Emotional Work

By Donald Maass  |  April 1, 2015  | 

Mass-1024x698I’ve been teaching a new kind of craft lately. It’s emotional craft, the understanding and planning of a novel’s emotional effect on readers. Most authors focus on characters’ emotions, principally the much discussed issue of showing versus telling.

That’s fine but limiting. For readers, most of the emotional experience of a novel doesn’t come from the page but rather from inside themselves. They react to what’s happening, sure, but they also reflect.  The events of the story cause them to compare.

We can see this dynamic readily in our own conversations with friends. When someone you know tells you a story about something that happened to them you may ask, “How did that make you feel?” but you are just as likely to say, “Oh yeah, that reminds me of the time when I…”

We connect to fiction by association. We bring our biases, baggage and opinions to what we read. We say things like, “I hated that character”, or “I didn’t buy that character’s choices, I would never do that.”  We argue with authors in our heads. We wish for different outcomes. We discuss and judge the stories that we read, placing higher value on stories that stir us up than on stories that soothe us and too easily affirm our feelings.

The goal, then, is not necessarily to get readers to feel more of what characters’ feel but simply to feel more themselves.

Doing that is easier when you, the author, are in more in touch with your own feelings. That may sound obvious. You probably think, no problem, and yet the emotional impact of manuscripts usually is light and frequently is obvious.  Most manuscripts cause us to feel little more than we expect to feel. They play it safe not only in plot but in emotional effect.

Better is to stir readers wildly. When readers’ feelings gallop out of control that’s good. They are then deeply engaged. That in turn happens when the author is also deeply engaged, bringing to the process an awareness of his or her own wealth of bias, baggage and opinion; basically, all that is disorganized, disorderly, ill-formed and troublesome inside.

[pullquote]If you empower yourself to be imperfect you become not only more human and authentic but also more effective as a storyteller. That’s because the messy emotional experience that you create in your stories works more on readers’ own emotions.[/pullquote]

In other words if you empower yourself to be imperfect you become not only more human and authentic but also more effective as a storyteller. That’s because the messy emotional experience that you create in your stories works more on readers’ own emotions.

The process of writing fiction itself is a tool to do that. There’s a mother lode of emotional effect to be dug up in your own frustrations, doubts, fears and wondering as you go. Mining that gold, though, often proves difficult. A frequent comment I hear from workshop participants is that emotional work is hard.

Hard? What’s hard about feeling? It sounds odd yet a number of writers report that when they dig into their characters’ emotions, or their own, they quickly feel blocked. They don’t know how to access deeper layers or are afraid of choosing “wrong” emotions.

I get that. Fortunately, there’s help for breaking emotional blocks. That help is one’s own characters.  The method is to flip the usual dynamic of writing on its head. Instead of asking characters what they feel, instead get them to ask, in a sense, what you feel.

Here’s the method:

After you have accumulated at least some portion of your novel, imagine that you are alone with your protagonist in a quiet, windowless room. You sit facing each other in comfortable chairs. There’s plenty of time. The mood is relaxed. You are not defensive. You are thrilled to have this chance to talk with your protagonist, and your protagonist is grateful to talk with you. 

Ask your protagonist to tell you something about yourself that’s true. What does he or she say?

Ask your protagonist, if you could do anything you wanted to in this story what would it be? What are you dying to do that I’m not letting you? What’s your most wicked impulse? What’s your best idea?  What would make you happy to do?

Ask your protagonist, what are you most afraid that I am going to put you through? How are you afraid you will suffer? What are you afraid you will lose? Are you afraid I will humiliate you? How? What’s your worst nightmare? What’s the worst way to fail? Whom are you most afraid to let down?

Ask your protagonist, what am I not seeing about someone else in this story? Who has a secret? Whose motives and objectives aren’t what I think? Who is secretly working against you? Who, by contrast, is better than they appear? What does any other character want to do that they’re not getting a chance to do now?

Ask your protagonist, what do you want to say out loud that you haven’t said? Whom do you want to tell off? To whom do you want to confess, I love you? Whom do you want to hurt? Whom do you want to seduce, or be seduced by? Whom do you want to help who you cannot help now? Whom do you want to forgive? 

Ask your protagonist, what’s this story really about—to you? What am I not seeing? What message have I missed?

The aim here is to access the unused potential in your story, to get beyond what is safe and stir up what will stir your readers in ways you cannot, and do not need to, control. Allow your protagonist to help you discover what is dangerous in your story and then use it. As you do your comfort zone as a writer will grow. So will the emotional effect of your fiction.

Writing fiction is emotional work. What do you find difficult about that work and how do you push yourself through?

