Stirring Higher Emotions
By Donald Maass | January 7, 2015 |
“Pure Joy” Photo by Deborah Downes
What was the most emotional day of your life? Google for people’s stories and you’ll read a lot that are probably like your own: birth, death, betrayal, trauma, marriage, divorce, miscarriage, failure, second chance, recovery, a dream achieved, a confession of love, getting a helping hand.
Now, those are events. Let’s look at the emotions they evoke, for these are strong feelings and ones we’d like readers to feel as they read our fiction. We’re talking about primary emotions, maybe even primal ones: fear, rage, passion, glee, ecstasy, triumph, hope, astonishment, grief, humiliation, awe, joy or love.
You likely are not thinking about mild emotions like apathy, boredom, contentment, doubt, fondness, gloom, grumpiness, liking, melancholy or satisfaction. Those are real, everyday feelings but not ones that stick with us. Memorable times are memorable because they’re connected to big feelings; feelings so strong we describe them as experiences.
It would seem then that to give readers emotional experiences we need only work with primary or primal emotions. Unfortunately, from a craft perspective, there’s a problem: big emotions often fall flat on the page. Often that’s because they’re familiar, flatly reported or poorly engineered. Entering a dark basement doesn’t necessarily instill fear. Send a dozen roses to our doorsteps and you don’t automatically deliver love.
How often has a horror novel made you keep a light on? How many thrillers have genuinely made you feel paranoid? Do romances always turn you to mush? Does reading women’s fiction guarantee, every single time, that you will feel empowered or healed? I doubt it, though I have no doubt that you have on your shelf classics or favorites that have had those effects on you.
Reading The Spy Who Came In From the Cold gave me the sick feeling that I couldn’t trust anyone. A totally forgotten category romance by Janet Daily called That Boston Man made me fall in love. To Kill a Mockingbird still stirs in me hope that goodness and justice will triumph, even though in Harper Lee’s novel they do not. I know from these and other reading experiences that fiction can stir big emotions. The question is how.
Emotions have been exhaustively researched, written about, categorized and charted. For our purposes today we can put them into two simple categories: positive and negative.
Negative emotions are the easiest to access and write about. Fear and anger are a cinch to switch on. You can see this, for example, in the prevailing “voice” of our times: the often first-person narrative tone of ironic detachment. This default voice can be funny and entertaining, but that amusement factor springs from an underlying coolness. Ironic narration is attention grabbing but not always deeply engaging. How could it be when it is rooted in pessimism, passivity, distance and distrust?
(Exceptions like snarky narrator Holden Caulfield are exceptions for a reason, but that is a topic for another post.)
[pullquote]Positive emotions are harder to access and more difficult to use. Perhaps that’s because they relieve conflict rather than feeding it.[/pullquote]
Positive emotions are harder to access and more difficult to use. Perhaps that’s because they relieve conflict rather than feeding it. Perhaps. I suspect, though, that positive emotions are simply more difficult for us to sustain as human beings, despite being more helpful to us and conducive to happiness. (Check out Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s Positivity for more on that.)
In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman quotes Aristotle on the difficulty of positive emotions and emotional mastery: “Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not easy.”
Optimism, vision, leadership and persistence are not everyday qualities. Compassion, empathy and understanding—even of one’s enemies—are rare. Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa do not happen by all the time. Not everyone plays in the philharmonic orchestra or makes it to the Olympics, either. Kicking an addiction or forgiving one’s father can happen in our own experience but when it does it’s a one-time, life-defining change.
“Higher emotions” are called that for a reason. They elevate and inspire us. Even just reading about them changes us, as Thomas Jefferson once wrote and which more recently has been scientifically demonstrated in studies of “moral elevation” by Dr. Jonathan Haidt and others.
While it’s true that the negative emotions associated with betrayal, trauma, tragedy and death are large and memorable, they also die when we do. Positive emotions—and in particular higher emotions—live beyond us. The highest emotions become the timeless virtues extolled in every religion and recommended by every great thinker. They bring us back to The Bible, say, and in the same way they can bring readers back to our fiction when we evoke such emotions.
Thus, if we want to give our readers emotional experiences why settle so small? Why not plan to stir in readers the highest emotions known?
As I said, the question is how. Let’s turn this into a technique, starting with the observation that any big emotion does not spring out of nowhere. It is laid on a foundation of anticipation. Fear grows. Hope builds. Paranoia deepens. Love dawns. Healing comes in stages. To create high emotions in readers requires laying groundwork.
So, try the following.
First, identify a higher emotion you’d like your readers to feel. Maybe start with a virtue to hold up such as self-control, courage, perseverance, truthfulness, fairness, respect, generosity, forgiveness, service, sacrifice, discernment, integrity, humility, readiness or wisdom, for we can see that it is virtue that provokes in us the highest and most lasting emotions.
Second, assign this virtue—that is, its potential–to a character. Most effective will be a character whose nature is, or whom you can make, the opposite of this quality. Think who might most need to learn a lesson, see a truth or change.
Third, prepare the groundwork. Give your chosen character every reason to be the opposite of what he or she will become. Reinforce that that opposite way of being actually works and while wrong (to us) is nevertheless the right way to be. Find a way to show that at the start. Then build both the necessity of change and good reasons to resist it. Turn that into three key events. These are the anticipation phase.
