Touch the Hearts of Your Readers: Entangle Their Emotions
By Tom Bentley | September 23, 2014 |
My mom, in better days, getting her parish priest liquored up on her birthday
Chapter 1: Out in the Cold
A couple of months ago, I had a troubling task. I was down in Southern California at my mom’s, accompanying her (along with my older sister and my girlfriend) to a couple of assisted-living centers in order to evaluate them. At 92, my startlingly frail and near-blind mother has had 24-hour care for more than a year now, and has required many hours of daily care for some years before that. But that care has been given in her own home, the home she’s lived in for more than 60 years, the home where she raised me and my three siblings, the home she declared—multiple times—she would die in.
But the bank is busted. There’s no family money to afford the considerable, ongoing costs of the in-home care. The reality is stark: as my mother winds down her long, good life, the only way to ensure that she’s given a good roof and caring hands to guide her path is to sell her home. We’d known that for a while, but it shocked me yet.
So, we toured the care homes, led around by cheerful hosts, and even had a good lunch at one. We saw clean rooms, engaged caregivers, clear attention to comfort and detail. At one, we even had a couple of the residents spontaneously tell us what a nice place it was. I had no doubt that my mother would be looked after there, and that her natural sociability would bring her friends in short order.
But still.
Who Is the Consoled, Who Is the Consoler?
Touring these places, my mother gracious but quiet, talking to the hosts in a friendly way, but not really engaging — it tore me up. No one wanted to be there, my mother least of all. But that was just one tolling bell in the tower of emotion. The next day, when I was getting ready to leave to go back home, my mom called me back into her “office,” the tiny room in which I was raised with my brother. She sat me down and took my hands and told me she wanted to talk.
She’d heard from my sister that I had been down, feeling discouraged about my life and work, a foul blanket that covers me now and then. She told me, “Tom, you’re a good person. There’s no reason to feel bad about your life. You’ve made a difference in people’s lives. You need to know that.”
There it was: my skeletal, sparrow-like mother, reassuring me, when her world was being taken away from her. I could barely speak. I could only mumble out a choked, “Thank you, thank you, I love you mom,” and then there wasn’t anything else to say.
How Layered Emotion Brings Fire to Your Writing
I could write more about that, but most of it would be personal. But what struck me later as a writer was how powerful such encounters are. There was the triggering situation, and then the bullet. [pullquote]But what struck me later as a writer was how powerful such encounters are. There was the triggering situation, and then the bullet.[/pullquote] And how simple the scene: “ … you’re a good person.” The blunt rawness of it. These are the scenes in which you should put your characters, where complex feelings are pulled in different directions. Never using artificial melodrama, or the kind of heavy-handed flourishes where a reader sees the writer pulling strings — no, just the heart beating, fast and slow, the heart hurting, from the uncertain unfolding of days.
That scene was personal and poignant to me, but there are universal aspects to it that any writer can use: fear, frustration, sorrow, guilt. Think of the places, the people in your life, where there have been those watershed moments. If you can steer that flood tide, that cascade of feeling into your characters, into your scenes, your readers will feel it too. Birth, death and that impossible thicket of things that happen in between — move your work into the thicket, despite the thorns.
My mother’s move is only a couple of months away. She’s been generous and good-spirited about it, because she is generous and good-spirited. But I know the prospect makes her uncertain and anxious.
Chapter 2: Calling in the Calvary
Two weeks ago, a different day, a different plot point. My sister, who lives in the same town as my mom, emailed the family to tell us that she’d re-negotiated the existing reverse-mortgage on my mom’s house. The mortgage holders agreed to pull out a great deal more money out of the house’s value, enough to cover the in-home care. An eleventh-hour reprieve.
All of us had been choking, and now we were given a quick breath of blessed air. Such a lifting for all of us, especially my mom. But a writer’s curse is not being able to avoid looking at events like a writer. The bank stated a clear-cut time when the funds would end. So in essence, we were gambling, mortgaging her life. Or from another angle, mortgaging her death.
It made me think anew of how you can layer the pressures and pulls on a character, so that there’s no obvious way out of their feelings (or the situation surrounding the feelings).[pullquote]It made me think anew of how you can layer the pressures and pulls on a character, so that there’s no obvious way out of their feelings (or the situation surrounding the feelings).[/pullquote] I felt such relief knowing my mom wasn’t to be expelled from her home, such dread that she might outlive the contract, such guilt that I actually hoped she would die in her home before the time is up. How can you hope for your mother to die?
