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(Writing) How do you show deep emotion?
Im concerned that my characters are shallow, especially in the depth of their emotions. I hope TBers can come to the rescue with methods or even tricks they use to involve the reader with their characters when they are deeply affected by what has happened.
It might help to deal with an example situation for folks to comment on, which Ill present in bald absence of emotion. Im hoping youll suggest ways in which the reader would get worked up about it. Any little suggestion will help.
Scenario: Rose sits at her desk in the living room, flicks through her husbands phone inbox looking for their sons message about what time he would be home, and finds a text starting dearest, then, heres my new number with a mobile number. Her husband Steve is lying on the settee watching football.
Comments
Rose pushed her chair back from the desk and stood up. With slow, deliberate steps she approached her husband of twenty years, wondering in that brief moment whether she'd even be able to speak.
"Alright love?" Steve said, glancing up at his wife. His smile faded as she held out the phone with the message clearly displayed on the screen. Rose swallowed back the pain. She had to know.
"Why?"
Rose threw the mobile at Steve, the thunk on his forehead brought them both to their feet.
'What was that-'
'Who is the cheap-' Rose's voice cracked and snot built in her nose as she blundered on through tears.
I'd wonder if it was an older female relative- who might address a family member in that familiar way.
So presumably she has already got suspicions from other indicators?
Sorry if I've sidetracked.
(imagining yourself as the character in the situation is the way I would do it )
Good luck !
Possibly you haven't - could be a scenario where it is a female relative - favourite aunt/niece/cousin and the missing name has caused a misunderstanding . Great twist for the story!
Thank you to all of you for your ideas. Very useful. I think an author doesn't need to confine themselves to showing; a deft mixture of showing and telling can work nicely. Dialogue is generally considered to be the way to show character emotion as it comes tumbling out, and dialogue can be internalised as you showed, Lily. What about a mixture of dialogue with more descriptive 'telling' in short narrative in between?
That's interesting, what you say about the pit of the stomach for intense feeling, Dorothy. Apart from the physical aspect of emotions, though, there must be a corresponding rush of anxiety as Rose's frightened imagination begins to scroll through all the implications of this message. With deepening horror.
What about that angle?
s in ... when my husband told me he wanted to leave, the pain was so intense I screamed hysterically for some minutes. Anxiety was the last emotion I felt. That came later, when I considered the implications of selling up and moving away. The first ones were pain, loss, rejection ... anxiety is the wrong emotion, I think. Outright fear that she is to be rejected, abandoned, would come first.
I think that's very valid, Casey: she would question in her own head. Followed by more deliberate steps, possibly in a catatonic state of bewilderment while nonetheless following an instinctive line of action: to isolate the facts in their stark blackness and working herself up to facing him with it.
Youll remember his use of daemons for everyone in Northern Lights, but in case youre not aware, Ill explain briefly that every person has a non-human animal other self, who is always with them, usually on their shoulder, and reflects their character. Lyra, the 11-year-old (?) heroine has a daemon named Pantalaimon who variously becomes a moth, a bat, a cat, a squirrel, depending on Lyras moods, since the daemon is always the other sex from its owner and until the character becomes an adult, it can change its shape according to its owners moods and reactions. Clever, eh?
Anyway, on the occasion of Lyras much admired lady friend, Mrs Coulters, cocktail party, Lyra makes an unpleasant discovery that would change her view of her from one pole to the other. But the way was prepared for such a switch by an earlier little event involving strong feelings. Mrs C, whose daemon was a golden haired monkey, was teaching Lyra some useful facts about science, and not being one to like being thought of as uninformed, Lyra threw some dangerous information she had discovered into the conversation. Ill continue in Philip Pullmans words:
--When Mrs Coulter was telling her about electrons, Lyra said expertly, Yes, theyre negatively charged particles. Sort of like Dust, except that Dust isnt charged.
As soon as she said that, Mrs Coulters daemon snapped his head up to look at her, and all the golden fur on his little body stood up, bristling, as if it were charged itself. Mrs Coulter laid a hand on his back.
Dust? she said.
Yeah. You know, from space, that Dust.
What do you know about Dust, Lyra?
Oh, that it comes out of space, and it lights people up, if you have a special sort of camera to see it by. Except not children. It doesnt affect children.
Where did you learn that from?
By now Lyra was aware that there was a powerful tension in the room, because Pantalaimon had crept ermine-like on to her lap and was trembling violently.
