Writing Emotions Into Your Story
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As a creative writer, you must feel the mood you are writing about. As a creative writer, you have to feel the mood. And how are you supposed to do that? You can do it by experiencing the mood.
Suppose you need to write a scene for a huge argument between characters. Maybe the story is about abuse, a mom and dad arguing, or sibling rivalry. Maybe it’s about a girl breaking up with her boyfriend because he was playing around on the side. If the scene is intense, you have to get into the mode. I mean really, really furious.
Do you remember the big argument you had with an old boyfriend/girlfriend? Do you remember having a bad dream that made you mad at whoever you dreamed about? What about when you got into a heated argument with your boyfriend over women’s rights, or abortion.? As a writer, you have to learn to capture the emotions and spit them out in your scenes. It should be so real that you will need to attend anger management classes to get over it.
Are you writing a happy scene? Think about something that made you deliriously happy. Go tutti-fruiti for a while! Laugh until you’re sick! Start writing your scene when you begin laughing at yourself.
Another way to develop the emotions is to write diary or blog entries from your character’s point of view. Live the make-believe life. Crawl into your character’s skins any way you can. It’s almost impossible to write a scene that you have not invested yourself in. (But you can write notes to fill the space and come back to it later when you’re more in the mood.)
Remember that your protagonist (main character, hero) and antagonist (villain) must be three-dimensional characters. They must have a childhood and future dreams; their lives must be complex with problems they must solve. They have to walk into your reader’s mind and chat with them. The reader won’t stay with the story if he can’t identify with the characters.
It reminds me of when my daughter was 16. She would sit on the floor like an Indian and bawl over TV drama. One night I winked at my husband and said, “That actress is playing her part really well, isn’t she?”He picked up on my mischief and we chatted about what part the actress might play next and what her next film would be.
Our daughter turned around, with eyes flooding tears, and said, “Mom, quit it. You’re ruining it for me!” But what she really meant was, “I’m into the character. I feel what the writer wants me to feel. Don’t move me out of the scene.”
If your characters aren’t three-dimensional, you’ll lose your readers. Put yourself into the mood and into the groove. Live what you write.
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