WRITING THE EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER
By Joan Kilby © 2011
Slide 1
Women read romance for the emotion. Through romance novels we experience vicariously the thrilling highs and angst-filled lows of falling in love.
As writers, our job is to make that emotional experience as varied, interesting, exciting and intense as possible.
How do we achieve this peak emotional experience? By building in emotion from the very foundations of the story right through to the last polished sentence.
I’ll take you through the process. Slide 2
Starting with the big picture, the three main elements for injecting emotion into your story are: Emotionally charged premise, emotionally-based conflict and characters who are passionate about their goals and beliefs.
1. EMOTIONALLY CHARGED PREMISE Slide 3
Life-altering situations like birth, death and marriage give rise to big emotions -- joy, grief, love, guilt, revenge, desire, hate, etc.
Romance hooks like secret babies, unexpected pregnancies and marriages of convenience work because they plumb deep feelings. They’re true to real life. If they weren’t, these stories wouldn’t be so compelling. Women do have babies they don’t tell the father about. They do get pregnant unexpectedly. While marriages of convenience aren’t common nowadays, they were in historical times. Even in modern times there’s the green card marriage.
Whichever hook you use, the more deeply personal the premise, the stronger will be the emotional content of the story.
I took a sample of some of the stories from my bookshelf and distilled them down to their premise. Heroine wants a baby, hero wants to settle down, heroine looking for acceptance, secret baby, heroine in love with childhood sweetheart, unrequited love.
Even if a book features a vampire hero or a billionaire sheik, the core story is based on universal emotions everyone can relate to.
Using a few basic premises we can write a million different stories.
2. REALISTIC, EMOTION-BASED CONFLICT Slide 4
The stronger, and more personal the conflict, the more passionately the characters are going to feel, and the bigger will be the obstacles keeping them apart.
My heroine, Lexie, in TWO AGAINST THE ODDS is 38 years old and accidentally falls pregnant to Rafe. Because she desperately wants to have a child she decides to keep the baby. Rafe is twelve years younger and has just begun to follow his dream, career-wise. He’s absolutely not ready to settle down and have children. These two have goals they’re passionate about but which are diametrically opposed.
Conflict doesn’t mean they hate each other or are arguing all the time. Lexie loves Rafe. She doesn’t want to mess up his life nor does she want an unwilling father for her child. And Rafe loves her. He wants to do the right thing but every atom of his being rebels against being trapped by circumstances.
Emotional conflict (or inner conflict) arises from backstory. Lexie had an abortion when she was seventeen. Deep down, she believes she doesn’t deserve to have a child but at the same time she desperately wants one. In Rafe’s case, he watched his father grow into a bitter man when an accident left him a paraplegic and forced him to give up his career aspirations. It’s important that Rafe not look selfish so I cast his attitude from the effect he would have on his child. He wants to be with Lexie but he’s afraid he won’t be a good father if the baby means he has to give up his dreams.
So these are deeply personal conflicts.
Conflicts based around property or money issues work less well because they’re too abstract. If economic factors play a role in the story, make sure that they’re tied to a heart-tugging problem in the hero or heroine’s backstory.
To illustrate, let’s look at a workshop given by Silhouette Desire author Naomi Horton.
In her example, the heroine wants to protect an old abandoned church in her town. The hero wants to tear it down to build a shopping mall. Here’s how Naomi Horton made a developer versus conservationist story personal. Slide 5 Dig Deep
Level 1 The conflict is external.
The heroine loves old buildings and wants the heritage of her community maintained. This isn’t strong conflict as there's not much personal emotion involved. So we dig a little deeper.
Level 2 Create a personal investment for the character.
"What if" her grandfather had been the pastor of this church so it has great sentimental value to her and to her family? That’s more personal. But is it enough to make the saving the church a worthy goal, with the motivation needed to create strong conflict and to bring about character growth? Let's dig even deeper.
Level 3 Deep internal conflict.