Finally, enact the event that will bring home to your character the better way of being. Create a way for this character to show us his or her better self. This is the fulfillment moment, the moment when you will stir higher emotion in your readers—just as other authors have done for you.
I’m not advocating a return to Nineteenth Century morality tales. I agree with John Gardner in On Moral Fiction that being merely didactic does not fulfill the purpose of narrative art. Gardner says in essence that stories should not preach but rather test our convictions and through story reach conclusions about what is true in human experience.
I agree and believe that the reason that positive emotions—especially higher emotions—have a more lasting effect on readers than negative ones is that they bring us closer to what we want, need and know to be true. I wish I felt those high emotions more as I read. I’ll bet that you do too. I also know you can create that effect and fulfill that purpose in your work. It’s just a matter of setting the intention to do so and knowing how.
What emotional experience do you want to create for your readers in your WIP? How are you going about it?
Donald Maass (he/him) founded the Donald Maass Literary Agency. in New York in 1980. He is the author of The Career Novelist (1996), Writing the Breakout Novel (2001), Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2004), The Fire in Fiction (2009), The Breakout Novelist (2011), Writing 21st Century Fiction (2012) and The Emotional Craft of Fiction (2019). He has presented hundreds of workshops around the world and is a past president of the American Association of Literary Agents (formerly AAR).
Don,
Your lesson is exactly what I need going into my work this morning. Almost eerily so! I was thinking maybe you’re psychic, but then I figured this is what we’re really after as writers every time we sit down to the work. I know I go back to certain books to experience moments of change, redemption, and revelation because I need to feel those things in order to keep going. That moment of shift is always the most powerful when its well-earned and hard-won, like Frodo watching the ring fall into the fire. You brought up something else for me, as well; the potency of a positive emotion bubbling up under the surface of a negative one, especially early on. Like a hint or a tease, it makes me anticipate a payoff. Hope you had a good Holiday, and here’s to a brilliant 2015.
Don–
In addition to feeling the higher emotion of gratitude for having your post to read and reread, I’m led to think of my days in the college classroom. Along with established classics, I taught a fair amount of ironic, heavily armored contemporary literature. Much of it was written by poets and novelists with comfortable sinecures in universities. I came to think that most of these writers (not all) were driven by a deep concern, even a fear of being seen as naïve, unworldly and unsophisticated. It had to do with the times: the last “good war” was long gone, and Americans now had to face the murky ambiguities that followed–the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, etc.
But for the reasons you give, this point of view is not really consistent with human nature. The reader doesn’t read in order to be further submerged in a state of unresolvable ambiguity. The reader wants to travel with good company (even when that company includes very bad people), on a journey of discovery. But it can’t be a simple or easy journey; it must be one in which the achievement of higher emotions is earned at real cost. And as you say, that’s the writer’s challenge: to create a journey, both plausible and surprising, that sees the reader closing the book with a sense of personal accomplishment, of having done something worth doing with his time. In other words, feeling inspired, improved, enlightened–what you will.
Barry-
I think your comment today is my favorite ever by you here on WU. How beautifully expressed:
“The reader doesn’t read in order to be further submerged in a state of unresolvable ambiguity. The reader wants to travel with good company (even when that company includes very bad people), on a journey of discovery.”
May have to steal that. Or, academically, cite it with attribution. Thanks.
Barry, I’m with Don—your reply rings a resonant bell; thank you for its thoughtfulness.
(Don, you bang out some mean bells too: “Create a way for this character to show us his or her better self.” Your explanation of structuring the story architecture so that the character’s “opposite” of goodness works for them in character, while building up the necessity for change—ring!)
Susan-
Thanks, and you are right when you say, “That moment of shift is always the most powerful when its well-earned and hard-won.”
To clarify a bit, the higher emotions I believe we can stir in readers come not from a virtue itself. “Be ready!” does not cause us to leap up and snap to attention.
But when an uncaring, apathetic character rallies and rushes to the barricade, we are profoundly stirred. It’s not the virtue or even the demonstration of it that moves us, it’s change.
You also hit a good point about positive emotion bubbling beneath a negative one. It can be fearful to make a character flawed. What if the reader doesn’t like that character? The trick (especially needed with dark characters) is to right away hint at the goodness hiding inside them.
It’s the “save the cat” trick which sends to the reader a signal of hope: hope of change.
Hope your holidays were good too, it’s nice to have arrived in 2015!
This is so helpful as I work through the 2/3rds point of my draft and am solidifying in my mind the main emotional thrust of my story. Perfect timing.
Erin-
Wonderful!
Write on the Red Cedar is only eleven days away! Looking forward to it.
Hi, Don:
I have to make this quick because I’m in the Hudson Valley house-hunting with the new bride and another couple, and let’s just say that takes a lot of time — and includes a great many positive and negative emotions, as I imagine comes as no surprise.
Two quick thoughts: I’m not entirely sure positive emotions necessarily have superior lasting power. The endings of Vertigo, Chinatown (and Oedipus Rex, on which it’s based), Siriana and A Most Wanted Man, to name just a few, have haunted me far more than the sweeter endings of god knows how many other films or books. I think To Kill a Mockingbird lingers in the mind precisely because the haunting bigotry that darkens that book continues to haunt the reader even beyond the ending.
I think that positive emotions are not memorable in and of themselves, but rather they find much of their power precisely in the alternative darkness the character manages to overcome. We feel them most when we fully understand the terrible circumstances that might easily have occurred instead.
