I've looked it up and there's a few different people are supposed to have said it first. Most convincingly Charles Reade as quoted in: The Chautauquan, Volume 36, p. 161, in 1903), - hey, scholarship for literature students. I'm feeling smug!
Let's think what it means though. What it really means.
Your writing is trying to generate an emotion. If the words you've got down aren't generating an emotion - or preparing for it - then they're not doing the right job.
Look at the blurbs for the really successful books - even more for films. They promise that you'll get a massive overload of feeling. You'll laugh until your stomach aches. You'll cry buckets. You'll be too frightened to turn off the lights to sleep.
Even books that claim to be more 'intellectual' are prodding at emotions - you'll feel proud to have understood this tangled and tricky book. You'll be perplexed at the mystery. You'll feel enlightened by the information
Books that work for you will jam you full of emotion. Often emotions that you wouldn't want to experience in real life. Absolute fear. Distress. Loss. Or emotions you're unlikely to feel without a dollop of fiction in there. Absolute love, hate, relief.
So ask yourself during every dialogue. On every page. What emotion am I generating?
And remember - just because you feel it right now and you're writing words on the page, it doesn't mean the reader is getting those emotions. Feeling in love and writing a long description of the one you love just doesn't give a reader nearly the right deal. You need to think more deeply how you do this.
Thinking emotionally about your writing
For a start, which emotions are you hoping to raise?
There are some that are powerful and comparatively straightforward to create in readers:
- Pity
- Anger
- Expectation
- Frustration
- Sexual attraction
- Admiration
- Protectiveness
- Hatred
- Shock
- Disgust
- Puzzlement
Emotions are easier to generate when they are simple, visceral and when the graphic and the symbolic elements are straightforward. Shock can come from a sudden occurence delivered in short, shocking phrases. Or a word out of place and a sudden change of - bastard! - dynamics.
Pity's easy, too. As far as anything in writing is easy. Any number of put-upon waifs and unjust circumstances will shovel pity into a reader quicker than you can say Cosette.
Sexual attraction is fairly straightforward. Get describing and you'll get a reaction.
There are some emotions that are easy to give to characters but harder to give the reader:
- Shame
- Awakening
- Grief
- Love
We have simple single words for these. But don't be fooled. These are complex groups of other emotions. They're compounds rather than elements. Consequently, it's harder to make a reader actually feel love or shame. The empathy gap is trickier to get right.
For one thing we protect ourselves against giving these emotions up to just anyone. They're among the most powerful.
Just having someone look like they're in love or say how in love they are seems laughable. Love is a particularly complex compound of other emotions, different in every being. For one person pity may be a factor in love, learnt from childhood care of siblings or animals. For another it's admiration, learnt from strong protective role models. Decide on which combinations you'll be working with and accept that not everyone will feel it.
Remind yourself that, if someone feels love it won't be just because of an attractive character. Nor watching someone who's going through attraction and loss in simple ways. It will be for the weight of the book and its meaning to them.
If someone falls in love with your book then you've done a great job in the world.
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The easier emotions can come across because the gap of empathy isn't too great. With those elemental emotions we can often witness a character feeling an emotion and straightaway feel it too.
We feel it double if the ground's been prepared with a counter-emotion beforehand.
So, if we are first of all disgusted or horrified at a character, the pity or relief we feel when they change will seem stronger. (All classic redemptions like Scrooge work like that)
Or, if we feel the dismay of injustice it will be stronger because we felt the character was attractive at first.
We can also heighten an emotion by having its opposite - or strong contrast - work on us from another character. The classic scenario is sharing both the triumph of an admirable baddie while feeling the pity towards the temporarily disarmed goodie. Or a couple parting, where you hate the lying cheat you know her to be and pity the deluded and hopeful hero. Or that conflict we call bitter-sweet, the sweet sorrow and loving jealousy that comes with endings that are both beautiful and sad, piteous and magnificent, anchored perhaps in a personal loss that gains a greater good.
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Writing tips to pin above your desk
These #writingtips I keep pinned by my desk - even if you know the score here, it doesn't hurt to be reminded:
- Think constantly and specifically about the emotions you're hoping to generate and when you're going to push the big button on each of those emotion. Always be building towards emotion, not just empty activity, chit-chat or description. Make the words do their jobs.
- Save the big emotional changes for key points in the work. (Duh!) Seriously though, the end of each quarter of the piece should be pulling a biggie.
- Plan which emotions can be used to contrast or what order they will come in to get you maximum traction.
- Make the emotion move believably within a range that feels justified (leaping into pity after an action scene can work, but - cheese alert! - can also make readers screw their faces up and throw your book in the compost).
- Don't ever believe that just because your character's feeling something then your reader will too.
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If it's doing none of these - or a curious and unwieldy combination - you may have to wonder why readers will want to read it. We are, after all, usually going to books to find the emotions we're missing elsewhere.
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
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