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71 Comments

  1. Mia Sherwood Landau on April 1, 2015 at 7:10 am

    This is truly a gift for our writing and for our personal growth, Donald. Wow, thanks for it. I’ve always marveled how empty it feels to watch a movie after reading the novel first. Those characters aren’t right! I am in charge of how they look and how they sound… I know how they make me feel and those people on the screen are not doing it right… Now I get it. I’m not a megalomanic after all. I’m normal. And I’ve got the Method now, too. Great! Thanks!

    Although I hesitate to mention it in this group, I’m also a copy writer. I assure you this Method is a tremendous tool for writing copy, too. Double wow!



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:09 am

      Mia-

      I hadn’t framed this in terms of personal growth but in a way I guess it is. Writing as therapy? I don’t believe that writing is therapy–you need a therapist for that–but the emotional work does cause us to go inside ourselves.

      That’s good because that’s where story power (which is to say strong emotional effect) is to be found. Several of the comments below describe making personal discoveries through the process. Ask me, that’s as it should be.



      • Mia Sherwood Landau on April 1, 2015 at 9:54 am

        Well, my boxes full of notebooks full of writing were therapy for me, that’s for sure. But I actually wanted my writing to change me. We don’t need a therapist for that, just desire. I love your Method for all the reasons today, and can’t wait to try it out!



  2. Amy Rachiele on April 1, 2015 at 7:28 am

    It is amazing how I hang on your every word. You truly are a master, Obi-Wan! Great post! Thank you.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:10 am

      Amy-

      Can you get my seven year old to hang on my every word too? That would be nice. Seriously, thanks and you’re welcome.



  3. Ron Estrada on April 1, 2015 at 7:33 am

    Ah, Mr. Maass. This is why I love your posts. You force me to look toward the next level and dig deeper. I’ll add on to what Mia said there. I’ve always been taught that customers make purchasing decisions based on emotion, not facts. If we see our readers as customers, this would hold true for them as well. I joke from time to time that male writers are at a disadvantage because we don’t have emotions. But we have to pop the hood on our characters and find the emotional drivers that will resonate with our readers. It’s the difference between reading a book and experiencing it. If we can connect with the reader emotionally, they’ll experience our story and always come back for more.

    Thanks for another fantastic post.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:12 am

      Mr. Estrada-

      “…the difference between reading a book and experiencing it.” May I steal that? You’ve got it exactly. The difference is in how the author stirs us up emotionally. The craft is to stir up oneself, the author, emotionally.



  4. Judith Robl on April 1, 2015 at 8:00 am

    When one is reared in a totally stoic household with the prime command being “control of your emotions”, it’s difficult to give them free rein. That’s one reason emotional work can be hard – very hard.

    Thank you so much for this primer on how to peel the onion.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:13 am

      Judith-

      I grew up in a stoic, Protestant household. I know exactly what you’re talking about.



      • Rhonda Lane on April 1, 2015 at 11:41 am

        Yup. Same here. Restrain, conceal. Don’t be low-class. “Never let them see you sweat.” “Play hard to get.” “Don’t air your dirty laundry.” “Keep your cards close to your vest.” “Fake it til you make it.”

        We’re all programmed to repress emotions, whether it’s healthy or not.



        • Lanette Kauten on April 6, 2015 at 8:47 am

          As writers, we can use that. How many people can say, “I grew up in a stoic household, too”? A character who struggles to emote but wants to so desperately can tug on the emotions of the readers because on some level, they’ll understand the loss. Not being allowed to express yourself is a loss. It’s a loss of self.



  5. Vijaya on April 1, 2015 at 8:03 am

    I’ve met all my March deadlines and it’s April 1st and I’ve diving back into my fiction and it feels GREAT to do this first thing with my protag. Thank you for a wonderful post to get me right back on track with my fiction. Wishing you a happy spring and a very happy Easter.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:14 am

      Vijaya-

      Happy Easter to you, too!



  6. Paula Cappa on April 1, 2015 at 8:32 am

    Don, I recall your mentioning this method in a previous post/comment and I went ahead in tried it with my WIP. I went through my questions with my main character Alexei as if he was a friend. Mostly I got deadly silence in return. So, okay, he wasn’t very responsive at the moment. I kept repeating the questions in my mind for a couple of days. I guess it was buried pretty deep. Then wham at 3 a.m. I woke up with this guy on my mind and some images came forth, and lines of dialogue. I didn’t realize at first, but it all had to do with the first and last chapters. When I got to my writing desk, it clicked in. I suppose I might have found it eventually in the arduous revision processes, but when you get a piece of your story during the wee hours, it feels like a true wake up call. Maybe Alexei is nocturnal. The creative process is sooo mysterious.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:17 am

      Paula-

      3am is when I find out what’s really bothering me. The filters and censors are switched off. There’s no need to be polite or to practice social niceties. Raw rage and joy have free reign. Good time to talk with protagonists, definitely.