Which again provides a craft lesson: If you want the reader to feel the character’s happiness, you need to realistically depict the genuine horror or misery or betrayal he escaped.
Okay, off to my own roller coaster of promise and disappointment. Great post, as always. I’ll be reflecting on this more as the day proceeds, and can’t wait to read what others have to say as they chime in.
David, I’ve been thinking about this too … esp. since I’m reading David Morrell’s Fireflies. It’s about his son’s fight with cancer and eventual death. All negative as you can imagine, we know the outcome, but there is so much understated hope and beauty. All that suffering is leading to the transcendent. And that is what I hope to do in my stories too …
I’m surprised you don’t join the Storymaster Trio to form a Quartet.
Don, the questions you pose make me realize I’ve not done sufficient groundwork for the unexpected decision the MC makes at the end. I suspect part of it is because I am going against the prevailing culture of self-indulgence, esp. in YA. You find heroic acts of self-sacrifice in MG but less so in YA.
Hi, Vijaya:
Very sweet note, thank you. I’d love to join the trio and form a quarter, but one must be invited, and a stage can be a very tiny thing sometimes. Three fit so much more comfortably than four.
David-
It’s important, I think, to distinguish between the emotions of characters in a novel and the emotions of readers who are reading that novel. I’m speaking here of what we cause readers to feel–and how.
To Kill a Mockingbird does paint a depressing picture of racial injustice. What lifts and inspires us, though, is the ringing summation to the jury that Atticus Finch delivers in defense of Tom Robinson…that and the high respect paid to Atticus by the Negro spectators at the trial.
(I suspect it was those two moments in the film adaptation that won Gregory Peck his Oscar.)
Now, Atticus agrees to defend Tom Robinson only reluctantly, knowing the trouble that will cause. In the novel he discusses his decision with his brother, a conversation that Scout overhears–and which she later realizes he wanted her to hear. Bob Ewell spits in Atticus’s face. Atticus has to face down a lynch mob. There’s every reason for Atticus to beg off.
But he doesn’t. He does the right thing, and his noble defense of Tom Robinson stirs in us deep admiration, respect, resolve and, yes, some sorrow over this (then) hopeless cause…which, in a way, actually affirms that we have hope that justice, goodness and right will ultimately prevail.
So, I would argue that while the novel paints a negative picture the emotions stirred in us–resolve and hope–are of the highest order.
Oh how I wish we were having this conversation over a beer! HNY to you and your bride. Best of luck in the land of real estate, too. Ugh.
Hi, Don:
I’m finally back to my temporary desk in Rhinebeck.
I agree that’s a crucial distinction, and the key objective is to make the reader feel something profound and memorable.
But often the reader’s emotional takeaway from a story is triggered by what the characters fee (or fail to feel), especially the protagonist. And it’s the empathy aroused in the reader for the characters that allows this transfer to take place.
I think the feelings of hope and admiration and the craving for justice readers feel reading Mockingbird are very much a result of seeing Atticus (primarily but not exclusively) through Scout’s eyes.
I’d add that the devastating endings of Vertigo and Chinatown and Siriana and A Most Wanted Man (based on a Le Carré novel, like the brilliant Spy Who Came in From the Cold) succeed precisely because we have seen the character ultimately trying to do the right thing. And the failure to do it, whether because of fate or a flaw, strikes deep because we’ve invested so much in the characters’ desire to do good and our own desire that the good prevail.
Last — this is what I thought about all day after running out after my first comment — I think your analysis of the anticipation set-up is brilliant, and I think we agree that without the threat of failure or a betrayal of ideals by the main character, the emotional takeaway can’t be pulled off. If we don’t truly feel the hero may face genuine, heart-wrenching defeat, whether the cause is interior or exterior, no feel-good ending the story tries to provide will have a genuine impact — or feel true. I’m a firm believer in the rule of three, and I’d add that the third turn should have the opposite emotional polarity of the ending. If you’re after a strong positive emotional takeaway at the end, that third anticipation event must shock the reader with its negative emotional power — a terrible sense of betrayal or failure, for exmple. Then the turn toward the positive at the climax is earned and truly powerful.
Yeah. We’ll have that beer some day. Especially if current plan holds and I move at least part-time to NY.
Don, you touched on something I’ve been pondering for some time. “Story … should test our convictions and through story reach conclusions about what is true in human experience.” For me, that “reaching conclusions” is a dangerous place where the risk of becoming preachy is a hairsbreadth away. It is a push-pull tug between letting the character experience her emotional world without justifying the reason she feels as she does to the reader. I guess I’m suggesting the best stories are ones that stay with us because the conclusions are not voiced in the whole of the story rather they allow room for the reader to respond or react to a character’s journey. Sounds easy enough but what a struggle it is to keep that purity.
Holden Caulfield is a character that probably brings a range of responses to his journey. In my teen years, I identified with his angst. Recently I reread his story with my granddaughter and felt empathy for his sense of lostness and barely mentioned grief. Very different reactions to the same story due to a few decades of time between reads.
Great post, Don. Thank you.
Deb-
I love this:
“For me, that “reaching conclusions” is a dangerous place where the risk of becoming preachy is a hairsbreadth away. It is a push-pull tug between letting the character experience her emotional world without justifying the reason she feels as she does to the reader.”
