The Two Best Books

So, given what we've been talking about this week, I'm curious:

What book have you read that displays the best writing technique?

What book have you read that displays the most emotion?

For me, the best technique can be found in Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I haven't read the entire novel, but I've read the first volume of it, and Proust just blows me away by how many new things he invents and executes well. His characters are all strong. His details are all deep. He captures a time and teaches me about very well.

The book with the most emotion for me is probably Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (although Foer's Everything is Illuminated is a close second). As I write this, I realize that the reason these books were so moving probably has a lot to do with my own personal situation when I was reading these books. So maybe for me the emotional connection is much more fluid.

Making A Scene

I am currently working on the middle section (or Act Two, if you use the three-act structure) of my novel-in-progress, Cocke & Bull. This section essentially does one thing: it leads up to a climactic emotional moment between two of the main characters to resolve a conflict that began at the end of Act One, the resolution of which conflict will lead to the climax in Act Three which deals with the conflict that started off the story. If that makes no sense, imagine the story as a conflict/climax within another conflict/climax. Conflict 1 is the story's outer problem, and Conflict 2 is the story's inner problem:

Act 1:
CONFLICT 1 begins
CONFLICT 2 begins
Act 2:
CONFLICT 2 climaxes
Act 3:
CONFLICT 1 climaxes

I'm very happy with this overall structure and I may just use it for every novel I write from here on out. Unless I don't. I'm capricious that way. Anyway.

The emotional climax at the end of Act 2 is a big moment in the story, making the climax in Act 3 inevitable. So I need to have this emotional climax really stand out and I have to lead into it well. I'm going to use an idea that I got from reading "The Art of Subtext" by Charles Baxter. In this book, Baxter talks about how in real life, most people avoid "making a scene." Most people bite back their strongest emotions and try hard not to bare their souls. There are things we would love to do, but we do not do them because such things are not done or because the price we'd pay for these acts would be too high.

For example, imagine two men. Let's call them Andy and Tom and let's say they work together in a large office. Tom's the sort of guy who objectifies women and is obsessed with the size of their breasts. In fact, one of his habits is to whisper his estimate of women's breast sizes to Andy whenever they're together. "Check it out," Tom will say. "38D!" He also gives nicknames to the women who work in the office with him and Andy. These nicknames all have to do with the women's breasts and are, of course, private and only used by Tom when speaking to Andy.

Andy is uncomfortable with this, but when he was first getting to know Tom, he said nothing about this behavior and subsequently it's only gotten worse as time goes on and now what Andy wants is for Tom to just leave him alone. But it's awkward. They work together on some of the same projects, and frankly Andy isn't sure how to bring the subject and his objections up. It's outside of his comfort zone. He doesn't want to make a scene at the office.

If this were the basis of a story, the climax of it would be Andy, finally unable to hold his tongue, busting out with a highly-emotional demand that Tom shut up about their coworkers' physiques and, you know, we're just not going to be friends anymore so just leave me alone. Andy will let out all this bottled-up frustration and embarrassment, unleashing it on Tom in a compressed moment, preferably in a too-small physical space like an elevator or a supply room or something, because small spaces increase emotional force. What happens after the climax will depend on if Andy or Tom is the protagonist, and that's not really the point here.

Leading up to the moment when Andy makes a scene, we'll need scenes that increase the tension between him and Tom, with Andy biting back words and being increasingly embarrassed by the whole thing. We'll have to make it clear that the one thing Andy would love to do is tell Tom to shut up (hey, maybe Tom is Andy's superior or team leader or something?), and make it clear that Andy would never do this, and then have Andy do it anyway. That's drama, folks. The conflict and tension increase over time and then are paid off in the climax.

So in my own book, I've got a character who knows that the real solution to the inner conflict of the story (Conflict 2 in my chart above) is an act that he will no way never commit. So what I'm doing now is having him fight against his urge to commit that act, putting in scenes where it will look as if that act won't be necessary and then...oh, gosh I guess it will be after all. He's faced with the decision to solve his problem and pay a very high price, or not solve his problem and live with a misery more-or-less of his own making (because the drama is better when the crisis has been brought about by the character himself).

Anyway, I just wanted to talk about this idea of "making a scene" and how the common-enough situation of demonstrating admirable restraint when we'd rather not can be the model for larger emotional movements in novels. It's a new way of seeing the dramatic arc for me, so I'm sharing. Also, this is my way of recommending Baxter's book: The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot.

Where's Your Naked?

A term I use a lot when I critique other writing is sincere. "This sounds sincere to me," I'll say. Or, the alternative, "This doesn't sound very sincere." I'll admit that it's not the best word to use. Much of fiction is created, and probably all of fiction has at least a few details that aren't actually true. And, even though I've tried to stop using such a vague word in my comments to other writers, I feel that the need for it comes up time and again.

Because, don't you think you can tell when a fiction writer is describing a real event?

A writing teacher once told me a quote that I think about often. She said, "Fiction is the mask that allows you to stand naked in front of your audience." Or something like that. (And, of course I forget who the quote originally came from). But, it's an idea that I have relied on often. I am willing to be more honest with my thoughts and emotions as long as I'm allowed to call what I write fiction.