  7. Mary Incontro on April 1, 2015 at 8:42 am

    Great post, Don. You’ve taught me a lot in the last few years about digging deep and it’s helped my work enormously. And often, when I can’t sleep, I have long conversations with my protagonist – Joe the detective with the autistic son – and discuss where we’re going in the story, because we truly are in this together. Thanks for your insights and for pushing us to be our better writer selves. Look forward to working with you in Tampa in October.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:17 am

      Mary-

      How is Joe doing? Looking forward to finding out in Tampa next month!



  8. Susan Setteducato on April 1, 2015 at 8:59 am

    Don,
    I love the method, these questions. The ‘messy motional experience’, the thing we’re all so good at creating in our lives, is the hardest one to create on the page. To make it sing for the reader, we first have to feel it deeply ourselves. In working with my protagonist and her crazy parents, I often sit here dissolved in snotty tears. I’m convinced that why I write fiction at all is to discover myself in my stories. This is excavation work, and its tough to unearth the relics of one’s own insides. But it has to be done if we hope to lay down a truth that someone else will feel. I lost my dog last week, and in mourning him, I’ve finally been able to miss my father. Weird, right? But there you go. That’s a treasure for me, and maybe a little golden key for some reader in the future who gets to unlock a door with it. I know its been said by many, and often, but I’ll say it again. Your gift for teaching is a wonder, and I’m grateful.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:19 am

      Susan-

      So sorry about your dog. It’s so hard to lose them. Funny how it’s easier to grieve them, sometimes, than a parent. But as you say when we unlock those doors for ourselves we unlock them for readers too. Trust in that.



    • Rhonda Lane on April 1, 2015 at 11:35 am

      I’m not a grief counselor nor do I play one on TV, but I’ve lost loved ones ever since I was 8 years old. I suspect a lot of the sadness deferred has to do with the to-do list after a human loved one passes away. We have relatives to contact, services to plan, traveling, family converging on one place, mourners to greet, etc.

      Then, for example, we wonder why we cry months later when we turn a corner in a store to encounter a display of St. Patrick’s Day cards.

      When our pets leave us, we don’t have a to-do list, so we feel the full force of loss right then and there. Ka-BLAM!



    • Judith Robl on April 1, 2015 at 1:16 pm

      Susan,

      I know exactly how weird that is. We lost my father-in-law just six weeks after his only surviving sister, but I didn’t grieve until the calico cat left us two weeks later. Somehow, the cat gave me permission to grieve. I felt guilty weeping over a cat when I hadn’t shed tear one for the father or the aunt. Eventually I realized that those tears WERE for the father and the aunt. The cat was just an excuse.



  9. Vaughn Roycroft on April 1, 2015 at 9:05 am

    Hey Don – I imagine it must be gratifying, to hear our chorus of “ah-ha!” so often. Does it ever get old? Nah, I doubt it. Knowing you, it’s just a gauge of what resonates, then on to utilization in your own work, and raising the bar for your next writerly leap.

    May I add another “ah-ha!”? And perhaps an “Amen”? And maybe even a grateful, “Man, this is spooky.” Spooky, because yesterday I received a bit of feedback on my latest project. This reader was excited and I was grateful to hear some of her praise, but she cited an emotional lacking. She told me of two relationships, sort of a love-triangle for my lead female. The reader reported being more “shaken and stirred” by the secondary relationship (which was one I’d worked to better delve in the last rewrite). But that the main relationship, between the two MC’s, suffered in comparison. “Oh, crap,” I thought, my gut telling me she was right. Next thought: “I’ve got to go through Don’s old posts and books for ways to delve the emotional depths of this relationship.”

    And voilà! So now I’ve got *two* conversations to have in that windowless room. It’ll be interesting to see the differences. I’m guessing some of that “shake and stir” will lie in those differences.

    Yep, lots of “Ah-ha” here today. Plenty for you to use yourself (I know, you already are, right?). Looking forward to your next leap! Thanks again.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:21 am

      Vaughn-

      No, it doesn’t get old. The sound of writers going ah-hah is to me the sound of the world becoming a better, kinder and more connected place.



  10. Giselle Green on April 1, 2015 at 9:18 am

    As ever, very informative and interesting post, DM. Messy emotions can be difficult to write, I agree! (Having seen what you’ve written here, I am curious – did you ever get round to finishing reading the sequel to Little Miracles, in the end?)



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 9:22 am

      Hi Giselle-

      I owe you an e-mail! Haven’t finished the sequel but did read pretty far into the novel. Let’s discuss.