Well said.
About Holden Caulfield…he’s snarky, outcast, alienated, and seemingly uncaring. But that’s a trick. If he were truly miserable we wouldn’t bother reading about him. Salinger did something clever in his opening, though. Amid all the attitude and (then) bad language, is buried something that’s easy to overlook.
Holden Caulfield actually does care, quite a bit. He cares about what his parents think and he doesn’t want to bore us with his biography. That’s right in the opening lines. We sense right away the sensitive kid beneath the hard shell. He’s searching. We don’t yet know for what, nor does he, but the very fact that he’s searching is by itself compelling.
But, like I said, that’s another post. HNY to you!
Gardner also said the good artist presents a vision of life as it should be lived; the bad artist merely stares, “because it is fashionable,” into the abyss. It’s easy to do the latter, not so easy the former (in a way that is seamless and compelling).
Of course, a positive vision does not have to come out of a positive result (e.g., tragedy; Stephen King). Aristotle was big on catharsis.
As for didacticism, Mr. Maass, wouldn’t it have been nice to see a debate at the University of Iowa between John Gardner and Ayn Rand?
Oh, Gardner and Rand would go at it, I have no doubt!
Huh. Well, this is a rathole none of us needs to explore, but I can see Rand and Gardner agreeing on a great deal, actually. I think Gardner’s sniffy disdain for much of 20th century thought and post-war American lit makes him a comfortable fellow traveler with many right-wingers, like Ms. Rand. They also both despised existentialism (though Rand is little more than rewarmed Nietzsche — or Nietzsche for Dummies, as I’ve called her before) and both of them had a lofty reverence for themselves.
Though Gardner was by far the better writer I still find ON MORAL FICTION a bit full of itself and needlessly impenetrable in places. (As I noted to Barry some time ago, a much better book on the issue of morals in fiction and life is THE QUEST FOR A MORAL COMPASS: A Global History of Ethics, by Kenan Malik. Just finished it — finally. Left me stunned).
Story Master Maass –
Great stuff!
I’m reminded of Chris Vogler’s observation regarding capture of powerful emotion – when acheived in “story” we as readers actually register/experience an accompanying physical response (e.g. tingle, plunging stomach, flush, tears, etc). These responses are involuntary and, I believe, primal. Emotions are evolutionarily ancient and something we all share. Great writing engages that common core within us.
My rambling response translates to – excellent, thought-provoking post!
Thank you
Tom-
I agree with Chris that emotion has a physical aspect, yet I also observe that reading the words “his spine tingled” doesn’t, in fact, cause my own spine to tingle.
How we provoke emotions in readers is an interesting topic that lately I’m enjoying addressing, like today.
HNY to you!
Donald –
Agreed – no suggestion that relating or describing the physical response/sensation would “cause” the emotion was intended.
What I attempted to suggest was that IF the reader has a physical/physiologic response, it confirmed that the writer had successfully “stirred” the higher emotions you reference.
Apologies it you felt was off-topic.
.
Tom- Ah, gotcha. And agreed.
I’m thinking about fear and how much of our behavior is driven by fear, which may be good or bad, positive or negative. But it’s pervasive in all of us. And the same fear may be positive in one circumstance and negative in another.
Fear of our emotions is the big one. It drives more of our choices than any other, IMO. So the same could and probably should be true of our characters. Maybe I need to be asking myself, “what emotion is this character afraid of right now?”
I’m just typing out loud here this morning, having been inspired by your incredible post, Donald. Thanks for that!
I love the way you’re thinking this morning, Mia. You’ve got me thinking more too.
Freud agrees with you Mia. And think of how many times we’ve fallen short in our ideals, failed to do what we knew was right or failed to act like the person we want to be out of fear.
A friend recently attended a self-growth seminar where the key initial question was: Identify the fear that, if you could overcome it, would change your life forever? (Terrible sentence, my apologies.) When I sat by myself and answered that question honestly, a shiver ran through me.
Hi Don,
I’ve been wondering about my current WIP in relation to evoking emotion. It’s the story of the father of my MC from my trilogy, and the first draft came rushing out. The MC and several other primary characters start out with great intentions, but then they all descend. Spiral, actually. Way down. So yes, lots of negative stuff. But I don’t think I went negative because it was easy. Rather, it’s almost as if I was subconsciously challenging myself, to see how low I could go and still manage to redeem them. It’s a real challenge in the rewrite, too.
Your discussion of building emotion on a foundation rather than dryly reporting it reminded me of my dad, and the last year of his life. We’d been close during my teens, as I was the lone sibling who stayed with him after my parents’ divorce. He had heart disease, and in my early twenties he became one of the first recipients of a pace-maker that also functioned as a defibrillator. Through my twenties, in spite of his ill-health, I’d sort of drifted away from him.
Then came the summer day, when I was in my early thirties, that he needed to be taken to the University of Michigan medical center, about 90 miles away, to have his malfunctioning defibrillator checked out. I was the only one who could take him. I was in lumber sales then, and had a few work stops I needed to make that were geographically along the way. At his suggestion, we made a day of it. Little did I know, the towns I was taking him through along the way were a part of his childhood. Most notably, while we were eating lunch at a small town café, and he pointed out the window at an old brick building across the street. “That’s where my father was killed,” he said. Wow! He’d rarely spoken of his father. My grandfather had been a struggling farmer who’d taken on a side-business of produce delivery while his three of his sons were off fighting in WW2. The old building he’d pointed out had been the town grocery, and my grandfather’s truck’s parking brake slipped, crushing him to death against the loading dock.
