Five Elements of Emotion for Beginning Fiction Writers

The most common mistake beginning fiction writers make is focusing on what happens, or external plot, while neglecting emotion. It isn’t the writers’ fault. They’ve been taught to do this. In school, facts are often preferred over subjective feelings, reactions, and interpretations. In modern fiction, emotion is critical to good storytelling.

I often forget the titles of favorite books I’ve read, but I never forget the characters. By the end of a good novel, I’ve grown close to them and experienced their joys, fears, and passions. In character-focused fiction, emotions drive the story as much, if not more, than the plot. The emotions must be as carefully crafted as any other element of the story. Let’s take a look at a scene from Night Sins by Tami Hoag:

Hannah shook her head. Her hand trembled violently as she set her mug back on the tray, sloshing coffee over the rim. Ignoring the mess, she folded herself in two, hugging her knees, dry sobs racking her body. Someone had stolen her son. In the blink of an eye Josh was gone from their lives, taken by a faceless stranger to a nameless place for a purpose no mother ever wanted to consider. She wondered if he was cold, if he was frightened, if he was thinking of her and wondering why she hadn’t come for him. She wondered if he was alive.

Although Hannah’s emotions are never explicitly identified in this passage, it is hard not to experience the agony, guilt, and fear of a mother whose child has been abducted. One of the first rules of writing good fiction is ‘show, don’t tell.’ ‘Telling’ the emotions present in a scene, would only distance the reader from the very emotions the author intended her to experience. So, by what means do we show emotion?

The Five Elements of Emotion in Fiction

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The character’s actions are an outward indicator of inner feelings. When confronted with a fire-breathing monster the character turns and runs. He is feeling fear.

Dialogue

Dialogue is another outward indicator of emotion. At times it’s appropriate for a character to label their own emotions, but this can be as flat as labeling emotions in narration. More often the dialogue will indicate emotion in some indirect way. Later the fleeing character’s partner asks, “How could you just leave me there to face that monster alone? Did you want me to die?” We understand the character is feeling betrayed.

Body Language

You’ve heard that body language is 90 percent of communication. I don’t know how accurate that is, but the idea is an important one. Body language is super easy to add into dialogue tags to boost or contradict the words your characters speak. A character can claim to be happy, but you know there is more to the story if they are gripping the steering wheel so tightly their knuckles turn white.

Physical Reactions

Physical sensations, that tight feeling in the characters chest, the frantic heartbeat, and other telltale signs of some reaction can convey emotion convincingly. Keep in mind; however, a single reaction could be interpreted differently under different circumstances. A rapid heartbeat could be caused by excitement, fear, arousal, or simply exertion. It can be tricky to find new ways to word these generic reactions, but it is important to avoid overusing common phrases, such as “her heart leapt into her throat.”

Thoughts

A character might reveal emotions in their thoughts, but again avoid labeling. The character doesn’t think, “I’m angry.” She thinks, “I wanted to slap the smirk off his face.”

The passage from Night Sins incorporated actions, physical reactions, and thoughts to build a gripping, emotional scene. When a character’s emotions are straightforward all of these indicators can be used in combination to make those emotions crystal clear. When the character is feeling one emotion and trying to outwardly portray some other emotion, you’ll need to use contradicting indicators. This is bound to happen at some point in the story. The dragon slayer puts on a brave front, but inwardly he’s terrified. Typically, body language, physical reaction, and thoughts reflect the true underlying emotion while actions and dialogue convey what the character wants other characters to believe.

Complex Emotions

All of the techniques discussed so far, focus on the emotions of the moment. It is important not to forget the big picture. In a great novel, the characters are complex and their emotions change over time. Fiction is all about conflict, both external and internal. Emotional conflicts often come from conflicting motivations, desires, and goals. The character wants two things that conflict: to exact revenge on Mr. X—to keep the love and respect of Mr. X’s daughter. The character might love the daughter and at the same time resent her for standing in the way of his goal of revenge. The key to pulling off complex emotions is in laying the groundwork. Characters must be consistent to be believable. If you merely show moment-to-moment emotional reactions that conflict, the reader will be confused. Carefully build the reader’s understanding of each emotion and motivation before you mix conflicting emotions into a complex scene.

Conflict and emotions drive your novel forward and keep your reader involved. The time you spend motivating them and helping the reader understand your characters is crucial to successfully crafting a complex, rich story your reader will remember long after The End.

 

Five Things Star Trek Taught Me About Being A Writer

When I was a teenager watching all night Star Trek marathons, I didn’t realize what valuable lessons I was learning or that one day I would be able to apply them to my writing career. Here are a few of my favorites.

Be Bold
It is right in the show’s tag line: to boldly go… I’ve heard it many times from editors and NYT bestsellers. Your voice is what will make your career. If you write sexy, make it very sexy. If you write funny, make it very funny. I you write tear-jerkers… You get the idea. Find your voice and use it boldly. Don’t let it get watered down to meet the expectations of others. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn the craft of writing, it just means to protect your voice in the process.

