Directory Writing Workshops

Writers Workshop: Write Realistic Emotions

Dancing Word Writers Workshop

With Rosey Dow

11/21/2000

Hosted by: Marcia

Dancing Word Guest Host

*This chat has been edited for clarity

Marcia: Welcome to CWWC chat! Tonight's guest is Rosey Dow, who will share about writing realistic emotions. But first, I would like to open our meeting with prayer.

Father, we just thank you for this opportunity to gather together in Your presence with Rosey to learn about writing and sharing our emotions with our readers. We pray that You will especially bless Anne and her husband as they celebrate their anniversary. Amen.

Rosey, would you like to give a brief intro?

Rosey Dow: Thank, Marcia. Do you mean about myself or the subject tonight?

Marcia: You can do both. :)

Rosey Dow: Yikes! I still feel funny talking about myself. Anyway, I'm a best-selling author. I do inspirational romantic mysteries in a historical setting. That's a mouthful! I enjoy teaching and am currently teaching an email class for ACRW. If you don't belong to ACRW yet, I encourage you to join. It's a very helpful group.

My latest release, Reaping the Whirlwind , is the true story of the Scopes evolution trial of 1925 which has been badly represented by Inherit the Wind . Please visit my website: www.roseydow.com

I'm really happy to be here tonight. Thanks to everyone for coming! My lecture tonight is rather lengthy. I'd appreciate it if you would jot down your questions and ask them at the end. I'll ask a few questions as we go. You may submit a one-line answer without asking permission. Okay, let's go!

Emotion brings a story to life. Think of an actor reciting his lines in a monotone. That's a story without emotion. Every scene should convey some feeling-joy, fear, anxiety, curiosity, and a host of others. I've read poorly written stories that stay on the best-seller's list simply because the writer knows how to portray emotion.

The entire story should convey an overall mood. Mood is just another word for emotion. Is the writer's style sarcastic, humorous, lighthearted, heavy? Think of Catherine Marshall's all-time great, Christy . What mood does the story maintain? The wide-eyed wonder of the innocent. Christy comes of age in that story and the reader does as well. No wonder it's a classic.

Create mood by careful word choice in every sentence. Is the story lighthearted? Then the house is bright with dancing sunbeams on the windowpanes. Is the story scary? Then the house is gaudy white with a railing like the jagged teeth of a crone.

Careful word choice is essential for writing that rises above the crowd. Characters who constantly over-react mark a writer as a novice. I had a problem with this myself. One idle remark and the heroine succumbs to hysterics, one minor setback and the hero is ready to smash someone. Be very careful to play the story out in your mind to get a realistic slant on your characters' emotions.

After several false tries, I patterned the heroine in my first novel after myself so that I could be certain of her reactions. It was very difficult for me to gauge what was realistic and what wasn't. This is one area where critiquers are very valuable. They can clue you in when you're clueless.

In emotion-packed scenes such as the death of a loved one or the culminating scene in a romance it's important that the writer actually feel the emotion while he's tapping words onto his keyboard. Have you ever cried while writing a scene or an essay? Have you giggled at the antics of your characters? Somehow the emotional intensity of the writer spills onto the paper. It's an ethereal transfer.

Some writers use music to get them psyched for a particular mood. I mull the story over and over, even in my sleep, until it becomes real. Then I fly to the keyboard and type furiously.

If you've never experienced this, don't lose heart. I didn't either at first. This exercise takes a good dose of courage. You have to dig deep inside yourself and expose those tender feelings that you may usually keep buried. It can be painful, but it is also cathartic at times.

When portraying the emotion of a character, be very careful not to TELL how he's feeling. SHOW it instead. "John was furious" is bland. Compare to: "John's head lowered while his jaw jutted forward. His eyes blazed, and his fists drew upward toward his chin." Which sentence transports emotion into the heart of the reader?

We must express feelings in terms that touch an inner chord with every human on earth. To bring this home further, I've prepared a few excerpts from some emotional scenes. The first is from Partisan by Alistair MacLean. This is a scene where the hero Peterson is trying to make one of the villains tell their secret.

"I'm afraid I'm not very good at this job." Peterson's conversational calm was more terrifying than any sibilant threats could ever have hoped to be. "If you're careless an air bubble could get in and an air bubble in the blood stream can be very unpleasant. I mean, it can kill you. However, in your case I don't think it's going to make very much difference one way or the other."

Alessandro's eyes were staring, his whitened lips drawn back in a rictus of terror. Peterson touched the inside of Alessandro's right elbow. "Seems a suitable vein to me." He pinched the vein and advanced the syringe.

"No! No! No!" Allesandro's voice was an inhuman scream torn from his throat. "No! No!"

