Stories and Feelings
Many stories are a journey of feeling for a story's audience. As
characters overcome or pass through various obstacles to get
what they want, they pass through stages of feeling, and readers
who identify with these characters or become invested in what
happens to them, share these feelings.
This makes a story different than real life, where many people
struggle to access their true feelings, feel a need to take
drugs to mute or control their feelings, or feel unable to
express or experience feelings.
Some writers struggle with writing about feelings because they
tend to be thoughtful and reflective, waiting until after an
experience to process their feelings. Writers who deal with
their feelings with detached reflection tend to create story
characters who deal with their feelings with detached
reflection, often off-stage and out of sight of a story's
audience. The story's audience gets an objective report about a
character's feelings, but does not get to share those feelings
in their most immediate and potent form.
The very creative process that helps fuel storytelling,
thoughtful reflection and an ability to visualize the creation
of a story world, lends itself to storytelling being an
objective process (watch the movie in your head and write down
the details). The trap for some writers is that when they draw
on their own experiences from life to create objective portraits
of characters, they experience these objective portraits
subjectively. Think of this in the context of someone else's
home movies. To you that collection of stills of a Hawaii
vacation might include some great shots of beaches but, since
you aren't on them, so what? But, to the creators of these home
movies, each picture helps them relive, re-feel, the experience.
It's the job of the storyteller to help his or her audience
experience that beach in Hawaii, what it feels like, and to
suggest a story-like purpose to being on that beach (that
something is in need of resolution and fulfillment).
I'm not suggesting there isn't a place and purpose for objective
writing. Hemmingway, for example, appears to be writing in an
objective fashion, but he is always direct and immediate about
creating a subtext for what the action of a story means, both to
a character and to a story's audience.
Writing feelings that connect with actions and suggest a
dramatic purpose is a skill that some writers need to study and
learn.