sleeping

Yesterday afternoon was rather quiet at my house. While I was watching the Broncos game, the other animals in my house (wife, dog, and cat) were all asleep. So while there were many moments I wanted to yell a curse (probably too many of these) or cheer (at least there were more of these moments than cursible ones), I couldn't.

Zailey was the more restless of the animals trying to sleep. She first started out asleep on my wife. Eventually, she got down and then tried to sleep next to my wife's couch.

I thought that maybe a bit of the dog's restlessness was due to her needing a bathroom break. I let her out and gave her a chew stick when she came back in. Once the chew stick was gone, she went over to her plush snake toy (about 3 feet long and 5 inches in diameter) and used it as a pillow.

In each of her resting spots, Zailey would raise her head and look at me every 5 minutes or so. Maybe she was sensing my bottled emotions or something.

Writing emotion is the hardest part of writing for me. I have to make a conscious effort to add more emotion. This is something I can't bottle in.

Without emotion, my characters are dull, tension is lost, and believability is hampered. Emotion is one of the most important parts to the story (the others are characters and plot).

So unless I want my readers sleeping like the other animals in my household yesterday, I add more and more emotion to my stories. Usually it takes several edits to get the right amount in place, but it gets there before the pieces are published. Comment below if you think I succeeded in Shorts: A Collection of Stories and Dark Matter: A Collection of Stories.