"What if" every woman in her family has been married in this church, including the heroine? But her husband died 3 years ago and she hasn't yet come to terms with his death.
Now the church isn’t just a heritage building. It’s a symbol of the heroine’s family, her love, her past, and her deceased husband. Her fierce attachment to it shows that she hasn't been able to move on with her life. Having it torn down to be replaced by something new, something that means nothing to her, would mean having to admit that it's time to leave the past behind and learn to love again.
Now the fate of the church becomes an active, emotional conflict between the hero and heroine in the present day.
The message is, dig deep. Find that emotional depth in your characters’ backstories.
Slide 6
Writing Exercise #1. Imagine these two are your hero and heroine in a scenario from your book. Based on her (or his) inner conflict, what’s going through her mind? What is she feeling?
Let’s talk now about characters, the third major building block of emotional stories.
3. WELL-DEVELOPED, SYMPATHETIC CHARACTERS
Slide 7
If your reader knows your characters and can identify with them, especially the heroine, then she will feel the emotions the characters experience as if they’re happening to her, almost before you even show it on the page. She'll experience vicariously what the hero and heroine are feeling whether it’s anger, joy, hate or love.
Beginning a story with a highly-charged emotional scene rarely works because until the reader knows the characters, she's not going to care very much about what happenings to them.
Instead, concentrate on developing three dimensional, sympathetic characters who experience real emotions that the reader can relate to. When the reader knows the characters she'll care about them.
Who Are Your Hero and Heroine? Slide 8
What significant events occurred during the past to shape their lives? Who has helped make them into the people they are today? What holds meaning for them? What makes them get emotional and tear up? What makes them laugh?
What do your characters want more than anything? Make their goals matter. If the heroine is striving for something deeply important to her, she’s going to feel passionate about getting it, and devastated at setbacks. She’s up and down on the rollercoaster. But if she’s ambivalent or only so-so about reaching her goal, why would the reader care if she attains it or not?
What makes a goal important to a character? Anyone? When it’s deeply personal, when it strikes at the heart of who he is.
For example, my hero in IN HIS GOOD HANDS, Brett, is an ex-football player. He wants to start a gym and applies to the heroine, Renita, for a bank loan. Uh oh, this is about money. No, it’s not. Their relationship is already personal because of these two knew each other in high school. He was the popular jock, she was the nerdy girl who suffered unrequited love. That was a start but I needed to make his desire to succeed in his business vital to his inner happiness, not just a way to make a living. I turned to his backstory for clues.
Slide 9 The flipside of happiness is fear and vulnerability. As a teenager Brett felt as if Renita, who tutored him in math, didn’t respect him because he did poorly in school. Even though he was the popular one, he craved her approval. Similarly, he’d always felt inferior to his older brothers who both were good at math and later had successful careers in finance. So his goal isn’t really about money but about self-worth.
What are your characters’ inner conflicts? What are their vulnerabilities? What do they fear emotionally?
Heroes don’t like being vulnerable. Brett was determined to succeed at business. Showing a character’s vulnerability in conjunction with his desire to overcome his weaknesses makes the reader care and creates emotional complexity.
Slide 10 Vulnerable but strong = appealing.
The pro-active component is important. No one likes a passive character. We all cheer for the battler.
Dr. Brene Brown, a researcher in social work spent ten years studying how human connections work. She gave a talk on Ted.com about connection and vulnerability.
Slide 11
“The thing that stops people feeling love and belonging is the belief that they’re not worthy of it. That if people know this thing about you, they won’t love you.”
Slide 12
“Vulnerability is the willingness to say I love you first. To do something with no guarantees.”
Characters don’t get to that place, which Brown calls “the birthplace of joy, creativity, love and belonging” right away. Getting there, is in essence, the emotional journey our characters go on in a romance novel.
Writing exercise #2: Slide 13
Write a short paragraph in your hero or heroine’s pov. Show him/her in a vulnerable situation. What does he do to either hide his vulnerability or overcome it?
Characters aren’t just a bundle of quivering raw emotion.
