an emotionally engaging story, you have to know why it’s important that your readers are engaged. While the answer “Because if they aren’t engaged they won’t like my book and then I’ll never sell my stories” is a very profound and noble response, you’ll want to dig a bit deeper. Why should they care? What will they take from it? We didn’t feel sympathy for Faramir because he was in an unfair position. We were touched by his story because we witnessed that somebody can stay kind and brave through bad situations. We cheer on Black Widow, not because her past was hard, but because we like seeing that people can correct and rise above their mistakes. Do you see where I’m going with this? Give your story a few core themes that anyone can identify with. If people can’t identify with or learn from it in even a small way, they won’t care. People are just selfish like that. Sorry.2. Be ready to be emotional yourself. If you aren’t emotionally engaged in your story, then there is no way that your readers will be. This is something that storytellers of all forms have come to recognize. I think it was best explained through the Stanislavski's system back in the early 1900’s: this actor and director taught his students to reach realism in their movies by bringing their own experiences and emotions to their roles. They were told to connect to their character and make it “alive” through their own thoughts and emotions. The same exact technique can be used for writing. Put yourself into the story and imagine what it would feel like to be this character or that character. Then write.
3. Come up with an anchor. If you are trying to write feelings into a scene, you’ll need a center emotion. All actions will come out of this center emotion. If there is more than one character in the room, then you’ll have more than one “center emotion.” Pick a word, a memory, an image, or a color that makes you feel that emotion. It will keep you focused and help prevent you from bleeding millions of emotions all over your page. When I wrote Skies of Dripping Gold , the anchor I picked for Gabriel was the picture of a man with a shattered black cloud sitting in his chest and oozing everywhere. For whatever reason, my brain connected that image with great amounts of confusion and anger and fear and determination, the very emotions I wanted Gabriel to come across as having. So whenever I wrote a scene focusing on him, that’s what I thought about. Not only did this help me accurately write his feelings, but it made the emotions so powerful that it ended up bleeding through into my readers. It’s only weird if it doesn’t work, right? Okay, everyone pretend that I didn’t just use Bud Light commercial logic to support my writing techniques.
4. Avoid being melodramatic. Say your character has just had a great triumph.We’re supposed to feel triumphant, too. But maybe you’re concerned that we won’t. So what should you do? Start talking about how the sun is pouring through the clouds and seems to pierce into his very heart, illuminating him and filling him with immeasurable triumphant-ness. Bad idea. If you feel the need to be overly enthusiastic about your emotion-painting, then you should probably look back at your story and see what went wrong. That being said, I know many writers who have made melodrama their style. That’s fine. But if you’re not a melodramatic writer and then randomly switch into melodrama, well, you have a problem.
5. Show rather than tell. As much as I hate writing rules, I think this one is pretty good as far as emotional writing goes. Don’t tell us you’re character is angry: Show her twitching right hand and the jutting out of her chin. Don’t mention the peacefulness of sitting under that tree: show us the way it’s leaves sway in the cool breeze. Don’t tell your readers about the feeling in the story, let them experience it for themselves.
6. Be concise. While you want to show your readers emotions, don’t show them too much. If a detail or emotion isn’t relevant to the scene or isn’t elemental in you moving your reader in a specific way, then cut it out.
7. Dialogue is key. In moments of heavy emotion, less dialogue is more. It’s not likely that your characters are going to sit down in a little circle and discuss their feelings. So make sure that whatever dialogue exists matters. It doesn’t have to be intelligent or even make sense: Emotions rarely do. It just has to make us feel. For example: [Warning: spoilers for Captain America: Civil War below] When Iron Man is tearing into Bucky after discovering that he killed his mother, he asks Bucky: “Do you even remember them?” Bucky could have responded in a lot of ways: “Yes, of course I do,” “Yes, and I feel so horrible and ashamed,” or “I’m so sorry, forgive me.” All of these would have been true statements, but they wouldn’t have felt right. What was his real response? “I remember all of them.” Add that to his tormented, confused, angered expression, and everybody in the audience feels like they’ve had their hearts ripped out. That, my friends, is how it’s done.
Just in case you didn't already feel sad...Writing emotions into a story is difficult work. Remember that the above are tips to help guide you: they aren’t hard and fast rules. Emotional writing is not entirely technical. Try not to overthink things. Just dive deep into your story and be ready to write hard.And, if that doesn't work, you can always make both of your characters have mothers named Martha. Then they can scream the word "Martha" and it will be very emotional. Actually, no. Under no circumstances should you do this. Sorry Snyder.
How do you write emotions into your story? Do you find it difficult, or does it come naturally? Who are some writers that do it admirably? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Related articles: 8 Tips for Developing a Strong Theme for Your Novel11 Songs to Listen to While Writing Moving ScenesSaveSave
8 Kinds of Strength to Give Your Characters
Enjoy this post? Please share on social media and take a look around. If you like what you see, don't forget to subscribe by email for a new post every Friday!
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