Those kinds of mixed feelings—love, guilt, pride, shame, regret—can pull at a reader as much as they pull at the characters in your work. If you can find a way to use those kinds of feelings, their contradictions and convulsions, richly and honestly, your writing will be the more rich and honest for it.
So, my mom, now all of 75 pounds, safe at home. I wish so much that I can write a happy ending for her—no one deserves it more. But we only have so much control over what happens in our lives. That’s why we need to chase down our characters and pull them into all of life’s brambles and beatitudes, and sometimes all at the same time.
So, you of WU, do you find your sources for character mishap and affliction in the pages of your own life? Are you comfortable with using them (however disguised or however painful) in your work?
Tom Bentley is a novelist, essayist, and business and travel writer. (He does not play banjo.) He’s published hundreds of freelance pieces in newspapers, magazines, and online. He is the author of three novels, a collection of short stories, a how-to book on finding and cultivating your writing voice and a memoir of his sordid teenage criminality. His singing is known to frighten the horses. See his lurid website confessions at tombentley.com.
There are two ways to get the reader involved in a situation by describing it: sympathy – because they can see it happening to someone else, and empathy – because they and their family are experiencing the exact same situation and emotions.
I hope your fears are unfounded, and your mother does well in her own home.
You have my empathy.
Alicia, I appreciate the feeling (and the clear distinction you made between the two apprehensions/expressions of the feelings).
Tom, what a heartrending story about your family and the choices presented. Thank you for sharing and my thoughts are with you and your family in these difficult yet so-precious days.
And that’s the task, isn’t it? To learn how to pull out these emotions without melodrama and purple prose but simply and sincerely. That going back in and layering these scene types and emotions is the part I find most compelling as I try to retain a light touch.
Lisa, it is a tough task to use emotions with a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer. I just finished Anthony Marra’s “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” and zounds!, what a remarkable example of the understatement of churning, enveloping emotions in the entanglements of multiple families in chilling circumstances. I can only hope to have absorbed 5% of his wonder with those words.
Thank you for your kindness about my family.
Dear Tom:
I’ve been through this with my mother who spent her last days in assisted living. Since every age and every life change brings new responses, my relationship with my “difficult” mother mellowed.
I had time to breathe (as I was her main caregiver) and look at all the good things in our relationship and she, free from worry about her condo and hurricanes, had time and space to mingle with people, think about her past and blessings and look forward to the visits of her children.
Yes, we never know what the future holds, but it’s sure to hold changes that often surprise us. Best of luck and kudos for such a wonderful caring job of looking after your mother. This must give her much comfort.
Ellen, as is often the case, it’s my oldest sister who is the hero in this circumstance (so often the lead caregivers are women in the family, as you must know). She’s the one who still lives in my hometown, and thus is the person who has to manage the dizzying myriad of caregiving concerns, and is often at my mom’s house six days a week, though she has 24-hour care. I am only a fretful wraith on the sidelines.
I am lucky in that my mom has never been difficult, but has for her life given deep warmth to her family and friends. Thanks for writing.
What a good reminder of the messy soup of emotions that are all jumbled up about the same event. It’s easy to look at our characters and pull out the “one” motivation for a given scene or action, but this soup is where so much emotional power is.
That’s my response as a writer. My response as a person is to want to give you a hug. It sounds like you and your siblings are on the same page about care for your mother, which means you don’t get to add arguing with them into the messy soup. Blessings to you and your mom.
Natalie, yes, there hasn’t been much argument about my mom’s care, just worry. Everyone just wants her to be happy in her last spin on the planet. I’m with you on putting your characters in the soup—and it can’t be a broth, it’s got to have chunks. (Oh, and I’ll take the virtual hug.)
I think we have to be able to pull from these emotions or the reader never fully connects with the story.
We’re going thru something similar as my father in law struggles with cancer. There are so many emotions–some there aren’t names for, and can only be described as bodily reactions.
Your mom sounds wonderful. I wish her the best, and I’m sure she’s proud to have you as a son.
