Character Feelings and Writing Emotional Scenes

I’ve done a lot of emotion-centered posts about character feelings and writing emotional scenes, and that’s because I am coming around, more and more, to the idea that the reader’s feelings are paramount in writing good fiction. One of the cornerstones of my teaching philosophy is, after all, interiority, which is the practice of getting deeply into character feelings.

character feelings, writing emotional scenes — Writing emotional scenes that exploit your character feelings will also hook the reader. Don’t be afraid to get moody!

Writing Emotional Scenes is Reader Crack

If you can’t make the reader feel (this comes in large part from first being able to deeply feel your own story), then you are sunk. Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey aren’t novels, per se, they are 400 solid pages of character feelings (longing, in the same of Twilight, desire/curiosity/revulsion in the case of Shades). For me, both of them sunk their hooks into me (and about 40 million other people) so deep that I would constantly look up from the books, thinking, “This is such crap … and I can’t stop reading it!” Why? Character feelings. Emotional scenes. They are all that matter.

This brings me to today’s point: You are the curator of your reader’s feelings via character feelings and writing emotional scenes. How do you cue your reader’s emotions? With your characters’. Via their Interiority (thoughts, reactions), you lead your reader’s own thoughts, reactions, and feelings along the path of story that you’ve constructed.

A big pet peeve–and what inspired this post–is a character saying “I didn’t know how to feel right then” (or the equivalent). This is a cop-out. You need to be writing active character reaction. Guide the reader. Sure, “not knowing how to feel” or “feeling lost” is a valid emotion, but it’s a missed opportunity if you lean on it too hard. Instead, conjure up two or three really specific feelings that, when mixed together, convey a sense of being lost without ever dropping the emotional ball for your reader. Always be guiding them, and always keep in mind the emotions you are creating from moment to moment and, and writing emotional scenes, scene to scene.

Does this make you feel like a puppet master with character feelings and reader emotions? Good! That’s called “writing.”

Is your manuscript falling flat? Work with me as your developmental editor and we can get the most “emotional juice” out of your project.

Or try my book:

Describing Emotions in Writing

Telling when it comes to describing emotions in writing is probably one of the biggest problems I encounter in manuscripts. As a writer, you need to include emotional writing at every turn, but always through Interiority and showing.

Without being clued in to their Interiority–thoughts, feelings, reactions to what’s going on in the world–and without getting a sense for character emotion through voice and the way that they describe everything and everyone in your story (this applies to third person, too), we won’t truly know them.

Dig for the Nuance

But even when you’re proficient at describing emotions in writing, don’t be content to play on the surface. In a good book, there should never be just “happy” or “sad.” All emotions have causes, degrees, and consequences. The more complex the emotion in every situation, the more specific you’re being, and the more engaged your reader will become. (More on how to write emotions in a story.)

For example, prom is something a lot of teens look forward to. But “happy and excited” can also be cliché and boring. Not to mention unrealistic. A much more authentic character emotion might be that prom is actually bittersweet. Sure, it’s the event of the year, but it’s also a rite of passage for graduating seniors. It’s a signal that the year is almost over and that this is one of the last times all these friends and enemies and peers and teammates will be under the same roof ever again. (Advice on writing teenage characters.) For every emotion, find its shadow or highlight, search for a deeper layer, and give your reader several facets.

Describing Emotions in Writing Via Interiority

You can easily do it in Interiority. If we run with our prom idea, planting seeds of melancholy can be accomplished quickly and efficiently like this:

“Cheese!” Lacey grinned at the camera, clutching her date. As the flash went off, she felt a pang of nostalgia sharp enough to make her draw a quick breath. This will all be over so soon, she thought. But then the thumping bass beckoned her from the hotel ballroom, and she marched off toward it, ready to be lost in a crowd of her friends.

Ideally, we’ll get the primary emotion–excitement–and then hints of something else. No matter how you accomplish it, this kind of layered narrative is always infinitely more interesting to me as a reader, and it makes for much richer character emotion.

Is your manuscript hitting the right emotional notes? Hire me as your developmental editor and get an expert to help with describing emotions in writing.