  11. Barry Knister on April 1, 2015 at 10:22 am

    Don–
    I think the challenge facing writers that you describe so well today– evoking true, honest emotion in the reader–is analogous to one of the problems facing actors: build.
    Some while back, I saw a student production of Macbeth. It started well, but it soon became apparent that the actor in the lead role had all too quickly raised the emotional level. He had nowhere to go but up, and he was already there. The effect was embarrassing. The illusion vanished, and everyone in the audience was squirming before a failure. Instead of evoking empathy in the audience–or just recognition of something universally true about how destructive personal ambition can be–the actor (and his director) was not being honest. He thought chest-beating and scenery-chewing could force the audience into submission. His efforts left him to face a half-empty theater following intermission.
    When I discover that a book I’m reading is offering up bogus emotion, it’s like that theater experience. Or like canned laughter in sitcoms.
    As I think you’re saying, the writer must know himself/herself in depth. After all, the character seated opposite in an easy chair is born from the writer’s loins. One way for the writer to expand self-knowledge is through a job interview with the protagonist.
    To the degree the writer has courage, and is unblinking in terms of self-knowledge, s/he can pose and honestly answer the questions you list, instead of phoning it in. S/he will be able to “access the unused potential” waiting to be discovered in the story. If this happens, readers will be able to reflect, and say, “Yes, that rings true, I’ve been there myself.”



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 11:30 am

      Wow, what a great analogy, Barry. Exactly. And you’ve got it exactly right when you say…

      “If this happens, readers will be able to reflect, and say, “Yes, that rings true, I’ve been there myself.”

      Readers connect by associating a story with their own experience. You can’t force that upon them, you can only create the space in which that happens.



      • Cathy Yardley on April 1, 2015 at 4:22 pm

        Don, this is a fantastic post. Will definitely share far & wide!

        I’m replying here because I loved Barry’s observation and your addendum: Readers connect by associating a story with their own experience. “You can’t force that upon them, you can only create the space in which that happens.”

        I think too often, when authors tell rather than show, they’re deliberately trying to manipulate the reader into feeling and thinking a certain way: experience THIS, exactly like THIS. I think it’s absolutely crucial for the author to be as immersed and conversant with feelings as possible to bring it out in the story, but it does need to be something that creates the possibility in the reader, “gives them the space” as it were — rather than bludgeons them with it. Great stuff!



  12. Jane Starwood on April 1, 2015 at 10:23 am

    This comes at the perfect time for me, as I contemplate writing the last few chapters of my first literary novel. I’ve been letting different scenarios float through my mind, testing them for emotional resonance and that feeling of coming full circle, completing the journey. I know my POV character has much to reveal to me yet, and the method you propose holds great appeal and infinite promise. So, thank you, Mr. Maass. I find your books and posts very illuminating.



  13. JES on April 1, 2015 at 10:23 am

    This reminds me a lot of a visualization exercise which David Gerrold used to teach in a seminar called ‘Writing on Purpose.’ He described it as ‘Ask the next question’; in effect, you and your protagonist interview each other, exhaustively, during a sustained session in which you have as few distractions as possible. You walk your character through an old opera house, with a wardrobe of costumes and whole storage rooms full of sets and props, and together you select the outfits and accessories — and facts, emotions, and personal history — which best suit the story.

    If you’re judiciously taking notes, by the time you both run out of questions to ask, your story is ‘done.’

    Thanks so much for describing this technique.



  14. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt on April 1, 2015 at 10:39 am

    Dear Mr. Maass,

    If I am any good at this writing thing (I am about to find out – PC, Book 1 got finished yesterday), it is because your books taught me HOW.

    Going through The Fire in Fiction is something I do with every scene I write, and making sure I elicit the emotions I want from readers is an explicit goal every time: I don’t write the scene until I’ve filled in my questionnaire based on Chapters 3 (Scenes that can’t be cut) and 8 (Tension all the time).

    I don’t have the energy to take a class or go to a convention – but I have heavily-annotated books which serve perfectly well as teachers. Several of them are yours.

    Execution is up to me – but at least I know what I’m aiming for.

    Thank you.

    Alicia



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 11:33 am

      Alicia-

      Ah, wonderful. Chapters 3 and 8 of The Fire in Fiction are good ones to focus on. Inner turning points in scenes and micro-tension are, for me, two key elements that make novels work. Thanks for the nice feedback.



  15. Christina Kaylor on April 1, 2015 at 10:41 am

    Donald, this is exactly what I needed to read this morning. I’ve been grappling with making my main character more complex, more affecting. Your advice about looking inward makes so much sense. I suppose looking inward is something I’m not comfortable doing since I don’t often like what I see, but who else should I know better than myself?

    Am in the middle of The Fire in Fiction and finding it enormously helpful!

    Thanks,
    Chris Kaylor



  16. Debra Druzy on April 1, 2015 at 10:43 am

    I’m at page one of revising a first draft (contemporary romance), and this is the exact information I need to get my editor’s brain working.
    Thank you!