You've nothing to worry about," Peterson said soothingly. "If it's a non-lethal dose, you'll just slip away." He paused. "Just a minute, though. He might just die in screaming agony." He brought out a pad of white linen cloth and handed it to George. "Just in case. But watch your hand though. When a dying man's teeth clench they stay clenched. Worse, if he draws blood you'll get infected, too."

Petersen pinched the vein between fingers and thumb. Alessandro screamed. George applied the pad to his mouth. After a few seconds, at a nod from Petersen, he withdrew the pad. Alessandro had stopped screaming now and a weird moaning sound came deep in his throat. He was struggling insanely against his bonds, his face was a mask of madness and seizure, a heart attack seemed imminent. END OF QUOTE.

Before you waste too much sympathy on Alessandro you should know that he was a torturer and the injection Peterson gave him was harmless. What was the emotion Alessandro portrayed?

Marcia: fear

Sandra: terror

Marcia: anxiety

Rosey Dow: Right! Absolute blind terror. Here's another example from Once Upon A Summer by Janette Oke (one of my favorites). It's the story of an orphaned boy named Josh who was raised by his Auntie Lou and his grandfather. One day Josh starts feeling sorry for himself because he never knew his parents. This scene portrays his emotion:

Auntie Lou let me cry until I had completely drained myself of tears. When I finally lay quietly she took my hand and stroked it gently, feelin' each finger separately.

"Josh?"

I managed to say, "Yes?"

"What did you mean about memories-about not havin' any?"

I swallowed once or twice. "It was the same with my ma and pa," I muttered. "God took 'em, too, before I could have any memories. Grandpa has memories. Lots of them. He told me all about Grandma and Great-grandma, too. And Gramps told me all about the good years when Great-grandma was still with him. Uncle Charlie remembers, too, but I don't remember nothin'-not one thing."

I started to whimper again.

"Josh."

"What?"

"Josh, I don't remember my ma either, but I have lots of memories."

I looked at her in the pale light, wonderin' if she'd lost her senses.

Lou went on, "My mama died before I was old enough to remember her. I know she loved me-I jest feel it; but I don't remember one thing
about her, not one."

"Then how..."

"My memories are different, but they're jest as real and jest as filled with love. I remember Pa's face above my crib, his eyes laughing as he played with me. I remember Uncle Charlie givin' me a ride on his foot and sayin', 'This is the way the lady rides.' I remember Pa rockin' me and holdin' me before he tucked me into bed at night. I remember him leanin' over me, his hand on my cheek, a worried look in his eyes when I had the measles, and I remember them both stayin' beside my bed all night long one winter when I had the croup. They took turns four days-day and night.

"Josh, I remember a tiny baby that was brought home wrapped in a blanket, and when I asked Pa why, he swallowed away tears and said that the baby was mine to care for now. He needed me. I remember dressin' him and feedin' him and playin' with him-and lovin' him."

There was a pause while Auntie Lou struggled for control. "I have lots of memories, Josh-lots of good memories." It was little more than a whisper. END OF QUOTE.

I want to cry every time I read that passage. Janette Oke is a master at portraying emotion. Notice how voice tone and body language make both of these examples. We can actually feel the emotion as we read.

About a year ago, I purchased a book entitled, Body Language: The Essential Secrets of Non-Verbal Communication by Julius Fast ISBN (1-56731-004-4). Actually a psychology reference work, it has been a tremendous help. He sites a study done with deaf people watching the body language of various people. Though the deaf could not hear the words of the person, they rated each one's emotions.

Here's what they found: Playing with a ring or moving restlessly-nervousness or embarrassment; "Swallowing back" a person's expression--guilt; Jerky movements--frustration; Shrinking body movements--depression; Snapping forward of the head and arms--forcefulness; Head at an angle, fingers doodling--boredom; Staring into space, wrinkled forehead--reflection; Taking off eyeglasses or looking away--not wanting to be seen.

Shoulders convey several emotions: Retracted--suppressed anger; Square--responsibility; Bowed--burdened.

A person's attitude toward life--his emotional makeup--will eventually have a permanent effect on his body. These are great ways to tell about a character in a few words. For example: Head thrust forward--aggression; Head and shoulders bowed--defeated; Permanent frozen smile--plastic personality, repression; Chin tilted upwards--arrogance; Lips tightly pursed--judgmental.

Smiles can portray various emotions: pleasure, humor, apology, a defense mechanism, or an excuse. Voice volume and tone portray hundreds of emotions. Be careful with these, however. If you follow these textbook body signals to the letter, you could end up with stereotyped characters. If your character is minor, you won't need to spend much time on him and his body language can tell all we need to know.

With main characters, however, be sure to give the person strengths as well as weaknesses with at least one trait that surprises. Writer's Digest's Building Believable Characters by Marc McCutcheon has an entire chapter dedicated to body language that portrays emotion. For example: Angry Facial Expressions--curling lip, stony expression, flushing face, eyes raking the room, face a dark mask, nostrils flaring...40 of them in all. I highly recommend Building Believable Characters but be careful here, too. Use the book as a springboard for ideas and try to come up with your own descriptions as often as possible.