External Conflict

A story needs external conflict to work. Let me tell you a little story about how I fly and the internal conflict that ensues. If y’all have spent any time following my blog or Twitter, you know that I seem to wind up on airplanes a lot. Last year, I logged 75,000 miles, with my longest flight lasting 12 hours. It may come as a surprise to you, then, that I am not a good flyer. In fact, I’ve resorted to many possible solutions for my flight anxiety, from hypnotherapy to whiskey. (Both happen to work, but the latter makes for a rather groggy arrival, just FYI.) But here’s the thing. Even though flying ramps up my anxiety, it’s boring to an outside observer because there’s no external conflict.

Worrying is Passive

These days, the only real problem I have with flying is takeoff. Landing is fine, being in the air is fine, but takeoff always gets me. (In the air, you don’t really realize you’re going 500 mph because you don’t have the ground as a reference point. On takeoff, you can see exactly how fast you’re going and you can feel yourself pulling against gravity, and I think that’s what bothers me. It’s a physical reminder of the forces involved and I don’t like to think about it.) Turbulence used to really bother me until someone I sat next to once said, “Imagine a stick bobbing in a river. It’s not comfortable, but it’s safe because it’s behind held up by water. Water has mass, and so does air. We’re floating on top of a choppy current, but we’re being held up by the air in much the same way.” That really helped.

Until I got my head straight re: turbulence, though, I would sit in my seat, pinned down with my own internal conflict, operating under the mistaken notion that my constant vigilance was the only thing keeping the plane in the air. I wanted to note every noise, feel every g-force, monitor every bank, and otherwise white-knuckle it until landing. Flying is completely out of a passenger’s control, and through the sheer force of my anxiety, I flew for years in a state of hyper-vigilance, hoping to regain some of that lost agency.

Worrying Is Okay to Write, But…

If I were to give you my Interiority on a plane–my thoughts, feelings, emotions–there would be a lot going on (interiority meaning here). Every second would be consumed with my brain’s whirrings. Worry is a very familiar, specific, and active thought process. (And here I arrive at how all this applies to writing…) There are lots of novels where I read characters worrying, and it’s a very natural emotion that helps raise stakes and build story tension. In fact, I think that a lot of characters don’t worry enough, and a lot of writers miss great opportunities by not sharing their protagonist’s anxieties with the reader.

But there’s also a danger in writing a character who is constantly worrying. Think back to me in my window seat, monitoring every aspect of the flight and gripping my armrests. Internally, I am a hive of activity. But, to the observer in the seat next to me, I look like I’m…just sitting there. There’s no external conflict. Worry is great in doses, but you can’t build a plot on internal conflict. Because it’s static. I happen to find my thoughts as I fly fascinating. But Mary Flying would make a terrible movie because it is physically passive and static.

Balance Internal Conflict With External Conflict

So use internal conflict to amp up tension and raise stakes and definitely include it as Interiority (advice on raising the stakes here). But remember that you need to balance it well with external conflict, or you risk your character…just sitting there. At one point, they have to cross the thought/action barrier and do something about all of their anxieties. They need to be proactive and to make something happen in the world of your book. We learn a lot about character through Interiority, but I’d argue that we learn more as they actually get out of their heads and take action. (There’s also the juicy tension of them thinking one thing and doing another, for example. But, again, you can only get there once you put them in motion.) As for me? You’ll often find me 30,000 feet above your heads, but these days, I’m more often than not (thankfully) asleep.

Hire my editing services and I’ll help you balance the internal and external conflict in your story.

Dreams in Fiction are Cliché Book Openings

You’ll want to think twice about using dreams in fiction, especially when you’re planning how to start a story. It’s the most cliché of cliché book openings! Allow me to illustrate:

dreams in fiction, cliché book openings, cliche book openings — So many dreams about starting a novel, so many potential cliché book openings…

I walk down the darkened alley underneath the old Smith and 9th Street subway station, on my way home from a publishing mingle in Midtown. The humidity is thick and there’s nobody else out on the street. They’re all huddled ’round their AC, exactly where I should be at the moment. But then I hear footsteps approaching behind me. I glance over my shoulder and see a man with a black velvet cloak hanging from his tall frame. He walks faster, his footsteps echoing. With a jerk of the hand, he draws something from the folds of his garment. It flashes in the streetlight. A dagger! I gasp and will myself to scream. A shriek pierces the night…

…and it’s my alarm clock. I jerk awake, cozy in my bed, and listen to the reassuring hum of my air conditioner.