Give your characters a life.
Their inner conflict needs to be woven in with the small things of daily life. Give the reader enough details so that the characters feel like real people. For example, favorite foods or pet peeves or the special items they keep on their dresser. The more the reader feels she knows the characters, the greater her investment in the couple’s emotional journey.
Slide 14 Personal objects can be significant to the emotional story.
In IN HIS GOOD HANDS, Brett notices a toy Pluto he gave Renita when they were in high school still on her bedroom shelf. This tiny detail conveys much. Brett knew Renita loved dogs, and he cared about getting the right gift for her. The fact that she kept it reveals how deeply she cared--and still cares--about him. In turn, he’s touched that she’d saved it all those years. He’s given women diamonds they’ve valued less. They talk about the toy a little but not much. They don’t need to. Both of them--and the reader--know what the presence of that toy on her bookshelf means after ten years.
There is loads of emotion in those few paragraphs-- the heroine’s vulnerability, the way she’s carried a torch for him all her life, the lack of true love in the hero’s life and the old bond between them. I wouldn’t have gotten the same mileage out of a souvenir she’d picked up on a recent holiday with her girlfriends. In fact, I wouldn’t have got any mileage at all. My editor would have cut it if I hadn’t first.
Slide 15 Strong Characters Challenge Each Other
The emotional temperature shoots up when strong, contrasting characters challenge and test each other. When a character is forced out of his or her comfort zone their emotions will be in turmoil.
Dating scenes, coffee scenes and getting-to-know you scenes are, in general, boring, unless there is something else going on, some emotional subtext. If the characters are getting along and having a pleasant time, the emotional temperature is tepid.
Strong characters push each other’s buttons. They provoke an emotional response from each other. If the other person sends their blood pressure soaring there will be emotional intensity galore.
This doesn’t mean they dislike each other or that they’re constantly bickering. They can recognize the other’s good qualities and still be at odds when it comes to their goals. So every time you show their attraction, try to hint at the underlying conflict.
In NATURAL BORN CHARMER by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, the hero is rich, well groomed, and handsome. He has women falling at his feet. But he’s bored with his life. The heroine is an artist who takes little notice of her appearance but is feisty enough to challenge and amuse him. When he kisses her, she tells herself she’s just another of a long line of women. Yet she can’t stop because she’s swept away. He knows she’s not the woman for him yet he can’t help himself either. Eventually she does push away, insulting him for good measure. He just laughs, taunting her that victory will be all the sweeter for the struggle. Because they’re in denial and conflicted about their attraction the emotion they experience feels all the more intense.
Slide 16 Readers must believe they belong together.
Deep down, the couple must be soul mates or the reader won’t believe in their happy ever after. What need do they fulfill in each other? You’ll find your clues in their inner conflicts and their vulnerabilities. By pushing each other’s buttons, they force each other to confront their fears and ultimately to grow.
Lexie and Rafe, the 38 year old and the younger man, couldn’t be two more different people on the surface. But on a deeper level they connect. He loves her regardless of her past; she loves him so much she sets him free. When they finally let go of their fears, they open themselves to the possibility of love.
Showing the characters discovering how they connect on a fundamental basis in spite of the obstacles in their path gives the reader a satisfying emotional experience.
4. THE EMOTIONAL JOURNEY
Your story will take your characters, and the reader, on an emotional journey. There will be ups and downs, advances and setbacks.
Slide 17
Beginning: Start slow and build. At the beginning of the story the emotional moments are lighter, more on the surface. (Although it’s still important to hint at deeper undercurrents.) You might show the hero and heroine's connections to other important people in their lives--siblings, best friends, children, and parents. This not only shapes a three dimensional character but these relationships can be mined for emotional content, especially if they contribute to the central conflict.