PK, love your description of some emotions (and undoubtedly, their blends) being bodily sensations—there isn’t guilt, hate and love and, but “guilhaove” or some weird conglomerate only felt, not articulated. Best to your father-in-law, and thank you for the nice words about my mom.
Seriously, Tom, you made me cry! At my desk. In my office. Surrounded by glass windows. Ah!
Denise Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
p.s. I wish your mom peace.
Dang, Denise, I didn’t mean to make you cry. (Or did I? There’s some mixed emotion right there.) Don’t get that salty stuff on your keyboard. And thanks for the peaceful wishes.
“… just the heart beating, fast and slow, the heart hurting, from the uncertain unfolding of days. ”
Thank you for this. I, too, have known the pain, and bittersweet arrival of the calvary, in the care of our grandmother, and grandfather long before her, years ago now. My heart goes out to you and yours. I am touched by your honesty, and more deeply so by your willingness to pull back the bandages so that we might see with our own eyes that even as we bleed, even as our characters suffer, by our own writerly hand we must explore these mortal wounds with courage, and raw unfettered emotion, unafraid to face our own battles.
Love! And comfort, To You and Your Family
Scarlett, that’s a sweet message, and thank you. I try to examine these things with courage, but really, most of the time I feel that it’s just floundering. But forward, I guess.
It is helpful to consider this stuff in light of our writing, in the floundering to find just the right sentence, in just the right place, that says just the right thing. A tough job, but who won’t do it if we don’t?
Tom–
The best way for someone to fully appreciate what you say here is to go back to your previous WU posts. The contrast with earlier light, witty pieces will offer a stark contrast.
Here, of course, you are also witty–fortunately, I don’t think you can help it–and the photo of your mother and her priest is perfect. Describing her as having “Licquored him up” can’t be improved on: it reveals your own humanity, and captures hers for your readers.
But the ultimate take-away for me in today’s piece is how it throws into relief the moral dilemma that so often confronts writers. We write, it’s what we do, and how we define ourselves. At the same time, we know–or should know–that as writers we inevitably use others. Even those we love–perhaps those most of all–become “material.” But exploiting others this way (I hope) draws from the writer a heightened level of awareness, a sense of duty to get things right. Certainly, you got it right today, and I thank you.
Barry, yes, once (and more often twice) a wise guy, always a wise guy. And when a priest wants a margarita, who can say no? Thank you for the discerning words about the care needed when using real-life source material in our writing. We’ve all met the “crazier/wickeder/purer than fiction” people in our lives, and it’s tempting to put it all in, down to the leering grin or the unfathomable sacrifice.
I know I’ve used the water from my own life-well to populate my fiction. But I try to see how the character (and character blendings) serves the story, so there might be the wobbly gait of someone I know seen through a character in one of my stories, but the real personality behind that walk doesn’t work in the story context, so only the walk is preserved. So much of what we see and feel is material for a writer, but as you suggest, it needs tight filtering and care. Thanks!
Your post triggered waterworks. And that’s what good writing is supposed t do. Thanks for this. Best wishes for you and your mom.
Densie, thanks for reading, and for the warm wishes.
Tom,
You reminded me today what writing is really all about, no matter what label we put on ourselves or out work. The human heart beats at the center of every story, along with all the attending messiness, heartache and joy. Even Cyborgs have backstories. Even Orcs experience loss. Sometimes we find our humanity in the unlikeliest places. Yours came ringing through every word of your post. Iempathize, as I am facing some of the same things with my mom. You gave me a boost, and I thank you!
“Even Cyborgs have backstories”—love it! I’m sure all Cyborgs have a worried mother at home—”Why doesn’t he go to college and study law, rather than tend to his implants all the time?” The heart (even the Cyborg variety) IS at the center of every story. Thanks back at you.
Tom, thank you for sharing your plight and your love for your mother. I am sorry you have been going through so much pain, but how blessed you are to have such a loving mother and family, as she is in having you.
Through your example, you’ve illuminated what writers need to strive for in their work. How not to shy away from the big emotions. I especially like the phrase – “move your work into the thicket, despite the thorns.” Life is messy. And to show that mess is what makes stories come alive.