My dad told me all about it that day. It felt as close as we’d been in over a decade. When we arrived in Ann Arbor, we were told he needed to be rushed into emergency surgery. I stayed into the night, waiting. No one else could come. When he came out of surgery, they let me see him. He had on a breathing mask and couldn’t speak. But I reassured him he was okay, that it would be okay. He grabbed my hand in his big mitt and squeezed, tears leaking out of his eyes. I had been there for him. He was less afraid, and so was I. We had shared a great day. We still shared a special bond.
Later that fall, on the day he died, I heard about it in a phone call from my sister. From the moment I heard until the funeral, I was dry-eyed. It had been reported to me. But when I saw him again at the funeral, I thought of that moment, at midnight in the recovery room at U of M, after our special day. And the tears came. It’s still the moment I keep in my heart.
Thanks, Don, for the reminder to lay foundations and build and dig deep, and not just report emotions.
Vaughn, you made me cry!
Denise (Dee) Willson
Vaughn, damn. That’s the real life stuff, in its earth and its air.
Powerful stuff, Vaughn. Thanks for sharing this personal story. What a remarkable experience. Best wishes to you in 2015.
The moments when as adults we connect to our fathers are special and amazing moments. They become human and all the more precious because of it.
Before he died I wrote my father a letter of tribute and thanks. He was not able to speak to me but my step-mother reported that he’d read it and how much it had meant to him.
Had that not happened I think my life would have a hole in it that could never be filled.
And so, I find myself keen to see your WIP!
Vaughn, this is such a powerful and touching story. Thank you for sharing, and all the best in 2015 with your writing.
Vaughn: Wonderful story. Thanks. When my bother died, I held it together pretty well through the whole pre-funeral prep and such. The final service was almost over, and then the priest asked us all to sing. And that simple act, singing, broke open the floodgate.
Your stoicism was a way to be there for your dad and your family. But so was letting the real emotion show.
Another printer, my dear Yoda! Thanks!
Hope 2015 is good to you and your family, especially your son.
Denise (Dee) Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
HNY, Denise.
This is something I need to work on. I’m not great at writing super emotional characters. My current WIP has a huge thing happening, but it’s falling kind of flat. I’m only in the first draft, so getting the words out is more important to me right now, but it’s something I’ll be going back to fix later.
Brianna,
The inner life of our characters is where the story truly happens so, yeah, do keep working on it!
Don,
Thanks form this illuminating post. It’s exactly what I need today as I dig into refining character arcs in my WIP. I would start with my protagonist, whose virtue I think is courage. When we meet her she lives in doubt and a fear-based illusion that allows her to ignore her potential and live a life of escape. Events will soon transpire that will force her to either overcome her fears and seize the throne she has the right to, or to die holding onto her belief that she is nothing more than a seamstress who cannot control her destiny.
You’ve got me thinking now about higher emotions for the other POV characters, whose arcs I want to be strong like the protagonist’s. Today is a revision day (every Wednesday I designate as such), so I’ll be thinking about these excellent ideas.
You’ve nailed something quite profound with your mention of higher emotions that goes beyond stories, perhaps which explains why stories that embody higher emotions endure in our collective psyches. I used to love reading the Bible and going to church, but I’ve wrestled with my own faith and beliefs and consequently I have no religion. Something though is missing, and I’ve been struggling to find what it is. Reading your post today immediately brought me back to that quest, since there are virtues and higher emotions brought to the front of consciousness to one who practices a contemplative religion. Here we go about our lives consumed in lower emotions, swearing at traffic, angered by more news of man’s inhumanity to man, frustrated by our imperfect home lives, discouraged by how little time there is and how life is slipping inevitably by. These things can consume us. How wonderful then to focus on the things that transcend them. Empathy and connection, hope in a cooperative future, comfort and appreciation of special time with our loved ones, belief that our lives are more than the passing moments we know. That is true life and the things we need to be reminded of and, perhaps, why stories that embody higher emotions are so powerful.
As usual, your post has given much to think about. Happy 2015!
John,
Wednesday is revision day? Huh. Interesting idea.
John, I share your struggle. Church maybe doesn’t satisfy yet something feels missing.
We long to connect to what matters, what is true, what is important. All the more important, then, that we do so in our fiction.
Donald, thanks for a thought-provoking post.
Your point about the blithe detachment that’s popular in much current fiction really hit home. As a writer who uses a lot of humor, it’s a constant challenge to write funny stuff that can still be taken seriously and have real emotional impact. My favorite authors manage to pull it off, but it’s a balancing act at which I sometimes fail – and it happens in my personal life as well, when I encounter people who clearly assume I don’t take *anything* seriously, when the opposite is actually the case. If anything, I often take things TOO seriously, and I use humor to deflect – and so do my characters.
But I think you hit the nail on the head by identifying that it’s the BIG emotions we want to explore and evoke. The first time I really let my guard down and allowed my funny character to experience both emotional extremes – joy and heartbreak – far more deeply than ever before, the resulting story hit home with a MUCH larger audience than anything I’ve written before or since.
