Welcome back, dear reader, to the latest instalment in the Activated Authors blog. Last week, we discussed how to write love beyond romance, and in keeping with the month of February, this time we’re going to explore how to infuse your words with emotion.
We’ll chat about drawing on your own personal experiences, how setting can be an external reflection of your characters, and so much more. We want you to really understand why it’s so important to dig deep, as that’s what we want as authors, right?
We want our readers to hug our books close, tell their friends, go from strangers to superfans, and always come back for more. Ready? Good, let’s go.
Drawing on your personal experiences
Whether it’s the joy of triumph, the sting of heartbreak, or the nuances of everyday life, these moments offer a wellspring of inspiration. In my writing journey, I’ve found that sharing my own vulnerabilities and victories has created a connective bridge between my stories and the hearts of my readers.
By embracing the raw, unfiltered emotions from personal experiences, writers can craft characters with genuine struggles, triumphs, and complexities.
Readers connect with the authenticity of these emotions, forging a powerful bond that transcends the pages. Here’re some practical tips that you can use to use your own personal experiences in your writing:
- Mine Your Memories: Delve into your own experiences to uncover moments that evoke powerful emotions.
- Embrace Vulnerability: Don’t shy away from sharing personal triumphs and challenges; vulnerability adds depth to your storytelling.
- Translate Emotions to Characters: Infuse your characters with the genuine emotions you’ve felt, allowing readers to connect on a profound level.
- Capture the Nuances: Pay attention to the subtle details of personal experiences—the sights, sounds, and emotions—to enrich your narrative.
- Stay True to Yourself: Authenticity is the key to passionate writing; let your unique voice and experiences shine through in your storytelling.
Crafting Prose that Evokes Strong Emotions
As writers, our words should be more than a conveyance of facts; they should be a conduit for emotions that reach out and touch the hearts of our audience. Touch those all-important “feels”, and your reader won’t be able to put your work down.
To achieve this, consider the power of sensory details. Engage readers not just intellectually, but on a sensory level. Describe the warmth of the sun, the scent of rain, or the taste of nostalgia. By invoking the senses, your prose becomes an immersive experience, allowing readers to feel the story as much as they see it.
If you want to give it a go, try crafting scenes that play with the emotional spectrum. Develop an exercise where you evoke joy, sadness, or suspense through your writing, and use this to explore how different emotions impact your own writing style.
If you’re still struggling, then how about trying some of these practical tips?
- Invoke the Senses: Enrich your prose by incorporating sensory details that allow readers to experience the story on a visceral level.
- Experiment with Sentence Structure: Play with the rhythm of your sentences to match the emotional tone of your narrative.
- Choose Evocative Language: Opt for words that carry emotional weight, steering clear of clichés to maintain authenticity.
- Create Emotional Peaks and Valleys: Develop scenes that deliberately traverse emotional highs and lows, engaging readers on a rollercoaster of feelings.
- Engage in Emotional Writing Exercises: Practice writing scenes that specifically target different emotions, honing your ability to evoke a broad range of feelings in your readers.
The Role of Character Emotions in Storytelling
However, it’s not just how you use those emotions, it’s who you use them on.
Well-developed characters and their emotional arcs are the driving force behind the narrative’s overall emotional resonance. Readers connect not just with the plot, but with the characters’ journeys, triumphs, and tribulations.
Think about it. What was the last book you read where the main character, or perhaps even the antagonist, was so real it was like you were sitting next to them? Was it their description? Yeah, maybe. But dig deeper.
Was it their emotional wound that resonated with you? Was it the way they reacted to a specific situation? Or was it just how easily you could see yourself living their life?
That’s what we mean. It’s magic. Simple. Showcasing character emotions effectively involves more than just stating feelings outright. So, how do you do just that? Well, how about these?
- Build Well-Rounded Characters: Infuse your characters with a range of emotions, allowing them to navigate the complexities of their fictional lives.
- Show, Don’t Just Tell: Rather than stating emotions, use actions, dialogue, and body language to convey the characters’ feelings organically.
- Create Interesting Emotional Arcs: Develop characters with dynamic emotional journeys, ensuring growth, setbacks, and resolutions that resonate with readers.
- Establish Empathy Through Vulnerability: Showcase the vulnerabilities of your characters, fostering a connection between their emotional experiences and those of your readers.