I went through similar pain with my mother, who eventually ended up in a personal care home at the age of 93, and stayed there until she died at 96. She seemed to manage it well, though it wasn’t the same as being in her own home. And yet, it was no longer safe for her to be there, without constant care and supervision. I (being her only child) lived across Canada, thousands of miles away from her, and even with twice daily phone calls to her, and to others who helped, it wasn’t enough. I also managed four visits annually, but I know you can appreciate that even these were fraught with guilt for not being in the same city.
My heart goes out to you and your family. Thank you again for posting this.
Diana, that “life is messy” bell rings loud and true. And that showing it in stories, if deftly done, resonates. I know some of the guilt that you’re talking about, because I only see my mom a few times a year, though I talk to her on the phone a fair amount. I’m blessed, and my other siblings are too, that my big sister lives in the same city as my mom, and has done so much for her. Sounds like you did well by your mom, but I know it’s easy to feel otherwise. Thank you for the nice words.
Your post brought me to tears, as it did for so many other readers. It was a moving reminder of the need to draw on our own emotion-laden experiences and the courage it takes to do so.
I love the concept of putting characters in scenes “where complex feelings are pulled in different directions.” This can only heighten the emotional tension and make for a rich reading experience.
Thank you, and may your mother find peace.
Pam, thanks. Agree fully on drawing from our experiences, but man, it can be challenging to get right IN there, summoning the essence of an experience, a character, a setting, and getting it right. Sometimes the expression of something is so subtle—a grimace, a wave, a cast-off glance—but using the implicit power of that subtlety in writing, without being heavy-handed, can be maddening.
You always want the porridge to be “Just right,” but making it so takes fine attention and skill. Still working on that…
This is sound advice from a writing perspective. Isn’t Donald Maass always asking us to dig deeper and find the less-common (or at least less-acknowledged) emotions in a given situation, then put it on the page for our reader?
From a health perspective, though, you’re very smart, Tom. I’ve been in the position of shepherding families through these difficult transitions, and it always seemed that those who could acknowledge the full flavor of the emotional cocktail they were sipping did better. It’s as if they could say “this is what it means to be human, warts and all.” That self-compassion allowed them to spend their energy on dealing with the practicalities of the situation–hard enough, of course!–rather than using their energy on defending and denying the natural, darker emotions.
That said, when it came time to place my own Nana in a long-term care situation, I was a mess. Wishing you, your mom and your family peace with whatever is to come.
Jan, yes, sometimes the full flavor of that cocktail has a bit too much lemon in it, but there’s probably something cathartic in the drinking. I often leave the door a bit too wide open to my darker emotions, but in regards my mother, I think the balance has been about right.
As for Donald suggesting we dig deeper, I’m sure you have to go down in the mine to find the gold. (But hey, why is he smoking that cigar up above?)
Thanks for the well wishes.
Your mother is lovely! I thought she was going tell you to get married, start a family and all that … my mother did when she knew she was dying. But her pathos was so tangible at that moment. And it was all for me. One of my short stories came out near perfect at the first draft stage as I captured that. Oh, I cried buckets writing it and I suspect my readers did too. Strangely, although it won a contest, I’ve never been able to place the story. A part of me thinks it will eventually find a far better home than what I could’ve originally envisioned. But I digress …
Thank you for sharing your mother with us and also the dilemmas your family has been going through. Prayers for all.
This –
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” ― Robert Frost
One of the most meaningful quotes on writing for me personally, and I even attributed it correctly this time. Sounds like a lovely story, Vijaya.
Thank you John.
Vijaya, that is touching that your mom was pouring out her wishes for how she saw the happiest of futures for you when she was moving to the next place. Sounds like your story was cast from that deeper clay (and I hope it gets the audience it deserves).
Thank you for the prayers, and may they circle back to you.
Tom, as mothers often are, she was right. I should’ve done it sooner and had half a dozen kids :)
So lovely, and loving, that you and your family, including your mother, are taking care of each other through this difficult part of the journey. I’m learning about that too these days, and know how inadequate it can make one feel.
How wise of you as well to incorporate the lessons into your writing. One doesn’t always need loud trumpets to convey heartfelt emotion. It is the simple things said and emotions palpable but unspoken that often get to the heart of the matter. Such is true in life, and in good writing.
Be well.
John, “inadequate” is such an accurate way to describe the complex of emotions I’ve felt about all this. But we do what we can do (and sometimes find we can do more).