In HER GREAT EXPECTATIONS, the heroine, Sienna, is very close to her teenage son, especially since her divorce. This makes her vulnerable. She feels her son growing up, growing away from her, something all mothers can relate to. In his striving for independence the son turns to the hero, Jack, whom he idolizes. Sienna sees Jack influencing her son in ways she doesn’t condone, thus deepening the central conflict and widening the emotional scope of the story.
Slide 18
Middle: As the story progresses, the growing attraction between the hero and heroine is balanced by deepening conflict. As they fall in love the stakes are raised and the emotions naturally intensify.
How does the hero make the heroine grow and change, and vice versa? Do their reactions to each other propel them on a new course of action? They should. Emotions strong enough to change opinions, alter actions and consume a character’s every waking thought are INTENSE by definition. They have impact.
Forward momentum is balanced by setbacks. When a setback occurs in the romance have your characters explore why it happened, how they feel about it, what unexpected emotions does it bring forth and what does it mean for personal growth. What will the character do to take the relationship forward again?
Readers skim sex scenes that are only about inserting tab a into slot b. Love scenes must be emotional. This is the ultimate vulnerability for the characters. And like any other scene in the book, the love scene must move the story forward.
Renita, the heroine of IN HIS GOOD HANDS was a chubby nerd in high school, in love with Brett, the popular jock hero. During the book she makes herself over, losing weight, getting fit, new hairstyle, etc. But as good as she looks, all she can think of when it comes time to take her clothes off is her anxieties. They actually stop making love and address the issue. His response is typically male. He’s not reassuring the way another woman would be but there’s no doubt he thinks she’s sexy. Through his eyes Renita begins to see herself in a different light, sparking the beginning of true character growth. However, even though the scene ended well, the reader knows the heroine’s body image issues aren’t over.
Consummating the relationship temporarily eases the tension--and hence emotional intensity--so make sure the sex complicates the relationship rather than making it better. Even if they deny their feelings make sure the reader knows they’re invested emotionally. This raises the stakes.
So the second half of a romance novel delves deeper into the core conflict with correspondingly stronger emotions. Raise the emotional stakes. Interspersed with the setbacks are the high moments, when the characters connect emotionally and/or physically. This causes the rollercoaster effect of emotional highs followed by lows followed by another high.
End: Slide 19
The black moment when all seems to be lost is when the characters struggle with their greatest fears. This is the emotional low point of the book. The character might try to be logical and come up with reasons to stay the way they are. But that doesn’t work and eventually they have to make the emotional leap of faith that will allow them to love the other. Character growth is all about emotion.
The bigger the struggle and the greater the emotional risk, the bigger the catharsis when the hero and heroine finally come together, and the greater the emotional satisfaction for the reader.
Slide 20
I’ll leave this section with another quote from Brene Brown from her study of vulnerability. Remember, these are real people she’s talking about, case histories she’s collected for years.
“People who found love were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they really were.”
In other words, they surrendered their barriers to become their authentic selves. Only then could they give and receive love, and find the connection that all human beings crave.
This is exactly what our characters learn during the black moment.
We’ve looked at story from a broad perspective. Now we’ll move to a finer scale. Here’s a tool I use when I’m writing a synopsis for a proposal to send to my editor. I also use it as I’m writing the book because I never follow the synopsis. It’s
Scene by Scene Emotional Plotting Slide 21
When you start a new scene, take a moment to think about your characters’ emotions. What are they feeling, about themselves, toward the other? What strands do you need to bring forward from previous scenes? How can you show their feelings instead of telling them, through body language, internalizations and dialogue?
If the emotional status is positive at the beginning of the scene, make the scene end on a negative, and vice versa. This contributes to the rollercoaster effect.
Here’s an example of emotional plotting I did for a scene in an unsold single title I’m working on. The hero and heroine are divorced but still living in the same house because they can’t afford to live separately.
Slide 22
Finn knows Stephanie is angry and frustrated with him for taking a job in a record store instead of recording his own music. To redeem himself he digs a vegetable patch even though he wants to sell the house, not put in a garden.