You May Need Help To Make It So
In Star Trek – The Next Generation, Captain Picard often said “make it so” to his right hand man, Riker. Picard was the captain, but he knew he couldn’t operate the ship alone. In your writing career you must be the captain but you will need the help of trusted experts along the way. Editors, artists, publicity people. Whether you publish in the traditional way or travel the self-publishing route, you’ll need them. Seek them out, ask questions, and keep your ship on course.

It Takes A Crew
Star Trek has always been an ensemble cast show. When you think of space, you might think it is a vast, lonely and dangerous place. It doesn’t seem that way on the show, with a whole crew of colleagues and friends around. Writing can seem like a lonely, soul rending business. Don’t let it be. Connect with other writers and your readers. Form close bonds and have fun. The setbacks are easier to recover from when you have a crew of friends and fans on your side.

Don’t Be Afraid To Be Different
Ever notice that Spock was one of the most loved characters on the original Star Trek series? How about Worf on The Next Generation or Odo on Deep Space Nine? Each of these characters stood out as different from the rest of the crew. That made them memorable. Make your characters memorable. Make your career memorable. Be different!

Learn To Reinvent Yourself
How many movies and television shows have spun off from the original Star Trek series? Too many to count. Each a little different and not all equally successful. Even if you take the things I’ve learned—be bold, be different—and apply them, things might not always work out as you hoped or your success might not last as long as you’d like. That doesn’t mean you should give up on being bold. The most recent movie installments in the Star Trek franchise were a reboot. It took the original story line and revamped it for a new audience to great success. Don’t let any setback end your career. Just reboot!


First published on the Savvy Author Learning Center blog.

Three Tips for Setting the Scene without Slowing Pace

Writers have always relied on description to immerse the reader in the story world, but modern readers of popular fiction expect a story to be told at a brisk pace. That means you’ll have to work a little harder to bring your setting to life …and your descriptions will have to do the same. Here are three quick tips to ensure your description is applied with a deft touch that will enrich your story without slowing it down.

Put Your Character In Motion

Whenever you choose the setting for a scene, consider how your characters will be able to interact with the setting. This is especially important in any scene that will require a great deal of description to orient the reader. Anytime you introduce a new or unfamiliar location you’ll need to spend a few words on description and in some genres, such as historical or paranormal fiction, settings may be even less familiar to the reader. If you can sprinkle in your setting description as the character moves through it or interacts with it, you’ll avoid a clunky block of description and the effort will be seamless.

For example:

The wooden slats beneath his boots shifted in the mud, most splintered with wear.

In this brief example, the character is moving through a town in a historical setting. This simple line of description will serves as a single brush stroke in the picture that is painted throughout a scene.

Use Setting To Carry Emotion

Emotion is at the heart of most good fiction. Readers are hungry for it. It is, arguably, the thing that makes reading worth the investment of time and the consequent of eye strain. When you use setting to carry or convey emotion, readers will be more indulgent.

For example:

Shocked by the icy blast of air that stung her eyes and the cold mush beneath her bare feet, she reminded herself it was only a dream. Besides, the scene unfolding captivated her beyond caring about a little discomfort. Her dream giant, Gunnar they’d called him, strode quickly through a snowy landscape toward a barrel-chested fellow with a long salt-and-pepper beard. Or maybe it was frost in his beard, she couldn’t be sure. The whole world seemed to be covered in snow or frost. A gray pallor spread across the sky, shot through with the barest hint of light struggling up from the horizon.

Because this passage from a short story I wrote is used to convey my time-traveling heroine’s shock and sense of unreality at suddenly arriving in ancient Norway, the reader will likely indulge in a bigger chunk of what is primarily scene setting description.

Focus On Significant Details
Not all details are created equal and not everything in your story needs to be described. Focus your powers of description on things that are important to your story—the significant details. What makes a detail significant?

Any detail that is integral to the plot must be shared. In another time-travel story, I had to describe the broach responsible for my heroine’s time-travel early in the story. Dropping it in out of the blue at the end of the story would have been cheating the reader. However, in the same scene, there was no need for a detailed description of the floor, the fireplace, the…you get the point.

Another type of significant detail is one that shows the reader something about the character or his situation. Again, one of the first things my time-traveling heroine notices about the hero is that he is dressed differently than the other men in the room. He’s been living abroad for five years. In a way, they are both outsiders within the group. Sometimes these types of details are very subtle or symbolic like the heroine mentioned earlier, who ended up barefoot in the snow. I chose to make her barefoot to subtly tell the reader she is vulnerable and to drive home that she is unprepared for her adventure. She is out of her element—somewhere she doesn’t belong.

If you keep these three tips in mind, there is no reason your description and setting shouldn’t be able to draw your reader into the story world without slowing pace.


This article first appeared at www.savvyauthors.com