I continue to try to incorporate those textures into my writing, though (sigh) today, I received rejections from two literary journals for different stories. So I guess I’ll incorporate my emotional reaction of “what, those weasels!” into my next story.
Thanks for sharing your tender experiences of your mother’s aging, Tom. So many of us are faced with similar issues for our loved ones (and ultimately ourselves). Storytelling is an avenue toward healing and resolution.
On a somewhat different note, during the writing of my book, BROTHERS LOVERS GODS, in which the brother of the main character dies of a gunshot wound to the head, my own brother died in the post op phase of surgery for Parkinson’s. The rewriting of that portion of the book not only helped me understand the emotions of my characters, it helped me process my own grief and process long forgotten memories of my childhood with my brother. Strangely, although it seems so obvious in the telling, I almost missed the parallel between my own life and that of my main character.
David, the circumstance with your brother is one of those life/storytelling parallels that no one wants to happen, but it sounds like you were able to navigate those dark waters gracefully. Lovely to hear the forgotten memories surfaced—I think those kinds of memories animate our writing, whether consciously or not.
Storytelling is definitely an avenue for healing and resolution, though it can also be a place that puts unanswerable questions in place. Thanks for reading.
Tom – My wife and I are holed up in a nice hideaway, but I wanted to briefly show my head to let you know that I was moved and enlightened by this fine post. We have much mom stuff in common, my brother (that’s figurative – mine’s definitely another mom). Wishing you and you sibs and your mom peace and love in the days ahead!
Hey Vaughn, I hope the hidey-hole is fun and nourishing—don’t let yourself stray to that computer too much. I very much appreciate the well wishes.
Wow, what a beautiful post. Although I get WU in my email, I felt compelled to come to the site to tell you that. Because you entangled my emotion. Way to show, not tell!
Jeanne, I appreciate your trek over to WU. Lucky there are a lot of waypoints in the ether between your email and here that serve good beer. (Or at least that’s true at the ones I stop at.) I am grateful for your kind words.
Wow, fantastic post, Tom! Well done!
I’m so sorry you and your family are going through all that. I hope it all works out as well as it possibly can for all of you.
Thanks Erika. It’s just the regular life stuff, that we all go through. But when it’s your mom, jeez…
Wow, love your post. I read it as a writer, and appreciated it as a daughter who also finds herself wishing for a proper time death for her father. I feel so guilty about it, but he will be so much better off if he dies “in time”.
As far as for a writer, I’m terrible at over writing these emotional scenes, and it’s always good to read an example of the simple truth of action, word, silence, showing the emotion. If I have built my characters up the way you did with your mother and yourself, then the emotion should be clear by actions and words, just a little of each. And tear-jerking more than a big sob scene.
I hope things go well with your mom, whatever that might mean for your family and for her.
Jennifer, yeah, thinking of the good death, it’s hard, with that mix of guilt, discomfort, squeamishness and who knows what else. I feel truly lucky that my father, who had Alzheimer’s for close to 10 years but was still a warm, happy guy (though lost), died at home after a very short illness. A good death, those strange words. But we regard them appreciatively, knowing what a bad death can be.
There are a lot of those silences or beats in how emotions can be shown. The interstices, a word I like. I mentioned earlier Anthony Marra’s “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena” for its almost uncanny expression of wrenching emotion in subtle gestures or restrained scenes. Very good stuff. Thanks for your good wishes.
I hope I’m as gracious and brave as your mother when I’m faced with such a life-changing situation. Thanks for cracking open your soul to share this very personal lesson. How can we ever forget it? Peace to you and your family.
Sophia
Sophia, I’m with you–sadly, I fear I’d be the blubbering basket of self-pity and anger. Hope neither of us has to face the opportunity to test our souls that way. Thanks for the peaceful wishes; here’s a piece of that peace back to you.
As you see from all the responses – including mine – the pain of dealing with the details of the end of life stage of a loved one is universal, although it seems so personal when we go through it. My husband and I age going though it with our mothers right now.
I have been skimming over the emotional conflicts in my stories, (like I avoid conflict in my life) and your post has helped me see how important honesty is.
Thank you.
