Tears in the Writer
- Image by SashaW via Flickr
When I was younger, I was in love with Jonathan Brandis. You might remember him from some of his movies (Neverending Story II, Sidekicks, Ladybugs) or from SeaQuest DSV (my favorite).
As I grew up, I lost track of his career. In 2005 something reminded me of him and I went to the Internet to see what he was up to. I found out that he had committed suicide in 2003.
I was devastated. Why would a young man of such promise do such a thing? I couldn’t understand it.
As I searched the internet for more information I came across dozens of websites devoted to him from fans still grieving over his loss.
He was loved and admired by so many. How did he not see that? Would he still have committed suicide if he had known?
Out of these questions came a story of a young man, lonely, depressed and thinking of ending his life, and the young woman who makes him see how many people care for him, despite her own feelings of loneliness and despair. In the end, they save each other.
As I wrote I was consumed with my grief and the story spilled onto the page. I couldn’t get it out fast enough.
When it was done, I sent the story to my beta reader, my sister, Ronda.
It made her cry.
As writers, we know that good stories evoke emotions in readers. I believe that feeling the emotion as you’re writing can enhance the words on the page.
Getting Emotions Onto the Page
Start with remembering a time when you experienced a similar emotion. A time when you were sad or angry or elated. Get the memory of that time firmly in your mind and then start writing.
If you’re having trouble getting into the right frame of mind, sometimes music can help set a mood.
I think Robert Frost captured it best:
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
What do you do to get real emotions into your writing?
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3 comments
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Paige Bruce on December 10, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Wow, I didn't know about that either. I remember Jonathan when I was younger, and I too had a huge crush on him with his innocent looking eyes. My Mom, who was eyeing the older men in SeaQuest, would laugh at me when I mentioned it.
Yours is a very good example of when emotion really grips. A writing group I was a part of had "If you could do something over, how would you do it?" as the writing theme for the week and I wrote about my late stepfather. Writing it was very difficult and I had to make sure my tears didn't fall onto my laptop, but it did provoke amazing responses as well.
Cheryl Corbin on December 10, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I think the challenge is walking that line of strong emotion. You want to include it in your writing, but you can't live in it all the time as it wrings so much out of you… and every piece doesn't need that depth of feeling. But if you can evoke it when needed, I think you can get those amazing responses as you mentioned.