Stephanie is excited by the garden. Finn downplays it, pretending he’s doing it because he’s bored. She knows he’s making a concession for her. Gruffly, he suggests she help him. She’s noncommittal and goes away without replying. She brings him out a cold drink -- and she’s got her gardening gloves. Truce. At least for now.
They work together, almost like old times. It’s hot and Finn takes his shirt off. He catches her looking at him. To reduce her embarrassment he makes a joke about it. She teases him back. Suddenly they’re very aware of each other. They’re not prepared mentally or emotionally for a return to sexuality. They’ve achieved a shaky equilibrium since their divorce. Intimacy would throw them back into turmoil. Instead of kissing her as he wants to do, Finn asks Stephanie about her new client.
A lot of complex emotions are explored in that scene. Finn and Stephanie deal with issues raised in the previous scene and deepen both the conflict and the attraction.
This scene starts out negatively, with Finn angry and frustrated. I haven’t shown the ending here but the scene does end positively. Finn finally kisses Stephanie for the first time since their divorce, moving the story forward emotionally.
If you’re a pantser you might throw your hands up in horror. But try writing these synopses after you write the scene. They’re a quick guide to the couple’s emotional progression comes revision time.
5. Putting Emotion On The Page Slide 23
Keep it Real.
For a romance to tug at the heartstrings it needs to have emotional truth. Don't make your heroine 'feel' something that's out of character just so she’ll do something essential to the plot. That's contrived. It won’t ring true and will break the emotional connection the reader feels for the characters.
Don't make the heroine (or hero) overreact to a situation in the mistaken belief that you're achieving emotional intensity. For example, the heroine melts into a puddle of desire just at the touch of the hero’s hand, or the hero flies into a rage over a small incident. That’s melodrama. If the emotions aren’t believable, the reader won’t feel them.
Focus on, and explore, a single emotional theme in any given scene. A common beginner’s mistake is to swing from one intense emotion to another completely different intense emotion. That can be confusing to the reader and dilutes the main emotion the writer wants to evoke.
Be subtle when dealing with emotional issues. An attempt by the character not to feel can be more heart-wrenching than histrionics. Sometimes the more understated an emotional event is, the more impact it has. This, however, depends on the readers knowing and caring about the characters well enough to put herself in the character's shoes and feel what the character feels.
Compare these reactions: Slide 24
Jennifer came home after Nick’s funeral and flung herself across the bed, sobbing, her heart broken.
We understand she's upset and grieving but do we feel it?
Compare that with:
Heedless of her black dress, Jennifer knelt in the soil and methodically removed every tiny weed from around the seedlings Nick had planted only last week. He hated weeds, and as for snails--
Tears blurred the green and fell, smearing the dirt on her lifeless fingers. Nick would never see these lettuces.
The first example was static. Nothing was really happening except for a lot of crying. In the second example the heroine is active. The reader gets a sense of her personality--she’s controlled until she breaks down. The scene is neither clichéd nor over the top. Everything isn’t spelled out. In having to imagine the heroine’s pain, the reader is engaged and feels the emotion more than if she's told in detail.
Also, take note of how many words are in the second example. This is an important emotional moment. The reader gets that because we’re in Jennifer’s skin, feeling what she’s feeling.
Small moments can be filled with big emotion. In BEST LAID PLANS by Sarah Mayberry, the heroine and hero make a pact to conceive a child and share parenting without a love relationship. They kid themselves they can go through with the plan all the while they’re secretly falling in love. On the eve of the artificial insemination, the hero sees a young couple in the supermarket. The woman is heavily pregnant and her partner has his hands on her belly and is feeling the baby kick. The hero witnesses the love and joy they share and knows he will never experience that if he goes through with the plan. It’s a lovely scene, small but with huge consequences. He now has to confront emotions he’s been avoiding. This in turn makes him think about what he wants out of life and question the wisdom of what he’s doing.
Dig Deep to lay strong emotions bare. Slide 25
To show what your characters are feeling, dig deep inside yourself and draw on your own emotions. You don't have to know how it feels to lose a child or a partner to portray grief. Maybe you've experienced the loss of a parent, a friend or even a much-loved pet.