HA HA HA! I fooled you all! This is the best novel beginning ever. Right?

Dreams in Fiction Are Cliché Book Openings

Wrong. If I read one more “it was all a dream” or “I’m actually in a video game” cliché book openings, I am going to make like dagger man and stab someone. This is one of the biggest writing clichés. And perhaps a cliché squared because it’s piled on top of the cliché of having a character waking up at the beginning of your story.

I don’t care if you are writing a book about dream worlds. I don’t care if your character is the Sandman. I don’t care if she absolutely positively has to experience the first morning of school, from alarm clock to breakfast to shower to bus. I don’t care if “That book by that really famous author that was published last week does this so why can’t I?” I simply don’t care.

Stay Away From Clichés

Everyone else has ruined this cliché for you. It’s cheap and it’s fake. It disrespects the reader and sets them up not to trust you from page one. It’s a flimsy Band Aid that’s doing nothing to address the problem of otherwise low tension in the beginning you’ve chosen (which may not be the right beginning). And I am on a personal vendetta against dreams in fiction, especially as book openings. Why jerk your audience around with tricks when you can tell a story? Aim higher. Aim fresher. Read more about how to avoid clichés here.

Looking for help with starting a novel? Hire me as your fiction editor, and I’ll help you dodge cliché book openings and nail your first pages.

Concrete Writing: Using Specific Language

I see a lot of vague writing instead of concrete writing in novel openings: danger and secrets and tension and action, but with no real specific language. If you’ve ever listened to the trailer for an action movie, you know what I’m talking about. A guy with a deep and raspy voice (think Will Arnett) is narrating as the sun rises over a wasted landscape:

In a world of destruction, the danger of explosive secrets will bring one man to the edge.

concrete writing, specific language — Ditch the vague writing and give readers a clear picture of what your story’s about from the very beginning.

Vague Writing: Sounds Great, But Where’s the Story?

Sounds great. Really juicy. Until you think about it and realize you have no idea what the movie’s about because of the absence of concrete writing. Well, this is the kind of thing you want to avoid in your prose and in your elevator pitch. I see this a lot with novel openings. Writers think that they can juice up the story tension by making their first few paragraphs sound like action-trailer nonsense. They often do this in queries, also, where they give me even less of an inkling as to what their book is really about.

We get a lot of talk about danger and secrets and tension and action, but nothing is actually communicated without concrete writing. And since it has all been telling, the reader never feels the emotions that those volatile things are supposed to be stirring.

The Antidote? Concrete Writing

I don’t want to hear about “danger,” I want to see it, and I want to know exactly what it is and what it means for the character. I don’t want to hear about “secrets,” I want to be blown out of the water by them and see their high-stakes ramifications play out on character and relationship. If you find yourself filling your opening paragraph with vague writing, delete it and start in scene, with specific language, action, and characters.

That pretty much does it for my daily “show, don’t tell” plug. Now, I’m off on my day of intrigue, excitement, and thrills!

(Translation: My day of reading a manuscript, taking a lunch meeting, and checking out my new gym. Sure, this line-up doesn’t exactly sound as flashy as “intrigue, excitement, and thrills,” but it is specific, and now you have a much clearer sense of my day.)

Is your novel beginning missing concrete writing? Hire me as your novel editor and I’ll help you develop a compelling opening.

Mystery Writing Tips: Confusion Is Not Mystery

I’ve been reading a lot of novel beginnings for webinar critiques lately, and it’s gotten me thinking about mystery writing tips. First of all, I must applaud some of my students for diving right in there and starting with action. Some of these guys are just off to the races…we’re plunged into the middle of a scene, into a world, into new terminologies, into names and places that we haven’t encountered yet, etc. Kudos! Most novel beginnings have the opposite problem–they are too information-heavy, with confusing writing (lots of backstory or telling or explaining). Boo. I’ll take an action-packed opening that drops us into scene any day.

But!

mystery writing tips, confusing writing — If your reader seems confused, you may need to add some grounding info to your novel opening.