  17. Shawna Reppert on April 1, 2015 at 10:45 am

    Emotional work *is* hard. . .I left that one-day workshop you did in Portland a couple years back feeling both exhilarated and utterly wrung out. At the time, I was working on a steampunk Victorian detective novel (with werewolves) and I think it made a huge difference in that novel, as well as the others I have done since. I now go through the book Writing 21st Century Fiction again with each new novel. (Still shopping that steampunk novel, alas, but I’ve had a couple other novels out since).

    While I think writing as therapy leads to neither good writing nor good therapy, I have to say I had a long hard think after one of the exercises in that workshop where I found that there were some things I had trouble forcing myself to commit to the page, even knowing no one else would ever see it.

    I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but another mentor of mine also advocates the ‘sit down and talk to your characters’ method. When I tried it with the protagonist of my urban fantasy series, he gave me a cold look and said “why should I trust you enough to talk to you? I have no idea who you are.” Which was very much in character for him at the time. (Although he did grudgingly answer a question or two eventually,) Maybe now that we are further along in the series, and thus further along in his character arc, he will be more amenable.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 11:36 am

      That character who is reluctant to talk with you…I wonder what he’s hiding?



      • Shawna Reppert on April 1, 2015 at 11:53 am

        Oh. Wow. I never thought about it that way. I thought he was just being arrogant and closed-off, like he is with anyone he doesn’t know well.

        This just dovetailed nicely into something from last month’s post, and I think I finally got a handle on his vulnerability. All the more powerful as ‘vulnerable’ is the last word anyone would normally use to describe this man.



  18. John Robin on April 1, 2015 at 11:00 am

    “…if you empower yourself to be imperfect you become not only more human and authentic but also more effective as a storyteller.”

    For me, this is the heart of your message today. I used to approach writing with rigid control, high expectations of myself, thinking of the final product. I only blocked myself, made foolish choices, and produced fiction that was flat.

    Over the last 9 months my outlook has changed and I’m pleased to see the results in the fiction I’m crafting. Instead of coming to the keyboard worried about whether or not I’ll write the correct thing, I come to the keyboard saturated in thoughts about my characters. When I write I want to get inside their head, to think about them and what is changing in their life–what is absolutely critical to them that will be meaningful to anyone reading about them. Doing this involves so much uncertainty on my part, because I never know what I’m going to find until I bravely go in and explore it; but only in doing so–in suspending perfectionism and the need for formulas–do I end up discovering that great “ah ha!” I am seeking.

    For me it’s not about forcing the reader to feel anything, or relying solely on what I feel from the act of writing. As you outline in your exercises at the end of your post (which are quite similar to how I like to sit with my characters, especially when I can’t get to a keyboard), creating powerful fiction is about really going inside the characters yearnings, needs, desires, goals, fears, and feeling them personally so that that the experience transforms onto the page. One beautiful thing about this, too, is that it can always be deeper. There is no end to the depth of emotion we can infuse in our fiction. We just have to throw the perfectionist out the window and, ironically, by embracing our innermost, broken humanity, we gain instead something far greater than perfection.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 11:37 am

      “We just have to throw the perfectionist out the window and, ironically, by embracing our innermost, broken humanity, we gain instead something far greater than perfection.”

      That’s perfection right there. Thanks for that gem, John.



  19. Tonii Kelly on April 1, 2015 at 11:12 am

    I would have finished my first novel sooner if I had read this post some time ago. I worried that my protagonist’s character arc ended before the reader might be satisfied, and concluded my book there anyway. As I start e next one, these are words to remember and incorporate to create not just a satisfying growth arc, but a satisfying plot as well. Thanks!



  20. Sue Coletta on April 1, 2015 at 11:35 am

    OMG, I love this post! I’ve been concentrating on theme, trying to dig deep with a thematic concept, a what if question that touches my soul and, hopefully in turn, touches others as well. This really helps a lot. Thank you!



  21. Jennie Nash on April 1, 2015 at 12:15 pm

    There is so much wisdom here. Fabulous post.



  22. Erin Bartels on April 1, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    Don, beyond the very helpful questions for interviewing my protag (which will take WORK to answer) I appreciate very much this sentiment: That emotional thrust comes from an author who brings “an awareness of his or her own wealth of bias, baggage and opinion; basically, all that is disorganized, disorderly, ill-formed and troublesome inside.” All those things we try to hide or suppress in order to get along with others. :) I grew up in a family where “you do your crying alone.” Literally, my grandmother said those words to my dad once. And I’ve never seen him cry.

