Where's the Emotion
A certain "friend" sits over my shoulder when I write. Now, she
sits there figuratively, not literally, but she always says,
"Dig deeper. Let me see and feel the emotion." She reads some
more before asking, "Where's the emotion? Don't skim the
surface. Let me feel what your character felt."
"But it hurts to feel the emotion enough to share it," I
complain.
"Well (actually she used a stronger word, but I don't), do you
really want to be a writer? Then write so the reader
feels." She leans back and folds her arms, daring me to
be a writer.
Yes, Jessie, I think I've learned that lesson well by now.
However, the stuff I read doesn't show the emotion often. The
writer doesn't really do more than scratch the surface of the
emotion or emotions needed. I find myself repeating your mantra,
"Where's the emotion?"
"The sunset was beautiful." Huh? What does that mean? What does
beautiful mean? Where is the emotion the writer wants to share
by using the word beautiful?
"The golden rays of the sun melted into shades of rose with
tinges of orange. The glory sent tingles up my spine." Do those
words give more depth? Can you, the reader, better understand
what beautiful means?
"She was sad." Sad? I can be sad when I break my favorite vase,
but what I feel as I gaze at the pictures of my missing
grandchildren is a sorrow so overwhelming that I feel as if a
hole is gaping in my chest. The pain is so intense that I
actually grab my chest and gasp with the sharp agony.
Showing the emotion is difficult because a writer must feel the
emotion first. When I write of the loss of my youngest child, I
have to relive that experience. When I write about facing the
fact that my husband may not be with me much longer, I have to
feel and then put into the words the horror I am facing.
However, through my experiences, I can give the emotions of my
fictional characters life.
Ah, but you say you've never experienced anything like death or
extreme pain. When a writer hasn't personally experienced the
emotions she is trying to desribe, then she must use
imagination.
So many times I stood in front of high school students
explaining how they could take events in their lives and expand
those experiences to become descriptions in their writings. If
they needed to write about sorrow, I would ask them to think
about the saddest thing that ever happened to them and then
remember how they felt, really go back and relive that feeling.
Then they were to expand and exaggerate that emotion, put it
into words. If someone had never suffered the death of a loved
one or even a pet, I'd ask if they had a friendship break up or
a friend move away. If so, use that and imagine that it was a
worse loss.
I was able to do that when writing about fictional characters,
but when it came to writing the emotions I lived, I failed.
That's when my shoulder-sitter entered the picture, poking and
prodding, making me dig and feel and write. "Give me the details
of what you felt, what controlled you at the time." So I dug
deep into my memories and put them out for others to experience
with me.
So where's the emotion in your writing? You may experience
discomfort and even pain as you put those in-depth feelings into
words for others to read, but the result is good writing.