I learned the lesson. I get it. But it doesn’t make it any easier to dig so deep, because it opens up such deep emotions and then scrapes them raw.
Scary stuff, this writing. Even *funny* writing.
Keith-
Yeah, nail on the head.
I don’t like to make movie analogies in discussing fiction technique, generally speaking, but I find that the best romantic comedies achieve the balance you’re talking about. We laugh and are moved in equal measure.
Don: Interesting. I tend to use film examples because I’ve found it’s far more likely a majority of the students in any class will have seen a given movie than have read a given book. (And I tend to read obscure or old books, so my examples are seldom the kind to overcome the problem I’ve just noted.)
Keith: I have never, not once, sensed a lack of real human warmth in your humor. Your wit seems almost always grounded in human frailty and the need for dignity — or at least an answer.
This in itself–“What was the most emotional day of your life?” stirred emotion.
Easy to answer. Difficult to dredge up. When our 14-year-old son bled out and almost died.
Blessedly, he didn’t, but the next five years were spent in hospitals, ERs, and surgical waiting rooms. My mama-heart ached with the diagnosis of an illness I’d never heard of, and a season in grief became our new normal.
Fast-forward 12 years. Due to medical advancements, our educator son has a bright, healthy future. Thank God.
As I write, I let my emotions run the gamut. I’ve come to have a love/hate relationship with that season of endurance. I love what it taught me about life, writing, and faith. I hate the circumstance and suffering.
And since I write Christian fiction, I’m relieved we’re at last seeing some diversity. I’m a believer, but I don’t want to write or read about namby-pamby, cardboard characters who are kowtowing pantywaists. Give me some meat-and-potatoes real life folks who face real problems and demons and come out on top!
I want to see the muck and mire of characters’ struggles and adversity overcome. Those are the “people” and stories that I’ll always remember.
I want to take my characters from the gut-wrenching valley to the sunlit mountain peak. With a cherry on top, of course.
Loved this post!
Cynthia,
What are some of your favorite Christian novels that capture, for you, what you’re talking about?
I’m a huge William Sirls fan, a newer author I discovered with his first book, The Reason. (Love it!) The Sinners’ Garden is his next one. Not preachy or pretentious, Sirls is able to write from his gut, having served time in prison for wire fraud and money laundering. I cheer for his unorthodox characters as he puts them through the wringer and then pulls them out again. And he triggers every emotion. Great stuff.
My approach is gentler, softer. Think Debbie Macomber. She combines elements of faith with real life scenarios and makes me laugh and cry in the same breath. I adore her.
Good recommendations, thanks.
Thank you for this helpful article.
The take away for me is: You can’t simply write an emotion you must build it slowly within your character.
I think another reason emotion falls flat on the page is that a lot of authors tend to over write it. A solution would be to under write it. Instead of building the scene with overpowering words allow your reader to see the result in your character’s actions, thoughts, etc.
Leanne-
I find that under-statement works well when the narrative situation already has strong emotion inherent in it. When it doesn’t, under-statement can feel under-cooked.
My favorite books always drive me to tears at their finish. They usually involve a young boy or girl who struggles through both the usual horrors of their teenage years as well as whatever disaster has befallen them and their family. I think I love those stories because we never feel as helpless or unimportant as we do in our teen or tween years, and there’s nothing like showing that character that he or she can make a difference.
That’s what I had in mind when I wrote “Scorpion Summer.” It’s the story of a Navy Brat in 1968 who loses his father abour the USS Scorpion, the last Navy sub lost at sea. My 11 year-old protagonist must deal with the usual bullies and odd attraction to girls, but now must overcome his father’s death and find a way to take care of his mother and baby sister.
I want my readers to feel the sense of overcoming horrible tragedy and circumstances, that even a kid whose biggest concern is what flavor sugar to eat for breakfast can find it within himself to take control of his life when on one else can.
I hope my readers will cry at the end, both the middle-grade and middle-aged readers. And I hope they come out feeling that nothing is impossible for anyone who is willing to face his or her fears.
Ron,
I’m looking forward to a good cry! Am keen to see how to provoke that in Scorpion Summer.
Oh, good, Donald, another juicy one!
I’m pleased to see in the comments a range of replies, because from a cursory reading of your post one could assume you’re saying in a successful novel ‘everything has to work out happy and healthy (and right) in the end . . . And that’s the way it should be.’ (You are saying much more than that, but seem to be holding positive higher emotions as the gold standard.)
As for Saving the cat, can’t we also say there’s more than one way to skin it? Isn’t it true that over the centuries, great literature swings between poles of uplifting redemption and cautionary disaster? The antihero from the 1970’s is on the wane, but she will return. And conversely, the ordinary person (Katniss) rising to superheroine of today may become trite.
Then there are the shades of grey (more than 50). David Corbett mentions To Kill a Mockingbird, which falls into a middle ground—not succeeding though doing the right thing. This is very close to the unresolvable ambiguity that Barry mentions as to be avoided and yet that story’s goodness breaks hearts generation after generation.
So are you saying that resolutions of positive higher emotions are literature’s trend in the early 21st Century? If so, I can understand that; and it’s connected to marketing to today’s very stressed human population. We long for salves to problems of our own creation. But . . . tossing out the middle ground and the antihero tips the scale toward morality plays. As evidence for this, most every movie trailer and mainstream novel from the last 15 years touts the word redemption. Is this because we feel so lost, right now? So responsible, vulnerable and powerless?
