Thank you to everyone who came to the meeting on Wednesday.
Progress reports
We had sad times and good times, which seemed appropriate for what I’d prepared on the subject of writing what you know: emotions.
Free writing
We used the random word generator to produce our writing prompt this evening. It came up with unit, wedding, salad
. There’s a combo – and salad
again!
I wrote what turned out to be a potential scene from my current project, where my main character thinks about what could have been.
What would you have written?
Workshop
As writers, we’re learning about life and writing all the time. Last month, the group asked if we could look at writing about emotions, so I prepared some material and read it out to the group.
Emotions
The most important advice I found on the internet seems to be to:
- use emotion to connect your readers to your (main) characters
- show emotion, don’t tell
- use cause and effect, action and reaction
I also read out an example from the insect world that I think shows all these points well.
Connecting your readers to your characters
For a reader to care about your book, they need to care about your main character. One way to do this is through emotion. By stimulating an empathetic or sympathetic response in your readers, they can identify with the character, and so will become invested in their fate. This means the reader will keep turning those pages.
Show emotion, don’t tell
Telling the reader that Sam felt sad puts a distance between the reader and Sam. If, however, you show us that Sam’s heart aches, the reader is right there with Sam’s sadness: the reader feels more connected to Sam.
Use cause and effect, action and reaction.
Where you have a paragraph/scene/chapter of action, in the next paragraph/scene/chapter, show the reader your character’s reaction, their emotional response, to the action. This gives the reader an insight into the character, while giving both character and reader time to get their heads round what just happened.
The action is the cause of the effect on the character, which is shown by their reaction.
An example from the insect world
I’ve recently finished The Bees by Laline Paull1. I loved this book. I loved it so much that I took it to France with me and spent my days reading it in the mountain sun. I wanted to read it and read it and read it, but I didn’t want to finish it: I didn’t want to have to leave its waxen world.
It’s a story about bees from the point of view of a bee, Flora. Flora isn’t human, but nevertheless, I was swept up by her emotions, and was willing her on, hoping things would go her way.
Spoiler alert! There are two consecutive paragraphs in the book that illustrate the above points perfectly. The first paragraph shows the cause and the second paragraph shows the effect. The context is that Flora thinks she’s going to get enough nectar and pollen from a field of golden rapeseed in flower to impress those back in the hive who doubt her.
The first paragraph shows the devastation caused by pesticides sprayed on the rapeseed: ants, a bloated mouse, sparrows with beaks open, wasps, flies, innumerable bees all lying dead on the ground amongst the stalks.
The second paragraph shows the effect this has on Flora: she lurched up into the air through the plant stalks
, the ground tilted and swung
and pulled as if her crop of nectar was tied to a corpse on the ground
. We’re shown the physiological effect on Flora: her venom sac swelled tight in her belly
and she whirled in the air firing her alarm glands in every direction
as she looked for the perpetrator. The last sentence is poignant: But she was alone with the sun and the sky and the field of poisoned gold.
Paull could have told me that Flora was shocked and sickened and frightened, but that would distance me from Flora. Being shown how she struggles to fly puts me right amongst the plant stalks with her. Being shown how her body is reacting to the fear makes my body react to the fear.
Furthermore, Paull’s message is clear: pesticides are indiscriminate. But she doesn’t preach about it. She just shows the cause and effect.
And that’s the power of emotion.
Discussion
One of our members pointed us towards a free mentorship programme for writers in the East of England, which might be worth a look. There are strict criteria for applying, but it seems that the rewards are great.
Readings
One member had reworked her novel’s beginning since we heard it last month, and we heard it this evening.
Whereas it was an improvement on the previous version, I would encourage any writer not to dwell on the beginning because it will prevent progress.
Next meeting
We’ll next meet on 7 December 2022.
References
- 2014. The Bees, London: 4th Estate
Further reading
We hope you find some of these resources about writing emotion project you in the direction of written emotional excellence.
- The Editor’s Blog: https://theeditorsblog.net/2011/01/30/creating-emotion-in-the-reader/
- The Editor’s Blog: https://theeditorsblog.net/2014/06/08/zeroing-in-on-words/
- The Write Practice: https://thewritepractice.com/emotional-writing/
- Writers in the Storm Blog: https://writersinthestormblog.com/2018/06/determining-your-characters-emotional-range/
- Writers Helping Writers: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2021/04/how-to-write-emotion-well-know-your-character/
- Writers Helping Writers: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2021/08/describing-a-characters-emotions-problems-solutions/
- Masterclass: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-emotion
Useful links
- The National Centre for Writing: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/escalator/ [Update: applications for 2022–23 are closed.]