Do you recall the early stages of a love affair and the giddy excitement of seeing your beloved across a crowded room, the excitement of a first kiss, the awkward thrill of first making love with someone?
If you don’t remember those things yourself, perhaps you’ve seen a close friend or family member experience them more recently. Observe the emotions of people around you, even the smallest thing.
If your character is caught in an embarrassing situation, it doesn't matter if you've never encountered that particular set of circumstances before, you only need to remember a time in your life when you wished the earth would open up and swallow you whole.
Don't shy away from strong emotions. It's human nature to avoid uncomfortable situations, maybe especially for women. But as writers we need to confront what our characters are feeling and write them through their crises rather than avoid the issues. Don’t pull your punches, my editor is fond of saying. If your heroine is keeping a secret from the hero, try having her reveal the secret. You’ll probably get a lot more emotional juice out of the ensuing confrontation.
Show don't tell. Slide 26
Showing is a more effective way of communicating emotion than telling because the reader is ‘in the character’s skin’ so to speak.
Over 90% of communication is non-verbal--blushing, damp palms, weak knees, tight jaws, crossed arms, a direct gaze, a dropped gaze, clenched fists, mannerisms, etc. Often these are involuntary reactions to a person or a situation. They’re a clue to the character’s true emotions, regardless of what they’re saying.
Dwight Swain explains the chronological order of an emotional reaction in his book Techniques of the Selling Writer.
First comes the motivation, then reaction. The reaction is broken down into stages. First up is feeling. Feeling gives rise to action, then--and only then--speech.
Here’s an example from TWO AGAINST THE ODDS. Slide 27
Motivation: “Rafe, I’m pregnant and you’re the father,” Lexie said.
Reaction:
-feeling: Rafe reeled.
-action: He stumbled into the credenza, toppling a pot plant and spilling the dirt.
-speech: “You...what?”
You can leave out action or speech but never the feeling component because it’s the emotional reaction that gives rise to the other two.
Build on this basic structure by adding complexity with internalizations, additional emotions, body language and action. When people are in conflict with each other, or with themselves, they feel deeply. Show this conflict through dialogue and body language.
Slide 29
Going back to Show don’t Tell:
Avoid using words like desire, happy, pain, sad, excited, etc. When you label an emotion, you drain it of power. It’s telling, not showing.
Similarly, try to avoid descriptive dialogue tags, eg he said angrily. Instead use word choice and body language to convey emotion. If you need a tag to make the meaning clear, ‘angrily’ is preferable to the clunky ‘he said in an angry tone of voice.’
Make a study of body language and the physical cues that indicate a certain emotional state. I watch Master Chef, not just for the food, but to watch the facial expressions and body language of the contestants.
Use the five senses to let your reader experience the emotion along with your character. Smell is particularly evocative. Use setting details to create atmosphere and emotion.
To illustrate- Which is stronger? Slide 27
Tom kissed her and Julie felt desire surge through her.
Or: Warm firm lips brushed hers lightly, then with greater pressure. Dizzy with the scent of hot male skin she forgot to breathe.
Sometimes the most emotional scenes between the hero and heroine aren’t about sex or sensuality at all. They’re about loving and caring and knowing the other person so well that he sacrifices his own needs and desires for her well-being.
An example of such a scene where showing not telling really comes to the fore is from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. (Taken from Jenny Crusie’s article, The Five Things I’ve Learned About Writing From Television.)
Slide 29 Buffy & Spike
”Spike, rejected brutally by Buffy, decides to kill her with a shotgun. He strides into her back yard, gun cocked and ready, and finds her weeping on her back porch steps. In the space of a minute, he slows, his shoulders slump, he puts the gun in the bushes, he sits carefully beside her, and then, very tentatively, he puts his hand on her shoulder for just a moment, in a gesture that says everything about hopeless love and compassion.”