I fight for this and question you on it, because my voice is often clearest when some characters do the right things for the wrong reasons (EG, generosity for fame) and others receive odd results from the best intentions. Then again, I’ve always preferred to swim upstream. Should I switch to drawing comics?
Tom-
I dunno, can you draw?
Seriously, I’m not advocating here for any type of story, happy or tragic or otherwise, nor saying that our fiction should value positive emotions over negative.
I am saying, though, that the reader’s highest emotions are stirred by a character changing for the good.
Hmm. Maybe I could have said just that and saved a few words?
Tom: First, I only brought up Mocking bird because Don did. So all credit should go to the Maasster.
Don: I have to admit, something inside me just starts to itch when I hear that a reader’s highest emotions are stirred by a character changing for the good. If that were true, Romeo and Juliet and Tristan and Isolde and the whole Arthurian legend cycle would lack the power it’s proven to possess for centuries.
But — and this is a crucial caveat — it is precisely this awareness of just how badly life (in fiction or, well, life) can turn out that provides the great emotional uplift when a writer manages to provide an ending that delivers a positive emotional kick that feels both powerful and believable. But I don’t think you can do that without honoring the reader’s awareness, conscious or unconscious, of just how close we all stand to the abyss.
James Joyce considered comedy (the drama of human joy) superior to tragedy (the drama of human sorrow) precisely because it is so much more difficult to do well. The reason it’s so hard is because so many writers blink or cheat at the crucial moment, providing deus ex machina resolutions or some other trumped up finale that fails to serve the emotional truth of the situation.
So, though I grant you the truth of what readers may desire — uplifting transformations toward the good — no writer can credibly pull this off without understanding in his bones the cold hard miserable truth of death, loss, betrayal, injustice. Absent that, the happy ending is nothing but a sappy ending, and nothing has been affirmed but the writer’s refusal to face the truth.
Well for sure no one wants a sappy ending.
I just finished reading a novel (I won’t name it) in the Nicholas Sparks vein (though not by him) in which a man takes his dying wife on a final trip. The whole thing is steeped in awareness of death. She’s going to die. With grace. He’s going to suffer. With nobility. It all plays out as expected.
What bothered me the most was that after the wife’s death her father, who hated his son-in-law, does a complete turnaround. He realizes that the daughter he lost lives on in his son-in-law, who knew and loved her in a way the father never could.
Now, what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong is that there is no groundwork whatsoever laid for this change. The father-in-law to that point had no humanity, wanted only to control his daughter’s last days and keep her alive. He was in no way afraid of her death, dealing with it or struggling with his relationship with her.
The husband and father-in-law then have a reconciliation sequence that to me seemed unreal, unearned, contrived and sappy.
All of which is to say that I do agree with you: You can’t effectively turn a character back from the abyss unless they’ve been at the brink of it, if not falling into its infinite well of darkness. To do less is to cheat, with the result that the uplifting change you engineer feels cheap.
Now, Romeo and Juliet are just plain foolish, or young, which is maybe not coincidental. They also don’t change. (Well, they die but you know what I mean.) Does their story stir higher emotions? Maybe, maybe, but I wonder whether their passion have that effect without Shakespeare’s poetry?
But again, do we mean their story is memorable (which is one thing) or does it stir higher emotions (which is another)? More beer is called for, I think.
Don and David, Thanks to you both.
David’s itch comment gave better voice to what was bothering me. And the cancer story you outline, Don, displays much of the problem. It’s the happy ending on inauthentic ground. But there’s more, too, to having the reader let down. If the ending provides a complete resolution on authentic ground, it’s good, fine, memorable even.
But most readers never experience resolution as quite so pristine and that leaves them depressed. How can they relate? And will they want to carry that dissonance forward by revering the book? (Maybe it leaves them addicted to read more of that kind of ending, as in some aspects of Romance genre.)
In exploring this notion of reaching readers’ emotions authentically it seems to me that sometimes an unforgettable finish has the transformation come at a cost or even with the fear/knowledge of its tenuousness. He slays the gigantic reptile and gets the girl . . . but she finds a lump in her breast or his son is crushed under the dragon. Odysseus spills blood in his living room.
Having overcome the dark side of his ambition, my protagonist finally does the right thing and kills a man (his wife’s father) . . . and goes to jail for it. He is then offered freedom to be with his family IF he repudiates his actions and allows those he has been trying to bring to justice (those in power) to cover their sins. He’s going to be honorable either way, but each honor has a price.
Thanks, Don!
I think you just saved me a lot of work on rewrite, as well as identifying for me why my latest fledgeling WIP feels like it’s falling flat. This particular project, a high fantasy, is only in the second chapter of the very first draft. For the sake of his brother who is deathly ill, the protagonist has to throw himself on the mercy of a young king he has recently rebelled against, a king he felt too weak to hold the throne because of his outlandish ideas about justice and fairness. (Don’t worry, I set up in backstory why this king is so different from his predecessor and the surrounding culture). I was starting the protagonist off with gratitude for the rescue bringing on an almost Dickens-like epiphany and his story arc was in proving his new loyalty and finding a place in the new society. I now wonder if I need a longer character arc to match the story arc, so that he comes slowly to his new loyalty and understanding to make the change more powerful and more satisfying for the reader?
