Writing help: how do I wring emotions from my reader like water from a dish rag?

[amyraine]

 I am finding that my writing is emotionally flat.

That's not always true but it is more often than not.

I will remember what I was thinking and feeling when I wrote a paragraph, but after some time has gone by I'll go back and read it and all I can think is - man, that's dull. 

I know that this is a subjective thing and that what might move one person will leave another cold, but some writers manage to tap into a deep, primal emotional center that most people respond to. I want to do that.

Any advice?

Comments

[havocthecat]

I have no objectivity when it comes to my own work, so I have a hard time gauging that. But I find that the 'show, don't tell' axiom, while frustrating, is also true. The more that I describe, the less detached my writing seems.

In other words, what I call the 'to-do list' of writing never works. I have an example, but I also want to preface it by saying that the story that you linked, that's brilliant and it seems like you have this whole thing down. I think my advice would be better for people who do a lot of telling and not much showing.

For example: "First, Kate went to her desk. The she sat down and reviewed her files for today. She had an appointment with John. Kate made a face. Every time she met with John, he sat and stared at the wall for the entire session.

She felt helpless and didn't know what to do. She was a trained therapist, and she should be able to do something to help him cope with the unutterable loss of Elizabeth and Carson. They were all suffering. Kate felt sad and lost too, but she didn't have anyone to share those feelings with."

And all I want to say to someone I beta for is, "JUST WRITE THE SCENE. I realize it will take you ten times as long as writing those two paragraphs, but just. write. it. Your story will also be ten times better if you can write the whole, awkward mess of loss and grief without saying 'and then Kate felt sad and then John felt sad and neither of them felt like they could talk about it without being too vulnerable.' Then we'll feel it and your story will be an unbelievable hit amongst the fandom."

[amyraine]

I could go through some of my stuff and provide an example of when I'm pretty sure I failed, but in general, I find it happening in multi chapter fic. Character Studies like "Wind" are much easier to get that emotional punch with IMO.

All of your advice is spot on. It's hard to explain sometimes what showing vs. telling is. Because sometimes telling is showing...but it's like careful reveals of certain details, with others left up to the reader, and other parts implied. But it is definitely not "John felt sad and couldn't talk about it."

[havocthecat]

Well, that was a pretty egregious example of it. It's something I wrote in about three minutes' worth of work time, because I didn't want to go and find an actual example of a fic. That would have been a little meaner than I'd like. But I do see shades of that which are subtler, but still rather obvious. It drives me out of a fic in a heartbeat.

Anyway, I'm just as guilty of that as anyone else at times, because it's just so much easier and faster to just describe everything instead of putting in shades and subtleties that let the reader project their own emotions onto the fic to fill in all the blanks the writer leaves. I think that's at least half the emotion in a story, the writer leaving a place for the readers to feel something about the story.

[amyraine]

LOL I think I read a lot of bad fic because that wasn't nearly as bad as some of the stuff out there.

[havocthecat]

There's a lot of bad fic out there, let's face it. And I see you got suggestions from a regular beta of yours down below in the comments, which is probably better advice than I could give since I don't know your writing as well!

[loopy777]

havocthecat's advice is good, and also one of the major reasons why I often find my expected lengths are consistently underestimated. I try to make sure that every interaction has room to breath, room for the characters to say or do whatever will get their emotions and motivations across to the reader.

The other part is that emotional moments have to be set up. It's impossible to just make the reader feel an emotion on instant command. They need to be invested in the characters, in what they want or are feeling. Then, those expectations have to be subverted. Perhaps they were expecting bad things and a good things happens. Perhaps the opposite. Even trickier, the expected result happens, but in a completely unexpected way. It's always about toy with the reader, understanding what they want to happen, and then messing with that. Because, really, most of our own emotions come from surprises, setbacks, rewards, or powerful demonstrations.

I'm not even sure if I do it right in my own stories, but Hollywood consistently demonstrates that the formula works, even when it's nakedly visible.

[amyraine]

That's interesting that you say you need more words to get the emotion across, when I find shorter fics to be better at emotional impacts than longer ones, though that's not always true. But your fics DO a lot...like there's a narrative, and there's all those awesome action sequences, and then oh yeah the characters are also breaking your heart too. So I can see how you'd need more for all that, lol. Whereas in many shorter fics, there's very little going on except the motivations and thoughts and feelings of the character. Though all this is a matter of style and preference and author intent...