Mystery Writing Tips: Balance Action and Information

Yes, there’s a “but.” It’s all about balance, actually. Because too much action and not enough information can be alienating to an audience that expects some grounding facts right at the beginning of the book. If we’re thrown into a story with no context or frames of reference, we are likely going to end up bogged down in your confusing writing. And as I like to say, “If you confuse us, you lose us.” Especially when beginning a book. Nobody wants to pick up an object that they just paid $16.99 for and be frustrated or feel out of the loop. We want to be tickled, intrigued, our interest piqued. Think about a meaty mystery from a detective’s point of view: they have some clues, but not all of them. And it’s that tantalizing yet puzzling amount of information that keeps them digging. Want to know how to start a chapter? Use my mystery writing tips: That perfect balance of action and information is what you want to give readers right off the bat.

If You Confuse Us, You Lose Us

So, to repeat, some of these writers who do plunge the reader right in are taking a risk. They know that unanswered questions and tension and mystery are like catnip for readers (if readers were cats…though they often act like cats, curling up in various nooks, etc.). This is very true. If you start with action, you’ll most likely have tension or mystery working to your advantage, because the reader will want to follow and know more about what’s happening. It’s a natural instinct. But if you give us no grounding information at the beginning–if it’s all action and no context–you run the risk of losing your reader with your confusing writing.

Where Do You Fall? Get Some Valid Writing Feedback

The best way to gauge where you fall on this spectrum is to run your opening by people who know nothing about your book (but who are writers or teachers and otherwise qualified to provide valid writing feedback- check out our critique group article). If they end up feeling like they get what’s going on at the beginning, or get it a little too much, you’ve got just enough or even a surplus of information to get the reader going. Maybe pare down some of the telling and work on increasing tension, action, and conflict to make it even more exciting — otherwise, you’ve incorporated my mystery writing tips nicely. If your reader comes at you with lots of questions, on the other hand, or if they seem confused, maybe you should take a few well-placed pauses and slip in some context (remember: show, don’t tell) to clarify your confusing writing.

Mystery writing tips broken down into a basic formula: Confusion, bad. Mystery, good. The two are not the same.

When you hire me as your manuscript editor, I’ll help you craft a strong novel opening that’s a mix of grounding info and tension.

Finally, announcing WRITING IRRESISTIBLE KIDLIT!

Legendary children’s editor Ursula Nordstrom (responsible for shepherding classics like Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are) once said:

If I can resist a book, I resist it.

This is the note on which I end almost all of my talks, and the challenge I issue to writers. Sure, the idea of someone resisting your book isn’t a pleasant one, but the trick, especially in this market, is to make resistance impossible. You should never aim any lower than that with your creative work. Am I right? And you do that by learning the marketplace and honing your storytelling craft to razor-sharp edge. How? I’m glad you asked!

It’s in this spirit that I bring you WRITING IRRESISTIBLE KIDLIT: The Ultimate Guide to Crafting Fiction for Young Adult and Middle Grade Readers. It’s my writing book. It is inspired by this blog, by my readers, by my clients, by my colleagues at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency and Movable Type Management, by the agents, editors, designers, and publishers shaping the industry, by the amazing writers who are working in the children’s book space today, by the SCBWI and the other conferences that have given me a platform, and by my own thinking about story over the years. It would not have been possible without the support of the fantastic team of people at F+W Media and Writer’s Digest, who have been my partners in literary crime for a few years now. (Trust me, some of the jokes I get away with during the webinars could easily be considered literary crime…)

For the book, I culled excerpts from thirty-four of my favorite published middle grade and young adult titles, and analyzed them to give my readers the most relevant examples for craft topics like theme, character, plot, imagery, dialogue, and more. There are tons of my original thoughts on all of these issues, as well as input from published authors and fabulous children’s editors. I also include insights into the children’s publishing marketplace from an agent’s point of view–where the market has come from and where it’s going.

Writing this book has been the thrill of a lifetime. I can’t wait for you all to read it and have a comprehensive picture of just what the heck I’ve been trying to say on the blog and at conferences these past few years. On a special note, I did not repeat any blog content for this book. Since I’ve written so much for this blog on the topics that I’m covering in WRITING IRRESISTIBLE KIDLIT, it could’ve been very easy to copy and paste some chapters entirely. But I wanted to challenge myself to create completely new content (and maybe I’m a bit of a masochist…probably a mix of both). Plus, I hate “blog books” that end up being repeats and disappointments, and wanted to absolutely avoid letting my faithful readers down. The only familiar sections you’ll notice are from some talks and webinars that I typically give, but not everyone has heard me speak. To balance that out, I’ll be phasing some of the old speeches out of my repertoire after this book is published.