    Certainly there’s more to emotion than weeping, but we’re so trained to be rational and calm (and look down on those who aren’t) that it is easy to censor ourselves when it comes to big action and emotion from our characters. I think that’s why you so often see a secondary character with big emotions and outbursts and anger and humor, but more often than not see a calm, cool, collected protagonist. Secondary characters are allowed to be themselves. But we can worry about letting a protagonist do and think and say things that are too “big” because we want readers to identify with them, and we as writers want to identify with them, and therefore they can’t be too “different.” And when you grow up under the stoic influence of the Germans, the Scots, and the English, it’s hard to identify with angry outbursts or rash actions. (Somehow the Irish in my ancestry has been effectively quashed.)

    And yet, isn’t that also a part of writing that can be the most fun? To be that person you could never be in real life, and to let your reader be the same? :)



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 1:16 pm

      Erin-

      Good point about protagonists vs. secondary characters. The latter can pop off the page more than main characters, and this is perhaps why.



  23. carol Baldwin on April 1, 2015 at 12:33 pm

    These are amazing questions. Will copy and save on my desktop for future reference. Thank you!



  24. Jan O'Hara on April 1, 2015 at 12:44 pm

    It’s scary work to be so transparent, but I trust the process because of how patients responded to “damaged” physicians in medicine. They’d readily forgive a stint in rehab or a bout with depression because it made their doctors human and real. In fact, doctors who became self-aware and got on top of their problems were typically more popular than their perfect colleagues. Vulnerability and ownership are attractive qualities.

    Thanks once again, Don! Another post to add to my toolbox.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 1:17 pm

      Jan-

      Huh. That’s counter-intuitive about “damaged” doctors but makes sense once you explain it. Thanks!



  25. Lia Keyes on April 1, 2015 at 12:50 pm

    Don, this is such an interesting twist on creating an emotionally engaging experience for the reader!

    I’d love to hear what you have to say about how to approach the emotional subtext of a scene, too. It seems to me that the emotion of a well-written scene is often contained in the subtext, in the things that each character ISN’T saying, a truth they may be betraying inadvertently by their physical actions. eg. “Let’s do lunch!” (as they’re backing out the door, trying to get away from the person they’re addressing).



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 1:19 pm

      Lia-

      You’re talking about characters “showing” what they feel and, of course, that is always strong. My concern is that they sometimes don’t have enough to show to begin with, hence these questions.



  26. Ruth Horn on April 1, 2015 at 1:05 pm

    Hi Don,
    It’s amazing the volume of response you got from this article. Such good exercises – which I’m about to employ (again). Danae is about to die (finally) and then I’m going to go back and use these very techniques with some of my more difficult sections. I’m just so pleased with what I accomplished in San Diego. Thank you as always and I’m glad to have these ready to hand. See you in October.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 1:19 pm

      Great, see you then!



  27. Veronica Knox on April 1, 2015 at 1:18 pm

    Yesterday, I was dreading a rewrite and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t feeling exhilarated in the (almost) home stretch. Your post made me realize I had lost the emotional connection. I wasn’t feeling IT. Burnout didn’t cover it. I’d cheated my characters and myself out of the ‘visceral-ness’ of a story that once had me in a joyous fever to nail down. I was disenchanted. Strange how we can feel drained from the lack of emotion as well as an emotional high.

    When I read my own words I want to squirm in all the right places feeling wow! I wrote that! I lived that! And hear feedback that says wow! You wrote that!

    I send you a five exclamation point thank you. There will be more visceral stories and authors with loopy satisfied grins on their faces after this post. I hope to see you in one of your Maasster classes at the Surrey Conference again in the fall.



  28. Tom Bentley on April 1, 2015 at 1:33 pm

    “In other words if you empower yourself to be imperfect you become not only more human and authentic but also more effective as a storyteller.”

    Don, I’m feeling more imperfect by the day, so I should feel the tingling enhancement of my storytelling powers any minute.

    I am editing a novel right now where it feels like the author won’t let the characters go—they all have middling feelings, conventional constraints and mushy, little-expressed emotions. I am pointing him to this post. It helped me, and it will help his work.



    • Donald Maass on April 1, 2015 at 2:58 pm

      Tom-

      Wish him good luck for me.



  29. Bethany Kaczmarek on April 1, 2015 at 2:55 pm

    Exactly. I get so frustrated when an author tells me how I should feel as I read. What I want is a story that calls to mind my own history, sucker punches me with visceral emotion. The kind of book that stays with me long after I put it down.

    When a writer pulls me into the fray so I’m rooting for their characters or gasping for breath because I feel I’m in there with them, that’s a book I’ll reach for again and again.

    And it’ll probably be a different experience each time.



  30. Jocosa Wade on April 1, 2015 at 3:24 pm

    Hi Don,

    I’ve been exercising the writer-me, with you, since 2008. I have notebooks full of the exercises you’ve offered in workshops and on WU. I’ve done my best to answer them and dig deeper into my characters. Several of the probing questions you offered up at the WU UNCon has put some major zing into my current revision. Major gratitude!