[loopy777]

Fair point, but I think it also works for shorter fics. Like, in almost every case, the same concept in a 2000 word short story will feel more emotional than in a 100 word drabble. With my (overly?) complex plots, I know when I start writing pretty much every storybeat that I want to hit (for example: Long Feng and Song meet, he proposes they travel together, bandit fight that shows Long Feng's ruthlessness and Song's acceptance of the darker side of life, philosophical conversation covering self-defense versus aggressive control, Long Feng tries to take Song out on a date and is rebuffed, they get to Ba Sing Se and Long Feng fails to acquire power, Song gets him out of the dumps and they go off into the sunset together) but then a single beat will sometimes grow into two, and/or a scene will run longer than expected because the point I want to make requires more groundwork than anticipated to get the characters to talk about it. And what happens with a single scene or story-beat from a larger work can happen to a stand-alone short story.

So, to illustrate a short story, a set of beats are: open with a discussion of smiles, note that smiles are the difference between Iroh and Zuko, explain that people at the Ba Sing Se teashop are confused how they can be related, then Iroh answers the question with something heartwarming and pithy. When I actually implemented that, I wound up with an unexpected paragraph talking about how cynical people preferred Zuko as their waiter specifically because he didn't waste their time with smiles, and in doing so connected the lack of smiles on Zuko's part with a sense of hopelessness. So when Iroh delivers his heartwarming answer ("I'm holding on to his smiles, for when he wants them back. In exchange, he does all my frowning for me, so I don't have to. He's such a considerate nephew." ) it works better because it calls to mind how Zuko will learn to believe in himself and the world again. I think it all works better than that line being in isolation with nothing but a single paragraph ahead of it to set up Iroh's answering the question. (The story in question.)

But maybe I'm overthinking these things.

[ljwrites]

havocthecat's advice is great--it's basic, and essential for that reason. However, from my experience reading, reviewing, and beta-reading your stories I don't think you do much telling over showing. If anything, what was a boon for me might be a curse for you: You advised me to pare my style down, which helped me so much it's not even funny, but in practicing what you preach you write sparely, even sparsely. It's a strength, and like all the most interesting strengths it can also be a weakness. I've described your writing as quiet and introspective, and that can feel emotionally bland unless one is in a thoughtful mindset.

In that respect, throwing more wrenches in the work as Loopy says could be a good counterbalance. But also as Loopy said, good reversals and plots don't come from a vacuum. They arise from setup and solid characters. In fanfic a lot of the setup work is done for the writer--there's a world, developed characters, and even a built-in audience. In original work and even for some fanfic it's necessary to build up characters and settings, and in your fanfic I see more of a take-them-as-they-come approach, that is, working with and examining characters as they are in canon rather than doing a lot of development yourself. This may have to do with the fact that you write predominantly short stories.

Speaking of examining characters and ideas, if your stories feel flat to you it may also be because you're more interested in exploring intellectual angles than emotional ones. At base I believe you have to feel it to give it. Of course, if an author just plasters her FEEELINGS all over a story without properly working it in that's just embarrassing, but if she has deep feelings and does the work to let her readers in on the feels that's the best of both worlds. Your writing often comes across as more ideas-oriented, a hazard of academic temperaments like yours or mine. So I would encourage you to explore your own feelings on the story and characters, figure out what is it you're trying to communicate before you think of ways to communicate it. Wind in the Sail worked on an emotional level for that reason, I think, as did Prisons of Choice.

[amyraine]

HAHA I'm too nerdy.

Maybe I don't feel strongly enough? I think that's what happened with Mirror the Sun, a comment to which is the inspiration for this post. I was caught up in the intellectual working out the details of making Azula into Yue's puppet and how she'd break out of it as well as spoofing the comic that along the way I lost the emotional investment in the characters.

So, don't write story unless I care more? I dunno. That's hard to maintain.

[ljwrites]

Hey, everyone cares about different things in writing and I happen to like your cerebral style. :) My advice was on how to wring emotions from the audience, not on conditions for writing.

[chaotic_good]

It depends on the scene, I think, and the emotion you're trying to bring out in the reader. What I've found is that when you're going for very heavy and unpleasant emotions -- sadness, fear, anger, etc. -- I've found it's not the amount of words, but the kind of words. Short, terse words (no more than two syllables) and phrases and lots of interruptive punctuation and use of sentence fragments work great for anger and fear. For sadness, I've found minimalist description and more lyrical word choice do the trick. Also, a more objective detachment can lend even greater horror to disturbing scenes, especially if you're in the head of the character being tortured, because it creates a sense of derealization/depersonalization very similar to what the character would be feeling themselves.

[amyraine]

This is neat! I would never have thought of that.