Part of the emotional punch of that scene is the reversal of expectations. The viewer anticipated an angry confrontation. Instead, we got the complete opposite, an active illustration of Spike’s powerful love for Buffy.
Slide 31 Writing exercise 3. Write from either hero or heroine’s pov an emotional paragraph. Use the 5 senses
Focus. Slide 32
In a first draft, pour all the emotion out onto the page. Later, as you rewrite, you can always take out the excess as you focus on the main emotional thread through a particular scene.
Ramp up that focus on your characters’ emotions during turning points by using deep point of view. The more words devoted to a passage, the greater importance and intensity it assumes. The deeper you go into the character’s point of view, the more intense the scene.
The reader should feel as if they're right inside the heroine's brain, seeing what she's seeing, feeling what she's feeling, thinking what she's thinking, with no filtering words to create barriers.
Seeing the hero across the street might only warrant a line or two where the heroine feels warmth when he smiles at her. But a turning point like the first kiss might get an entire page of sensation, emotion, internalization and speech.
Avoid duplicating in internal monologue what is already evident from the action or dialogue. Also, lengthy internal monologue can slow the pacing. Less is often more!
Write fresh. Slide 33
Blushes and sweaty palms are so common in romances that we need to take pains to write fresh.
Cliched situations, cliched writing, stereotypical characters and contrived situations all suck the emotion out of a story as the reader feels she’s heard all this before. Look for new ways to show emotion, ways specific to your characters and your story, even specific to that scene, maybe something to do with the setting or the character’s profession.
Don’t repeat the same pattern of words too frequently, for example, His eyes turned dark with anger, with frustration. He frowned. She folded her arms across her chest. Everyone does it sometimes. But use these simple constructions sparingly or else your writing will seem clunky and generic.
An example of fresh writing is the hero’s description of kissing the heroine in LAST NIGHT’S SCANDAL by Loretta Chase. Slide 34
And there it was, the taste he remembered. It was like biting into a ripe cherry, a taste that made one forget all other tastes in that first ambrosial moment, and made one think it must have been a cherry that Eve gave Adam, because what other fruit seemed quite so sinful?
That was Olivia, all the sweetness and sinfulness mixed up in one strange girl unlike any other in all the world. And he couldn’t resist her any better than he’d ever done before.
As romance readers we’re well used to the taste of strawberries, coffee and chocolate for kisses. But Chase used the taste of cherries. That fresh image lifted the description out of the ordinary and imbued it with real emotion.
Back to slide 33
Use emotive words that conjure strong feelings. Ambrosial, sweetness, sinful, even strange... Caution: use sparingly or you could be treading into purple prose territory.
Play around with sentence structure, ending sentences with emotive words to leave the reader with a powerful emotional punch. This is especially useful during important scenes.
For example: Slide 35 Word Order
He had an overwhelming need to hold her.
Versus:
The need to hold her was overwhelming.
The second sentence isn’t as active but it holds more power. You have to make a judgment call on a case-by-case basis.
Emotional subtext. Slide 36
This is when things are going on under the surface of a scene. Actions and dialogue are in direct conflict with the point of view character's thoughts and feelings. The reader is aware of the undercurrents but the non-pov characters aren’t--unless they can translate body language that betrays the pov character’s true feelings.
It’s used, for example, when the hero feels a love he can't express. Instead of saying, “I love you,” he fixes the heroine’s broken window. Maybe he mentally berates himself for his cowardice, maybe he’s so flustered he hits his thumb with the hammer. Whatever clues the writer uses, the reader reads between the lines and feels the hero's adoration and frustration. And if you do a good job on writing the heroine's body language, the reader will also feel her disappointment when she doesn’t hear the words she longs for.
In another of Jenny Crusie’s Buffy examples, Spike makes a statement that on the surface doesn’t sound emotional but in context, the reader feels the intensity of his feelings. Slide 37
When Buffy comes back from the dead and asks how long she’s been gone, Spike says,
Text: “A hundred and forty-seven days. A hundred and forty-eight today. But we can’t count today.”