Just someone in Jordan, Lyra said vaguely. I forget who. I think it was one of the Scholars.
[ She goes on to make up a bit of a story as to who told her. Then it carries on...]
I see, said Mrs Coulter.
Is it right, what he told me? Did I get it wrong?
Well, I dont know. Im sure you know much more than I do. Lets get back to those electrons...
Later, Pantalaimon said, You know when all the fur stood up on her daemon? Well, I was behind him, and she grabbed his fur so tight her knuckles went white. You couldnt see. It was a long time till his fur went down. I thought he was going to leap at you.
That was strange, no doubt; but neither of them knew what to make of it. --
So Pullmans little daemons act out the feelings and emotions of the two characters. We see the emotions before our very eyes. What the reader understands is that what Lyra had mentioned in her conversation caused her beloved Mrs C to grab at herself to prevent an open reaction, so important the matter was to her. He could have simply told us this, of course. What a lot of detail and conversation in order to show it; but thats all part of Philip Pullmans way of bringing us along with him in this fascinating tale.
Where emotion is concerned, is not about writing what you know, but more about what you feel. You have to be right inside your character's head to understand the root cause of any given thread of emotion, be it anxiety, anger, sadness, grief, empathy and so on. You have to dig deep, as a writer and bring those feelings to the forefront, to relive them in order to give your character the same responses.
Tolstoy once said one should evoke in oneself a sensation which one has experienced before...to communicate this sensation in such a way that others may experience the same sensation...
Remember, emotion is active and reactive. So in other words, a character can be emotional because of a situation or someone. Then it becomes reactive as the character reacts to that emotion. And from all that you get the motivation as to WHY your character does or says what they do.
I almost gave up writing after reading Tolstoy- he was too great a writer.
I'm glad you think that. I agree with you. I sometimes feel (not on this forum but in other interactions I have) that I am always being told to 'show not tell' and to have no 'telling' possibilities at all, for me, is too limiting.
Except in the case of a Hamlet figure, perhaps, Vijay? His procrastination might interrupt him after his emotional feelings, with events overtaking him before he had physically done anything about it. Consequently he would PLAN to take action... when the opportunity arose.
[quote=Red]That's the key: the motivation behind why your character feels a certain way at any given point.[/quote]
[quote=Red]You have to dig deep, as a writer and bring those feelings to the forefront, to relive them in order to give your character the same responses. [/quote]
Are you thinking here of the character's goals, Red? Their drive? The ultimate bottom line of their character and personality? Yes, I can see how that would strongly colour their initial feelings and the physical action they took as a result. For Rose in the example at the top of the thread, for example, after her discovery, there would be a wide difference between her feelings if she laid huge store for her life's happiness on a happy, permanent family, and if she were an ambitious woman who believed in her ability to create a business empire.
Yes Dwight, everything you write will have a sense of motivation behind it. Their personality shapes the way they act and react. One woman may cry after her lover leaves her, another might throw a huge wobbly and rip his clothes to shreds. How would Rose truly reacts is down to her personality. I have a main character who is driven by the raw emotion of a past event. When she recalls this event it prompts her to make the decisions that shape the rest of the story.
Vijay wrote: I don't know if you can get away with just one part of it- just the feelings for example.
This would be difficult because emotion itself is a physical trait that produces physical responses. Even if you had a character that doesnt openly react to a bad or terrible situation or event (i.e being numbed by a situation) this is still a physiological response.
I love Tolstoys work and philosophy. A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul.
A lot will depend on the writers skill.
Dwight your example is good. Rose should feel anger, humiliation, pain- and you would have to show the corresponding physical aspects to give a rounded picture.
This hopefully would enable you or anyone for that matter to get the real emotion. Also How Steve responds would need to be shown, so in this chapter if you Rushed the scene, it would probably come across shallow.
My advice is: slow it right down. Every beat matters. Oh, and LIVE IT.
I agree, Alison. When visualising a scene and making myself part of it so as to see what my senses are experiencing, I tend to see it as a film scene. I get so carried away when watching a film and drawn right into the world of that movie that this seems to work for me. The rest is author's breadth/depth of imagination, I suppose, to dig into the possible permutations of extensions and twists. I'm currently working to alter the dynamic of the relationship of my two main characters, so that where before one was well-meaning and the other feisty, they will both now have attitude to the point where their worlds are close to being adversarial. Meanwhile there'll be a clear romantic hope in my POV.