The difficulty I see is not making him unlikable to the reader if he takes a while to warm up to the good king who shows him mercy against common sense. (Said decision supported by backstory too long to go into here.)
Shawna- That is meaty stuff. Without having read anything, I nevertheless sense that a longer character transformation may have greater emotional power. Both king and protagonist are complex, which is good, but we will have to care about both as they journey, which could be tricky.
That said, seems like you have a good handle on the effect you’re after. Happy drafting!
Great as always, Donald! Thank you.
Great post, Don. You’ve got me thinking (and thinking and thinking) and wanting to dive back into my manuscript to make sure I’m hitting the notes I want to to hit.
Like Mr Cronin, I find it challenging, at times, to hit the heavy emotional notes while writing comedy. There are a few authors who do it well, and who can make me run the gamut of intense emotions, while simultaneously making me laugh, and I reread those authors and books regularly to remind myself what I’m aiming to achieve.
My protagonist’s virtues are familial loyalty, duty, and sacrifice, wrapped in a story about what happens when someone realises they’ve given their whole lives in loyalty to a system and person who has lied, used, and betrayed both them and their family. In my earlier drafts, I struggled to get those heavy emotional moments on the page, and would shy away from them in favour of throwing another couple of jokes on the page. It’s take me eight rounds of revision to be brave enough (or, possibly, skilled enough) to find the balance.
This was an amazing post. Not only because of what you said, but then you told us HOW to do it too! As I begin the fourth draft of my WIP, I’m going to conciously think (and re-read) this post. Many thanks.
Thanks for such a great post, Don. It made me realize something. I am working on the first draft of my first novel. I read a lot of craft books. I’ve done a lot of research. I have a good idea of character arcs. My problem? I know this is going to sound crazy, but I have been procrastinating on actually starting to write. I started a few times and scrapped it each time. I have written several short stories, but I only submitted one, which was published in a holiday anthology last year. I didn’t seem to have a problem at all with any of my short stories, so I wondered why. Your article helped me see why. My protagonist is a thirty-seven year old woman who witnessed the aftermath of her father’s murder and mother’s disappearance when she was seven. My parents died (of natural causes) within 9 months of one another when I was 12 years old. In order for me to be authentic, I will need to draw on that emotion that has been buried for a great many years. I think I am afraid to do it, but it needs to be done. So, now I know why, perhaps I can delve into it. Why did I choose such a painful topic? I think because I am the only one that can draw on my experiences to write this story, which is also, in part, based upon my hometown. Thanks again for the help! :)
I enjoyed this post and the replies and comments.
The discussion here has been toward creating emotions in a novel. How can one successfully create these emotions in a short story? When writing a novel there is time to work toward the emotions you hope the reader will feel. I would love some tips on how to accomplish this in 5,000, 3000, or as few as 2,000 words which is the limit some journals will accept.
Adelaide
Maybe it’s my background, but for me, the higher emotions come from a character’s commitment, even if they fail, and especially if they’ve wavered in their pursuit of the goal before they dug in and found their strength. It’s about a hard-won internal victory, even if the external outcome is rigged or thwarted.
For instance, I’ve attended deathbeds where people succumbed to grim conditions, yet been tremulous with love, gratitude, and awe at how a patient and their loved-ones handled the challenges. The ultimate triumph is to be our highest selves even when we’ve “lost”.
And thank you, Don. You’ve clarified a story question for me.
I aspire to write highly evocative and emotional stories with responses that feel organic and transcend the masses, so Donald’s initial post alone was very helpful, but the follow-up commentary was nearly as insightful! Thank you to Donald Maass for writing this post, and also to all those who have contributed to this topic.
I loved when you wrote: “Most effective will be a character whose nature is, or whom you can make, the opposite of this quality. Think who might most need to learn a lesson, see a truth or change.” That’s brilliant.
Thank you.
“What emotional experience do you want to create for your readers in your WIP? How are you going about it?”
I’m working on courage. It’s hard to have a likeable main character who doesn’t have a lot of courage at first. But, I’m basically playing with similar ideas as The Giver, except its’ not dystopian, it’s MG Historical Fantasy. So I have to take my guy from believing everything he’s been taught, and carry him over that emotional line of being able to stand up for what is right. To make his own choices.
It’s been one of the hardest books I’ve ever written. It’s been two years, and I’m still working on his journey. I really appreciate this post, it’s been really helpful for me to dig deeper into my story. Thank you, Donald!
This is great advice. But I was a bit surprised by the following statement: “I suspect, though, that positive emotions are simply more difficult for us to sustain as human beings.” My experience is just the opposite.
Some of us wake up every morning joyful to be in the arms of the one we love. We go through the day singing silently or sometimes out loud to the Taylor Swift song playing in our head. After our work day, we say a little prayer of thanks at arriving home safely. Negative emotions may burn hot temporarily but are quickly forgotten when we interact with friends on Facebook or sit down to the computer to write.
That’s not to say we’re unaffected by tragedy. It simply means that happiness is a choice. You can focus on the darkness, or you can focus on the light.
Perhaps this is one reason some people don’t “get” the romance genre, and think it’s all just a fantasy. If positive emotions are difficult for them to sustain, I can see why happy endings don’t seem real to them. But I suspect that for most romance authors and readers, happy endings are the only ones that ring true.