Judy, believe me, I try to skim conflict in my life as well, but sometimes it’s a mud puddle too big to jump. I do think honesty in storytelling is useful (though for some stories, deft deception can pique a reader’s center), but the ever-so-difficult part is how you express it: for differing characters, “honesty” is a different thing, considering how much we deceive ourselves or take a sly slant about so many life situations.
How do we write so it’s honest for the very blood of that particular character?
Best of luck with you and your husband, as you move through this mucky stuff.
I’m sorry to hear about what your family is going through. My grandparents are preparing to move into an assisted living home as well. My 92 year old grandfather is not as spry as he once was. The sheer enormity of all the change happening in my family is overwhelming right now.
As for being honest in writing, there is nothing else. At least for me, it is how I work through these emotions. I place my characters is those situations and watch them figure it out, hoping it will help me figure it out myself.
“I place my characters is those situations and watch them figure it out, hoping it will help me figure it out myself.”
Brianna, my keyboard is resonating with yours.
I read a great book recently, by a guy named Jonah Berger. It’s called “Contagious” and deals with why people share information with others.
A big part of his conclusion was that the most shared pieces of info are the ones that evoke strong emotions.
Great post.
Jake, yep—strong emotions often evoke strong emotions. And as in life and literature, they ain’t always pretty. But they are very human.
I just read this post and I wanted to say I am sorry that you were going through the process of helping your mother transition to a nursing home. My mom’s a DON and I actually work in independent living at the same facility, so I’ve seen many families deal with this decision and sometimes it breaks my heart when the parents/grandparents struggle with what is happening. But it sounds like your mother is one tough cookie and what blessed news to hear she’ll be able to stay in her home longer.
When I imagined your mother taking your hands to console you, I started tearing up. That was a beautiful moment, because even in her frail state with the knowledge she may have to leave her home, she was still thinking of her children first and taking care of you.
The point you made about using such moments as examples around which to mold our writing in order to avoid “artificial melodrama” and use nothing but “the heart beating, fast and slow, the heart hurting, from the uncertain unfolding of days.” That is beautifully written. I always try to do this in my writing…try being the key word. When I go to write an emotional scene, I refer to past experiences to breathe life into my characters. And I’ve read Breathing Life Into Your Characters by Rachel Ballon, and some of the exercises in the book had me recalling and writing past events, which helped illustrate how to stir those emotions, so I could feel them to write them.
“I felt such relief knowing my mom wasn’t to be expelled from her home, such dread that she might outlive the contract, such guilt that I actually hoped she would die in her home before the time is up. How can you hope for your mother to die?” I’m sorry you have struggled with such feelings and thoughts and it sounds perfectly normal. We all want the best for our parents and grandparents when it comes to taking each step in life, and when it comes to this point, you aren’t hoping for your mother to die as you said, you are hoping that your mother takes the next step peacefully and the most peaceful way for her to do that is in her own home as she hopes she will.
And I see your point here in regards to writing…if we can translate this emotional contradiction into our characters, it’ll enrich our writing. And oh god, yes I use the own mess in my life as a basis from which to build my characters’ emotional trials and tribulations. I don’t use what has specifically happened in my life, but I mediate on those emotions and often magnify them. And I think we’d all go crazy if we didn’t do this. We spend so much time alone, especially when we write, that we have to express our pent-up emotions somehow or we’d go mad…assuming one has pent-up emotions, but I think we all have a bunch of shit to deal with.
That is true when you say we only have so much control over our lives. We can only create happiness and peace of mind when we are able to distinguish between the things we can control and those we can’t and ultimately let go of the things we can’t control. And that is something that I think adds to the conflict and emotional contradictions in our characters, having them fight over things they can’t control.
Very nice, I enjoyed this article, Tom.
I hope your mother is doing okay and I am sending you and your family good thoughts. Your mother is lucky, it sounds like she has wonderful children who care about her and would do anything to help her live as comfortable as possible.
Siofra, thank you so much for your close reading of the post, and your warm words both about its content and about my mom. Those emotional plumbings, if handled deftly (no small feat) can bring great depth to a work and great engagement from its readers. And definitely yes, we fight, react and stew over things not in our control, often for years.
As for my mom, she’s doing pretty good (talked to her yesterday), considering. She weighs about as much as a paperback book right now, but she’s still lively.
Glad your mom is doing okay, Tom. Lively is good :)