Other than that, all you need to know is that it comes out in late October, 2012 from Writer’s Digest Books! Don’t worry, I’ll be talking more about it as the pub date approaches and doing some giveaways. Thank you so much for your support and early excitement about this project. I can’t wait to share it with all of you!

How to Start Writing a Book

Today I want to talk about how to start writing a book — particularly, finding your novel’s real beginning. As I say, I’ve been doing a lot of Writer’s Digest webinar critiques lately, and so a lot of posts have been inspired by things I’m seeing and notes I’m giving. While there are lots of personalized notes that I give on each manuscript (which are specific to the work), there is a handful of notes that I cut and paste from a master Word document (5 pages long!) because I have to give them over and over and over again, as they apply across dozens of manuscripts. No blog post is about a single critique that I’ve given. If I’m writing about it here, that means I’m seeing it a lot. One webinar student, Barbara, wrote back to react to a note that I’d given her.

How to Start Writing a Book: A Common Note

If you have to go into a flashback or two in the first 500 words, my guess is that you haven’t found your beginning yet. A strong opening scene is one you want to stick to for a few pages without yanking the reader away.

Barbara’s was personalized slightly for the manuscript at hand, but that is the heart of the comment. I give this note when a writer establishes a present moment with their novel opening, but then they either go into a flashback or cut the scene short and dash off to another scene within the first 2 pages (or 500 words, which is also the limit for critique submissions for the novel webinars).

And this was Barbara’s reaction to it:

Just a quick note to thank you so much for your critique. I have been struggling for a long time now on my opening pages, not quite understanding why they weren’t working. Your observation that maybe I haven’t found my real beginning yet was eye-opening. I am now filled with ideas for a new first chapter, and so relieved that I can take all the pressure off my current first chapter!

How to Start Writing a Book: Beginnings Are Hard

I wanted to share this with you because I think it’s a very common issue that a lot of writers struggle with. Beginnings are hard. You have to accomplish a lot with them (there’s a checklist in my book that I thought long and hard about). You almost never know everything your beginning will have to do until you finish the book, and it’s often the section that you’ll have to go back to over and over again to make sure it works and pulls the reader in while introducing your character and world without too much heavy telling or backstory. Whew! (Check out tips for writing backstory here.)

Sometimes It Takes Time to Find the Real Beginning

As such, most writers don’t land on their real beginning until much later in the revision process. Some don’t even land there until their book is sold and they’re deep into editing it on a more professional level. The point is, do the best you can with the beginning, learn as much as you can about how to make a good beginning work (check out HOOKED by Les Edgerton, out from Writer’s Digest, and discussed on this blog about setting reader expectations), and then give it your best shot.

If you lock yourself (mentally) into a beginning that isn’t working, it will hurt you in the submission pile, since that’s what you’re showing off to agents and editors. Stay as open-minded and as flexible with your novel opening, and make sure you write one that you will want to sustain for a scene or two without slipping into flashback or making a scene transition. That’s one easy way to know when a writer is in their opening mojo–they grab on to a beginning and they run with it for a while. Thanks to Barbara for letting me pass on this reminder, and keep my note in mind for how to start writing a book.

Wondering how to start writing a book? Get one-on-one, in-depth feedback on your manuscript when you hire me as a fiction editor.

Juicing The Turning Point of A Story

The turning point of a story for your main character is one of the most important elements in your fiction. If you can create that on your page, your audience’s involvement and investment cements forever. A lot of the time, climactic plot moments should rub up against these instances of deep personal change. When your character’s heart hardens, or softens. When one of their core defining values is broken down, or reinforced. When they make the most difficult decision of their lives. These instances are what great storytelling is made of.

story turning point, the turning point of a story — From the smallest changes of heart to the most important, I need to be able to point to the very instant on the page where your character turns a corner.