Subtext: “I love you. I missed you. I was scared you were never coming back.” His yearning and relief and love are plain to see.
Spike’s emotions feel stronger because of what he doesn’t say. It’s as if his emotions are too strong to be put into words.
Let’s do a writing exercise to put some of these techniques we’ve talked about into practice.
Writing Exercise 4 Slide 38
Paul and Tammy have been together for six months. They’re at the zoo with Paul’s 3-year-old nephew, watching the monkeys. Tammy chooses this moment to tell Paul she doesn’t want to see him anymore.
Write three or four paragraphs using dialogue, body language and subtext to convey the emotion these two are feeling. Use your imagination regarding why Tammy’s breaking up with Paul, how she feels about it, and how he feels.
SUMMARY Slide 39
1. Start with a personal, deeply emotional premise
2.The stronger the conflict, the more intense the emotions.
3. Develop realistic, passionate characters with rich emotional lives.
4. Start slow, raise the stakes and build to an emotional climax.
5. Keep it real. True emotions, honest reactions, vulnerable characters drive the story rather than plot contrivances.
6. Write fresh. Employ body language, dialogue and subtext to show emotion rather than relying on tags.
Just like a roller coaster, your story should be fast-paced. The reader is so emotionally caught that she’s turning the pages as fast as she can to find out what happens next. But again, like a roller coaster, you want to give the reader unexpected twists and turns to keep the ride exciting. Hopefully I’ve given you some tips today to help you write your own emotional rollercoaster.
References, Other sources of Information
http://www.jennycrusie.com/for-writers/essays - a collection of essays on a variety of topics of interest to writers
http://www.margielawson.com/deep-editing-analyses - Margie Lawson analyses body language to illustrate how some of the best authors keep their writing fresh. Most of her examples are from thrillers and mysteries but they’re still worth a look.
http://www.etbscreenwriting.com/laurie-hutzler/ - Laurie Hutzler teaches screenwriting in Los Angeles. Her website, The Emotional Toolbox, has some great tips for emotion-based characters and stories.
TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER by Dwight V. Swain. Some good technical tips. But be warned, he doesn’t have a very readable style of writing.
Slide 28 & 29. Example from First Page Saturday, DearAuthor.com (permission obtained to reprint)
Telling
So Meeka wanted to stay in Creswell. I didn’t. She knew we couldn’t stay long anywhere, just living in town was a risk in itself. And how would we ever find mom if we went stagnant in some backwash settlement? Without thinking, I let my fist swing down on the herb bush. Stinging scratches leapt over the skin of my knuckles.
“Damn!” My voice was deadened by the forest, calm, swaying in the wind. I sat down in the damp and let my fears envelope me for a few moments. Fears of getting caught, of losing myself, of past, present. A picture of Heth floated in the black of my mind, catching there as I stared at the empty twigs of the herb bush. It was his fault she wanted to stay, and I hated him for it. Goddam ‘love’.
Showing
“Meeka, you can’t do this!” I yelled and the misty smile vanished from her face.
“I just want to be happy,” she said, making me feel like a jerk. “Heth...”
Damn love, Damn Meeka and Damn Heth. My thoughts turned black as I thought about the man who was the cause of all this.
“Yeah, you’ll be real happy when you’re dragged off to prison,” I shot back. “We can’t stay here. We can’t stay anywhere, you know that.”
She didn’t say anything, just stood there looking like her heart was breaking. I couldn’t stand it.
“Heth’s a liar and a bastard.” I wished he was here so I could tell him to his face. “Is he more important to you than Mom?” I’d no sooner said it than I shook my head vigorously. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear it.”
A feather touch of her fingertips on my cheek brought my head around. “We don’t know if we’ll ever find M-mom.” Her voice broke and then we were both crying.
The interaction with Meeka in the second version makes this passage much stronger. The emotion is shown rather than told and the reader feels more of a connection to the narrator.