I was reading a manuscript recently for a freelancing client and noticed a lot of pretty shocking things going on…but the author didn’t seem concerned with writing emotions to accompany those things.

An example would be a character developing a really painful physical condition and then shrugging it off. And his friends noticing that something is off and saying, “Well, I guess he’ll tell me what’s up eventually” instead of confronting their ill companion.

Missed Opportunities for Writing Emotions and Deepening Connection

The “Arm’s Length” Scenario

In our example, the first missed opportunity for writing feelings happened when the character refused to allow events to impact him. Or maybe he decided to keep up an illusion of normalcy and was therefore nonchalant. These are both realistic choices–there are certainly people like this in the world, lots of them. But are they good choices for fictional people to make?

A character who keeps everyone at arm’s length is only good if they have cracks for the reader to crawl into. The reader isn’t a character, for the sake of talking about fiction. And they’re not really a person. They are a sort of mind-meld creature that can and should get just a bit closer to the bone, especially in parts of a story that are full of fear or anger or hurt. The toughest characters in the world can have their walls, but they should also have their vulnerabilities, especially if the reader gets some access to those (via interiority, for example).

Lack of Reaction

The second missed opportunity for writing emotions is the lack of reaction to whatever is weird. If one character is doing something to disturb the status quo, the characters around him need to take notice instead of taking the path of least resistance. I know there are some worlds, like totalitarian societies in a dystopia, for example, where any kind of out-of-line behavior is frowned upon and maybe it’s a bad idea to react. Even in that case–and maybe especially in that case–characters should be tough on other characters (tips for writing a reaction here). That means confronting them, forcing them into the vulnerable places, throwing open closet doors and letting the skeletons out. If something is weird, it needs to be weird for the POV character and those around them.

Writing emotions that match the action in your story helps the reader get context. Classic story theory dictates that a story really begins when a character’s normal gets thrown into a state of abnormal. They spend the rest of the story trying to either get back to normal or establish a new normal. So events that leave the status quo behind should be reacted to with feeling, and lots of it. Both internal and external. By everyone involved.

Don’t Take Shortcuts When Writing Emotions

This is something I’ve discussed a lot on the blog, but it never becomes less important. Writers are notorious for taking shortcuts when it comes to how to write emotions in a story. That’s why characters shrug off bumps in the night until it’s convenient for the writer’s plot to finally involve the monster. That’s why they ignore a friend’s mounting pallor until–oops!–they’re found in the cemetery at midnight, feeding on a fresh kill. If your protagonist and the other characters in your world have such tight control over themselves and their reactions to events, there are fewer opportunities for your reader to get to know them.

My book, Writing Interiority: Crafting Irresistible Characters, will help you write authentic emotion that fits the action in your story.