    But here’s what I’ve learned most about emotional writing. Emotional truth in writing comes when you/the writer are ready. Ready as 1-a writer who has put in however many hours they needed to appreciate what it means to tell a riveting story and 2-ready as a person who is willing to unlock all the secret doors and unbar the windows that they’ve closed over the years.

    We can “want” both of the above passionately from the time we begin to write, but it doesn’t mean they’ll come when we call. I’ve come to believe, through my own evolution, that learning to craft a story is pure process and we can only move forward as fast as we are ready to evolve.

    I love your exercises because everyone can benefit from them no matter what stage of the writing process they might be in. But I hope we all remember that the depth in story structure and emotion doesn’t crystalize because of an exercise, it opens when we are ready to embrace the real truth within. And that only happens when we are writing the story we Need to share.

    You have helped me find mine. You are a guiding light, Donald. Thanks again.



    • Donald Maass on April 2, 2015 at 10:32 am

      Jocosa-

      There’s something to think about in what you say. What do you suppose makes one ready?

      I once knew an actress who did a hilarious one-woman show about her time stripping her way through college in Boston. She was a little beyond college age when performing the piece. I asked her why she had waited to write it. She said, “My dad died last year.” Sure. Made sense.

      Perhaps there are other ways to gain distance on what is close to us. Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t force it. I wonder.



      • jocosa wade on April 2, 2015 at 1:48 pm

        Your story about the stripper (so interesting since my story is also about a stripper) makes perfect sense. Major events in our lives often force us to act. The fragility of the moment shakes us and we understand we’re only hurting ourselves by not moving forward.

        On the other hand, to share our “unbearable” truths is a lot like discovering who we are in therapy. Our self revelations happen in layers. Our conscious mind can only process so much “truth” at a time. We face what we need to face, when we’re ready to face it. Seems to me our hearts work the same way. No matter how much we want to bare our souls NOW, sometimes we need to take baby steps.

        This is why I’m love writing. The process of discovery is so stimulating. I wish I could’ve reached where I am now 10 years ago. But I think I’m going to be a much stronger writer in the end because I’ve had to dig deeper under the rubble to understand what has been holding me back.

        Or maybe I’m just defending my slow learning curve. :-) Doesn’t matter. I’m all in regardless.

        Such a great post!



  31. Amber Cartriana on April 1, 2015 at 5:55 pm

    Oh, this is a tough one, but I think one I needed to hear. I’m finalizing the very end of the editing of my book and the one thing my readers and editors say is – they need to feel more, connect more, with 1 character – the primary MC. Reading this I see clearly the problem and now have a some tools to fix it with. You’ve been my hero for a long while Donald (with your books and instructions). Thank you for this one.



    • Donald Maass on April 2, 2015 at 10:34 am

      Amber-

      You’re not alone. Distance between protagonist and reader is an issue in virtually everything I read. Once one finds the way to open a main character, though, readers open themselves and they become what we call invested. Keep at it.



  32. David J. A. on April 1, 2015 at 6:05 pm

    So . . . can you please recommend some authors who succeeded in achieving this emotional effect, so that we can study them and learn?



    • Donald Maass on April 2, 2015 at 10:35 am

      David-

      Stephen King and Daphne Du Maurier are two that come immediately to mind.



  33. Ellen T. McKnight on April 2, 2015 at 9:40 am

    I appreciate what you’re saying here, Don. I’ve recently blogged about writing as a full body experience – to connect so deeply with our characters that our own senses are engaged. If the tension flatlines, my first clue is that my own stomach has unclenched. Tension on every page – I learned that from you. Writing fiction is the work of sympathetic imagination. I love your idea that we should allow ourselves to be receptively messy and emotional to bring this about.



  34. Lancelot Schaubert on April 2, 2015 at 11:37 am

    Super interesting, Don. Thanks as always for teaching us.

    I actually saw this very exercise performed by some counselors and psychiatrists upon some psych patients, but the roles were reversed. They asked their patients to imagine God or their father sitting across from them – again, no hostility, ready to talk. And then they were asked: “What do you •need• him to say? Because that’s what he’s saying right now.”

    I bring that up because Tolkien in “On Fairy Tales” taught us that the act of reading fiction is more than the suspension of disbelief. It’s actually a secondary faith in a secondary world – the reader is, for the moment, responding as if everything actually happened (you probably already know that brain scans confirm this). And then, as a unique human, they respond to those story events in a way unlike any other unique reader. When the story events are believable and the characters are true, strong emotions rise up in the reader.

    Regarding secondary belief, that means if we imagine ourselves alone with our characters in a quiet room, we’re their father. We’re their God.

    So what are their prayers to us in their most desperate, their most triumphant moments? For what do they beg absolution from us? What are they trying to hide? What is their deepest gratitude for our work in creating their world?