Other books I've found very helpful: Make Your Words Work by Gary Provost, How To Write and Sell a Christian Novel , by Gilbert Morris, Show Don't Tell by William Noble. I'm sure others here could recommend more. Anyone want to contribute?

Sandra:  Stein On Writing by Sol Stein

Rosey Dow:  That's a good one, Sandra. We had a discussion on that on one of my writing loops. Writer's Digest has one on writing emotion, too. Emotion is not something you can paste on after all the writing is finished. Emotion should color every single sentence in the story through the overall mood, through the character's reactions to events and to each other, through the writer's meticulous use of a very powerful medium--words.

Let's list some body language that portrays embarrassment. Feel free to participate. Anyone been embarrassed lately?

Marcia: flushed face

Sandra: downcast eyes

Kate: fetal position

Sandra: nervous habit of some sort

Rosey Dow: shuffling feet, stammering

Sandra: hand covering mouth...???

Rosey Dow: Good Sandra

Kate: I saw a girl standing in line once and she was definitely in the prone-fetal position, the guy checking out was adorable and her mom had feminine products in the basket.

Marcia:  or perhaps opposite, yelling

Rosey Dow: Yes, Marcia. Some people get angry when they're embarrassed.

Sandra:  I laugh when I'm embarrassed--sudden need to retreat from source of embarrassment

Rosey Dow: Let's switch gears to joy--clapping hands

Marcia:  jumping up and down

Sandra:  round, open mouth, gasp, wide eyes, expression lights up

Rosey Dow: punching the air, dancing around

Marcia: wide faced grin

Sandra: a little jig

Rosey Dow:  hugging the nearest person

Jane: using expletives when happy too

Marcia:  tears of joy

Sandra: hugging everyone :-) pumping fist

Rosey Dow:  Great! Now how about deep sorrow?

Jane: physically hurting yourself when deeply sorrowed

Rosey Dow:  Wow, Jane, that's deep. Good job.

Marcia:  unseeing eyes

Mimosajo:  tears streaming down cheeks.

Sandra: tears, of course

Jane:  tears and deep, loud sobbing

Sandra:  tightly closed eyes

Rosey Dow: Sobbing after tears are spent

Sandra:  lump in throat, achin' breakin' heart

Rosey Dow: staring at nothing

Jane:  tearing your hair out

Rosey Dow:  no interest in usual activities

Sandra:  earnest prayer; isolation

Jane:  lack of appetite

Rosey Dow:  Good! Excitement now

Sandra:  bright eyes

Rosey Dow: It will be similar to joy, but with some differences.

Marcia:  jumping up and down, hand in the air

Sandra:  hands clasped together over heart

Rosey Dow: shaking hands all around

Sandra:  sorry - thinking joy

Rosey Dow:  bouncing on toes

Jane:  walking around saying 'yes, yes, yes' to yourself, over and over

Rosey Dow:  Good, Jane

Marcia:  walking around in a daze with a big grin on your face

Rosey Dow::  Or saying, please, please, please;  can't sit still

Sandra: can't excitement be a build up to joy?

Rosey Dow:  Excitement has the sense of expectation. When the expected event happens, joy erupts. If it doesn't happen, a big disappointment. Anyone have any questions about writing emotion?

Sandra:  Sometimes I feel like I have a hold on the emotion I want a character to portray in a certain scene and when I sit down at the computer...I'm cold. Suggestions?

Rosey Dow: Go ahead and write the scene. Don't let that dead fish feeling keep you from making progress. Once you get the scene on paper, you can go back and rewrite to bring in the emotional effect you are after. I collaborate with another writer and that's what I do with his first drafts. It is a mental exercise and I'm often exhausted when it's finished.

Jane: Do you ever have problems writing emotions for the male characters? What do you do about that?I usually get stuck with these.

Rosey Dow:  That is a problem, Jane. I run those scenes by my husband to get his input. You may need to find a man to critique for you. The two genders definitely don't think alike!

Jane: Thanks for the info Rosey.

Sandra:  Oh, where oh, where! Can I find a man to review that stuff for me?

Marcia: LOL, Bill are you volunteering? (just kidding)

Rosey Dow: CWFI has several male members who do a great critique.

Sandra: CWFI?

Rosey Dow:  Christian Writers Fellowship International. www.cwfi-online.org

Marcia: Rosey, thank you very much for sharing with us tonight. I'll close in prayer and then those who want can stay and chat.

Rosey Dow:  Thanks for the invitation.

Kate: Good information, Rosey. Thanks

Marcia:  Father, we thank You for this time to be together and learn from both Rosey's expertise and from each other. We pray that you will help us to utilize this information as we write for Your glory. Amen.

Rosey Dow

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