Exploit Your Story Turning Point

Sometimes, though, a change of heart just happens to a character. They don’t like someone and then, well, they wake up one day and feel differently and then the writer continues the plot from that new perspective. The only problem is, any story turning point is an Event-with-an-E. Or it deserves to be, because it has great power potential with readers. Just like you should put great care into approaching how to start a story, the turning point of a story is a hot spot that you absolutely must exploit.

The Turning Point Of A Story Should Be An Intentional Moment

From the smallest changes of heart to the most important, I need to be able to point to the very instant on the page where your character turns a corner. It will usually happen in reaction to something in your plot and be expressed mostly in Interiority (your character’s thoughts, feelings, reactions). After that, their new attitude or feeling about a person or situation will filter down and express itself in how they behave in scene and during the plot. But that moment when they see something differently has to be present.

I talk a lot more about the turning point of a story in my book, Writing Irresistible Kidlit. For now, though, do go back and examine your character’s story turning point and make sure that you’re juicing every last bit of resonance from that moment. This goes double for picture books, where you have a lot less text to work with (learn about picture book word count here). Sure, real kids change their minds all the time, but fictional ones need to be very strongly motivated in order for their emotional logic to make sense to the youngest readers.

Hire my developmental editing services and I’ll help you make sure that those emotional turning points are present and intentional throughout your story.

Writing Fantasy Picture Books

I’ve been seeing a lot of manuscripts of fantasy picture books that are what I’ll call Flight of Imagination. A kid is either dreaming or out playing and the plot of the book deals with them having an adventure based largely in their imagination.

fantasy picture books, books about imagination — Fantasy picture books should include more substance than simply the fruits of a child’s fantasy playtime.

An Example of an Ineffective Fantasy Picture Book Premise

Johnny headed out into his backyard…

…only it turned into a swamp full of menacing alligators!

And this continues for the duration of fantasy picture books, until Johnny is safe and snug at last, back in the real world.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this type of story. In fact, my brilliant client Bethanie Murguia makes great use of a child’s active imagination in her upcoming picture book ZOE GETS READY, out from Scholastic in a few weeks. But books about imagination should include more substance than simply the fruits of a child’s fantasy playtime. Imagination is a sales hook and a universal element for picture books, but it shouldn’t be the only one.

Most of the stories I see have great whimsy–Johnny’s backyard may turn first into a swamp, then into an ancient Egyptian tomb, then into a spaceship–but that’s almost a problem. They tend to be too specific. One kid’s imagination played out. A character who, other than his big imagination, is not well-defined. And they tend to invite clichés in terms of illustration because you’re practically forcing your art talent to illustrate the imagined scenes as if they were illustrating the contents of thought bubbles, which is a tired old trope.

Other People’s Dreams Are Not Interesting

This is basically how I like to explain my problem with these fantasy picture books: Other people’s dreams are not interesting. Imagine your best friend calling you up one morning and telling you about this crazy, whimsical dream she had. It’s full of crazy adventures and really specific fantastical creatures and it is a thrill ride…for her. I find my own dreams interesting, but that’s because they’re specific to me. I am not nearly as captivated by a purely imaginative thrill ride through another person’s subconscious. If that’s all there is, then I’m less likely to be interested.

Now, it’s not like you can’t have books about imagination that center around flights of fancy. We’d lose brilliant books like WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE if that were the case. But there need to be other layers in play, and an actual story within the imagined landscape, not just an episodic barrage of images or crazy adventures. Characters need to be fleshed out. A plot needs to be in motion, with sequential events that go from conflict to climax. Other book themes and universal childhood experiences need to be embedded within the fantasy picture book. (If you’re just starting out, follow the link for a primer on how to write a children’s picture book.)

For this reason, books about imagination are a tougher row to hoe than most. Just like A Day in the Life picture books, that follow a kid from morning to bedtime and showcase the family, pets, and favorite toys. Neither has an inherent plot and, in this market, that’s a losing proposition. Look at your fantasy picture books objectively and see if it suffers from this colorful–but nonetheless problematic–issue.

ETA: Wendy’s comment, below, is particularly astute. And a lot more succinct than this blog post. Go read that instead! 🙂

Let’s dig into your own fantasy picture book project. Hire me as your picture book editor and get advice customized to your manuscript.