Crying when It Hurts: How to Write with Emotional Weight Part 1

Recently, I've been writing about making your piece of writing more literary.  Of late, I've been focus on things I've learned on this subject from the League of Utah Writers conference I attended.  In one session, Angie Hodapp of the Nelson Literary Agency talked of emotional writing.  She said that moments of emotional connection are what your reader will remember. 

Hodapp highlighted emotional soft spots for readers: children, elderly people, animals, death, rites of passage, lust/love, sacrificial acts of kindness, underdogs/one against man, honor, forgiveness and redemption, separation and reunion, and hope.  She emphasized the importance of giving moments involving these emotional hot spots enough space in the story to really connect with the reader.  Other moments should be shortened, so we can heighten the impact of these moments.  She also pointed out the need to make turning points in the story emotional. 

Above all, the emotions in the story need to make sense with what is going on, according to Hodapp.   She said that the stimulus should go first then the response.   If there is a small event, there ought to be a small reaction.  If there is a major event, there ought to be a much more intense reaction.  Your reader is likely to laugh if  there is a mismatch, such as a killer covered in blood showing up resulting in an eye roll or a timid knock resulting in a shrill shriek.  She pointed out that if humor is what you're going for, this could work.  If not, make sure the response matches the stimulus. 

These seem like basic concepts, but it's always good to review the basics.  It is so important to get the emotional beats and responses right, or the reader will be jarred out of the narrative.  Once you've lost your reader, you're not likely to get him/her back.  If you want your reader to empathize with your main character, to care about your main character, they should really be able to get inside the characters head and heart understand what he/she is feeling. 

I've watched movies and read books in which I just couldn't figure out why a character was acting a certain way.  If I can't feel what the character feels and understand their emotional motivations, I'm not going to care about that character.  If I don't care, nothing else matters. 

Take a look at your story.  Have you given enough time to what is emotionally most important?  Have you glossed over the things that don't have much emotional weight?  Are the turning points emotional?  Do your character's reactions match the stimuli?  If not, it's time to fix it. 

Show and Tell Time

I've been writing about how to make your pieces more literary.  For the next few weeks, I'll be pairing that theme with experts' suggestions that I heard at the League of Utah Writers conference this last weekend.  This week's featured expert is McKelle George, author and editor of Flux Publishing. 

Authors are always being told to show not tell, but George says that the trick is to find the right balance.  Doing one or the other all the time gets boring.  Show can get confusing if there's no tell to pin it down and explain. If it's all dramatized, the reader can get lost.  If they have to infer everything without any confirmation they're right, they won't be sure what's going on.  Tell can get boring because it's simply narration.  Narration without action is summary and gets dull.  She described telling as the skeleton and showing as the soft parts.  One without the other is incomplete. 

I once read a novel that showed EVERYTHING.  The author described every moment in vivid detail.  It dragged.  I couldn't tell what was important.  It was all highlighted and got dull.  I've also read pieces where there is next to no description.  I put them down as quickly as possible because they're intolerable. 

George said good telling "marks a change, a physical jump in time or space or a subtle shift in mood that carries the reader from one emotional beat to another."  Those parts confirm what the reader infers, "directing emotional takeaways."  Meanwhile, show is useful in getting the reader to feel things, to have a "strong visceral reaction."  She says, "A novel is a series of dramatic scenes joined together by narration, which covers the passage off time."  If nothing is happening, the writer may be lovely, but the show isn't doing its job. 

It's your job as a writer to carefully review your writing to make sure that balance of show and tell is there.  If your story is dragging or confusing, work on paring back description, so you're narrating to avoid confusion.  If your character is eyeball deep in major events, show them.  Don't describe every detail of the ornate hallway on the way to the big combat, or your description of the combat will just blend in. Highlight what the reader should feel strongly about, not just what looks pretty. 

At that same conference, I had the first chapter of an early chapter book I wrote reviewed by freelance editors.  I found I'd told in all the places that I should have shown and was showing things that could just be summarized.  It can be hard to strike that balance, so it helps to get outside eyes to look at your work to see if it works. 

It's your turn.  Go and read your piece out loud.  Are there places it drags or is unnecessarily pretty?  Are there places where your reader might get lost?  Are there places where something interesting or important is happening that you haven't described?  It's time to fix it.