    Often I find the emotional landscape of my characters – rage and adoration alike – directed right at me.

    Lewis once said that if Shakespeare showed up in Macbeth as Shakespeare, The Author of Macbeth, the characters would have stoned him to death. For what, I wonder, would they stone or enthrone me? What have I done, as author, to make visceral reactions in my characters?

    Imperfect? Oh yes. Like all of our fathers.

    Or at very least, our worlds too have fallen.

    Great stuff.



    • Tina Goodman on April 4, 2015 at 2:20 pm

      Well, the characters of Macbeth could stone him for author intrusion. (That’s a joke.)



  35. Ruth Horn on April 2, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    So Don, I’m right at the end when Eddie and Griffin see Danae taking her Uncle from the hotel to the woods. It’s been just pages of police procedure and this exercise came along in the middle of it.
    What I realized is that I am only half in Eddie’s head. When she came along I instantly liked her as my attorney’s cop counterpart. I am totally in her head in her relationship with her father and with her lover but I am not in her head as a cop. You, in fact, are more in her head than I am, I think.
    I’ve been thinking about it from the point of view of your emotional exercises. Something I’ve glimpsed before is so much clearer to me – that she is ambivalent about being a cop. She’s trying to fulfill her father’s desires not her own. Consequently she’s not entirely real when she’s being a cop. She and I are both going to have to come to grips with this – which, all in all, is a rather fascinating and evolutionary predicament.
    Thanks Ruth



  36. Ray Rhamey on April 3, 2015 at 6:13 pm

    I think it’s smart, Don, to focus on the emotion that a narrative creates in the reader. I love fiction that brings a lump to my throat or a tear to my eye (not just for sad things, but for joyous ones, too). This doesn’t happen a lot, and I’m glad to say that there are places in some (not all) of my fiction that stir my emotions. For this reader, my emotional response comes from a narrative that establishes a “rooting” connection between me and the character. When I’m in their corner, rooting for them because of who they are and what they do–courage in the face if diversity is a big one–then that emotion rises naturally. Thanks for a new way to think of it, Don.



  37. Síofra Alexander on April 21, 2015 at 2:03 am

    Connecting by association…that is one of the main functions of the subconscious, I think. (I went through EMDR due to experience with PTSD, that’s one thing that I learned and has aided my writing.) I am often hesitant of utilizing emotions to get readers to feel. I’m scared of the things I feel. Scared of the things my subconscious wants to show me, but I think you are right, “when readers’ feeling gallop out of control that’s good.” And the only way to make a horse gallop is to kick it in the gut, even if it hurts us as writers in the process. I often write to find answers to questions I have and in the process I discover questions I didn’t even know I had. It’s a beautiful, intricate catastrophe, releasing all that is within us.

    Messy, messy, messy emotional experiences. I know I write because I am a trash bag full of messiness, and I won’t let the trash man take my trash, because my trash has purpose (and my analogies are corny, apologies). “Emotional work is hard.” Emotions are so powerful, they take over the mind and rational thought and we lose all direction, but…in writing, losing oneself is probably how we create an emotional response.

    I absolutely friggin’ loved the writing exercise! You are so brilliant. Bless you for your gifts and experience, they are so greatly appreciated.

    Pretending I was sitting in a room with my protagonist. I imagined her so vividly, I felt her eyes boring into me, judging me. My answer to her first question, to tell me something about myself that’s true, she said, “You are scared.” I am scared.

    The second question she answered to if she could do anything she wanted to in the story, she said, “I’d want to be anything that I am not.” And the answers to the questions that followed boogered up my entire story. She totally didn’t care if she ever recovered from her amnesia and she wanted to hop on the next tramway car to a different universe to live in a different time to start a new life never caring who she was before (which is not what I had in mind). And the next set of questions she answered, she was most afraid of discovering who she was, that she would be dissatisfied with the person she had been.

    And, oh how I love the next set of questions. Really, provided me with a story revelation. Who has a secret, motives, objectives, etc? I now have big plans for a particularly famous star from the 50s and a very uptight android, and I’m asking myself questions that are so fascinating, the subconscious river in my mind is jumping with word fishes.

    In this exercise highlighted in italics, you pose all questions and no answers, and that is the most wonderful thing that could happen. Your questions ignited a fire inside my mind and pulled out things I didn’t know were there. I found so much of my story. Thank you, thank you. That really is the way to finding stories, asking questions. Questions are what lead us to making stories to answer the questions we have, or maybe finding questions we didn’t know we had.

    Brilliant post, as always. I’m saving these questions to use for other stories.

    Eeeeeep! I am excited. Thank you for your words.



  38. Angela Young on April 23, 2015 at 7:19 am

    This is inspired. Thank you so much. About to begin … .