- Allow Emotional Impact to Drive Plot: Let character emotions guide the narrative, influencing decisions and actions to create a seamless integration between the characters’ internal worlds and the external plot.
Creating Emotional Twists in the Plot
Before we jump into this section, please don’t think we’re trying to say it’s plotting vs. discovery writing.
No, it’s not that. Well, it is, but not on such a macro level. Writers, regardless of how they start and finish their novels, all instinctively understand how the story works. The dark moment, the big reveal, the twist or the fun and games, it’s all in our subconscious, waiting to come out.
Strategic emotional turning points act as the choreography that keeps readers engaged and invested in the narrative journey.
These pivotal moments are the heartbeat of a plot, orchestrating the ebb and flow of emotions, and ultimately leaving a lasting imprint on the reader’s experience.
Allow tension to simmer gradually, providing readers with moments of anticipation before the emotional crescendo. Subvert expectations, challenge characters, and introduce unforeseen obstacles to keep the story unpredictable and emotionally charged.
When you’re writing or even editing, try some of these tips to enhance your story arc and give the reader an emotional one-two.
- Strategic Placement: Carefully choose when and where to introduce emotional turning points for maximum impact on the reader’s engagement.
- Vary the Intensity: Mix moments of tension, revelation, and resolution to create a dynamic emotional journey that resonates with readers.
- Character-Driven Climaxes: Anchor turning points in the choices and struggles of your characters, ensuring emotional authenticity.
- Surprise and Subvert: Keep readers on their toes by subverting expectations and introducing unexpected twists that evoke strong emotional responses.
- Reflect Emotional Realism: Craft resolutions that reflect the emotional realism established in the narrative, leaving a lasting impression on your readers.
Using Setting and Atmosphere to Enhance Emotions
This, I have to say, is one of my personal favourites. It gives me “nom-nom that was incredible read this, no I don’t care if it’s not your thing it’s amazing, please please please,” vibes.
Setting and atmosphere act as silent partners in our writing. They harmonise with the narrative to give it an extra emotional oomph. The author’s choice of setting goes beyond a mere backdrop; it becomes a dynamic force that shapes the emotional tone of the story.
Plug here, in “When Winter Comes” by our very own Dan, the setting is a character all its own. If you’ve read it, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, I really suggest you do. I won’t say more than that just in case I annoy the publishing gods. But seriously, go check it out.
By understanding the symbiotic relationship between setting and emotion, writers can create immersive worlds that stick in our readers’ minds.
For example, a gloomy, rain-soaked cityscape can mirror a character’s desolation, while a sunlit meadow might show the warmth of a reunion. Delve into the emotional connotations of different settings and choose them deliberately to align with the mood and themes of your narrative.
In contrast, atmosphere is the intangible thing all readers recognise. It’s the humidity in the air before a storm, the hushed whispers in a library, or the electric energy of a crowded festival.
Here’re some practical tips on how to use setting and atmosphere in your own writing.
- Emotional Mapping: Consider the emotional landscape of your story and map settings that resonate with the intended mood, intensifying the reader’s connection to the narrative.
- Symbolic Environments: Utilise settings as symbolic elements that mirror or contrast the characters’ emotional states, adding depth and layers to the storytelling.
- Seasons and Weather: Leverage the emotional associations of seasons and weather to enhance the mood of your scenes, creating a sensory experience for readers.
- Cultural and Historical Context: Explore how the cultural or historical backdrop of a setting can influence the emotional undertones of the story, offering a rich tapestry of emotions.
- Atmospheric Descriptions: Pay attention to the atmospheric details that contribute to the emotion of a scene. Use evocative language to transport readers into the heart of your narrative.
The final round up
So, there we have it. My top tips on how to include depth, emotion and all the feels into your writing.
Hopefully, that’s given you a lot to think about. It’s a fine art, but we all have the power to do it. Always remember that what makes us human gives our writing that extra something-something, and our readers understand that.
They don’t want one-dimensional characters with no sense of self and no real reason for existing. No, they want to feel, to laugh, to cry, to hide behind a pillow in fear. All of it. So, question for you then.
How are you going to infuse your writing with emotion? Let us know in the comments below, or if you’re still not sure and want to sound it out with other authors, then why not jump over to our free Discord community?
You’ll get access to Founder and bestselling author Daniel Willcocks, as well as our diverse family of Activated Authors who each know what it takes to navigate the dizzy heights of creative success.
