Tag Archives: emotions

Writing And Emotional Resonance

 

So you’ve mastered show not tell, motivational reaction units and kicked the passive voice to the kerb. You understand structure, have an interesting protagonist and strong conflict, but still it all feels – meh. With this in mind, I have recently been thinking about emotional resonance, what it is and how to accomplish it.

Editor, Jessica Morrell, says resonance takes place when a story evokes a ‘responsive chord’ in a reader and that writers must place ‘stimuli’ in the story to trigger this response. The key to achieving this is creating characters readers can identify with and care about.

The other week I watched Sleepless In Seattle, a film I have always enjoyed. But this time around I was watching as an aspiring writer with a more critical eye and a plot issue with the story immediately jumped out at me. When 8-year-old Jonah takes a flight to New York by himself, no-one contacts the airlines, police or Empire State Building staff to alert them that an unaccompanied minor child is headed their way. Instead, his father, Sam, hops on the next flight to NYC to search for Jonah by himself.

Yet I found I was willing to overlook the issue because by then I cared about Sam and Jonah. We had witnessed Sam struggling as a single dad and grieving the loss of his wife. I was desperate for him to get together with Annie so Jonah could have a new mum.

Image result for sleepless seattle photo

The film generally received positive reviews. Vincent Canby of The New York Times said: “Not since Love Story has there been a movie that so shrewdly and predictably manipulated the emotions for such entertaining effect.”

How, then, do we go about creating these emotions in our audience? The answer lies in the protagonist’s struggle. Author, KM Weiland, says the struggle and the stakes have to be personal. “How much and why will he suffer if he loses the fight? And for the bonus round question, ask yourself: How much and why will he suffer even if he wins?”

In Sleepless in Seattle, Sam’s struggle couldn’t get more personal. He’s lost the wife he loved to cancer and has to bring up his adorable 8-year-old son by himself. He doesn’t believe true love happens more than once in a lifetime and plans never to remarry. In winning the chance to love again with Annie, Sam is forced to abandon the belief that his first wife was his one and only true love.

Emotional resonance is what gives a story the ‘X Factor’. In fact, writing teacher, Lindsey Barrett recommends looking to TV reality shows for inspiration. The contestants we root for, she tells us, are those who have overcome adversity to get there.

Nothing encapsulates the hero’s journey more than the struggles of an Olympic athlete. A stand-out moment for me at the 2016 Paralympic Games was when Will Bayley won gold in table tennis having overcome cancer, arthrogryposis and many reconstruction operations. Over-joyed, he jumped onto the table to celebrate. When a stern-faced official marched over to present him with a yellow card for a code violation, he ignored the card and, still beaming from ear to ear, hugged her.

“I have given everything,” he said afterwards, “training six hours a day. People don’t realise what I have achieved. I have done mission impossible.”

And it is these emotive moments we need to re-create in our writing; the longing, the need, the fear, the joy, the elation and sheer desperation.

No pressure then!

 

Lizzie Hermanson is a wife, mother and talented procrastinator. She writes contemporary romance when her cat isn’t hogging the keyboard and loves Happy Ever Afters. Find her @lizziehermanson

How Important Are Emotions in Driving a Character?

How important are emotions in driving a character?

I’ve been mulling this over this past week and had a few thoughts. Feel free to disagree, this is just what was going through my head:)
There are many driving forces behind a character’s behaviour. Needs. Wants. Desires. Revenge. Behind these, either tagging along like cans tied to a newlyweds car or compressing a person until they feel like they will explode, are emotions.

The first three (needs, wants, desires) are often stepping stones into the depth of emotion a person will attach to one of these. For example, the desire to share your life with someone can morph into a want, which then changes to a need. The initial desire comes with the feeling that it would be nice, pleasant, normal. If the desire goes unfulfilled, then the emotions deepen. If the ‘want’ goes unfulfilled, emotions go deeper, and often start to deceive us. A character can think, ‘Why am I the only one not married? Why am I the only one struggling financially?’ It’s easy to slip into thoughts that slowly lead down into a maelstrom of self-pity, anger, depression and fear. (At this point, can I just clarify that not everyone is like this, but it can help to see where a character can go emotionally due to an unfulfilled need.)

Need is often associated with desperation and fear. If I don’t have shelter I may die of cold. If I don’t have enough to eat I will starve. If I don’t find someone to love me I will stay alone. Suffer alone. Age alone. Die alone. If a person cannot meet their own needs, then helplessness, hopelessness and depression can follow.

Want (when not a ‘need’) can be associated with selfishness and inconsideration of others, an assumption that others don’t matter. Some people want to be rich, and will do anything to achieve that – even if it means stamping others down.

Desires can take many forms. In romance novels, sexual desires can often be the main driving force (at first) behind a character. In a thriller, the detective will have the desire to catch a thief or a murderer. When this desire is unfulfilled, then it becomes a want, a need. The passion behind increases, the driving force impels the character to perhaps take more risks.

So emotions drive us in many ways.

Consider yourself. When you wake up in the morning how do you feel? Tired? Buzzing? Still upset at something someone said yesterday? Still slightly drunk???

I know when I wake up tired it colours my whole day a darker shade of whatever hue I feel. Our emotions and reactions colour the way we think and act, likewise with our characters. If some trauma happened when a character was young, that will affect almost everything about them. Even if they shut it out, the fact that they have shut down a part of them means a part of them is missing, regardless how broken up that part is. When does a character learn fear? Love? Consequences of various actions?

In the current medieval novel I am working on, I have a sixteen year old girl who had a traumatic experience when she was about 9. She has shut this out, yet occasionally has nightmares. I have struggled with her character because it isn’t rounded. Part of her is hidden from me, and until she comes to terms with what happened and is willing to remember, it will stay hidden. She has fears, and anxieties which come from this hidden place and these affect her, yet her emotions are dampened because she pushes them down. So it has been difficult to write from her pov, and the novel has turned into one more about her mother while Annie remembers. When she has remembered, she will be much rounder; I will be better able to write her because I know where she is coming from.

Do you know what your characters are feeling in every scene? Do you ‘soul-hop’? I find if I know what a character is feeling, then the dialogue and actions flow easily and naturally. If I don’t know, then everything feels stilted and awkward.

Experiences affect characters differently. One might shrug off an insult, another might take a swing. Another might bear a grudge and nurse it until the tree of bitterness bears the fruit of hatred. Yet all will then adjust their behaviour accordingly. The one who shrugs the insult off may well avoid that person. The one who takes a swing might end up in jail; the one who nurses a grudge may end up sinking into paranoia. A seemingly insignificant detail can end up having pond-wide ripples, which is why, for me, it’s so important knowing how they feel. If I can identify with my own characters, then I have the hope readers will, too.
What do you think? How important are emotions in driving your characters? What do your characters first desire, then want, then need? Is the carrot that is being dangled before them always out of reach, or can they take a bite every now and then, thus increasing the fervency with which they seek more?