At the same time, readers read to be entertained. I've been working on my first adventure book, and already I can feel myself caught up in the events of this extremely fictional story. I started it a couple of days ago, and in the first thirty pages, literally all of it came from my imagination. Then, at around page 31, I found an opportunity to rely on my real life experiences. A couple was preparing to do something very difficult, and one was losing faith in the other. Even though the first part of the book had action and drama and magic, I found myself getting truly excited--perhaps in a different way--about this little domestic squabble. This was my naked. This was the real emotion that was peeking through all of the stuff I was creating.

I think when we read, whether we are aware of it or not, something in our brain is always looking for the sincerity in the fiction. The naked. The facts. However you want to call it. For a story to be properly memorable, I think it needs to be the perfect balance of imagination and reality. To filter out the real emotion, the heavy stuff, is to tell a story that won't stay with the reader. To ramble on only about the things that really happened is likely to bore a reader.

So, what do you do with the naked parts of your story? Do you reveal them? Hide them? Consider them unworthy? How do you balance the fun details you are creating with the parts of the story that are actually real?

Emotional Tension

Sometimes we write passages or whole stories that fail to engage our readers emotionally, even though these passages or stories engage our own emotions. We fuss about with the plot, the dialog, the structure of the scenes but sometimes we still get nothing out of our readers. I believe one common cause of this is lack of emotional tension for the characters themselves.

A mistake I made when I began writing was to forget that I knew a lot more about the characters than the reader did; I carry around a whole world in my head, and I know what my characters think and feel about everything that happens to them. Sometimes I didn't bother putting any of that on the page. No matter how high the drama of their situation, my characters didn't seem emotionally invested in their own story. They didn't react to events in their own lives.

This is an easy mistake to make when writing as we balance plot, theme, setting, character and pace over the span of tens of thousands of words. It's an even easier mistake to make when we revise scenes. We put our characters into novel situations, hair-raising danger or whatever, but we forget to let our characters be alive within those situations. I just found a scene in my own book where a character gets a piece of very bad news, but her reaction is neutral when it should be almost violent. I was too concerned with writing flowing action in the scene to pay attention to how she felt about that action.

A good scene should be a complete drama in miniature. It should have a beginning, middle and end, and there should be an emotional arc for at least one character. The scene should increase the tension for someone, or release the tension for someone. Either way, someone's emotional state has to change. If your characters don't feel anything, neither will your reader. If nothing has changed for your character by the end of a scene, your reader will also be unmoved. Even if you've moved the plot along.

This also means that your characters must be emotionally invested in the outcome of both the main story, and of each plot point along the way. What happens must matter to them. And we have to show readers that this stuff matters to our characters, and how our characters are affected by the events all through the story. Otherwise you have flat characters that your readers won't follow along on the ride.

One way to show increased/resolved emotional tension is to use a technique called "scene and sequel," which means that after a significant action, characters react. Action and reaction. Does a scene leave a character angry? Show it. Does a scene leave a character relieved, or sad, or confused, or defeated, or triumphantly evil? I suggest that you go through your stories, scene-by-scene, and after something happens, ask yourself how the involved characters feel about what just happened. Give them the opportunity to react to the events. Raise and lower the emotional tension as appropriate.

Yesterday Michelle talked about character motivation, and how essential it is for writers to know the answers to the questions:

What do our characters want to happen?
Why?
What are they doing about it?
How will they feel if it does/doesn't happen?

All of these questions come into play in every scene you write. Think especially about the last of these questions, and how your characters (not just your protagonist, but your antagonist and support characters, too) will react to the actions of your story as they find themselves closer to or farther from their goals at the end of scenes. Show those reactions, or your readers will react with a yawn and a search for something else to read!

He Cried. The End.

"Old Man In Sorrow (On The Threshold of Eternity)" by Vincent Van Gogh

I'm an emotional person. Many things push me over the edge - either to tears or screaming or laughter. Yesterday was exceptionally bad. I almost cried three times from feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and fear. Go figure that my post today is about emotion. Traci from Words, Words, Words asked a question over in our Just Ask! box in the sidebar.

What is the most effective way to write emotionally charged scenes?

Thank you so much for your question, Traci! It's a tough one. I don't think any one person, especially me, can answer it in one blog post. Or even 20 blog posts. I'll try and sum up my thoughts and advice as best I can. Here's a few thoughts from my colleagues here at The Literary Lab, since they're two very smart men. Sometimes I feel silly being the only girl on here.

Davin: When actually writing a scene, I try to be as honest as possible. I let the ugliness and the complications of the emotions interfere as they need to. Emotion and manipulation don't go together for me. If I'm trying to steer the story a certain way, I can't be emotionally honest. I have to let the feelings come out first and then think about the story structure and the consequences after.

Scott: I think the thing to do is build up to the scene over the course of the previous scenes/chapters. Scenes fall flat emotionally when something about it isn't compelling, and usually what's not compelling or emotionally resonant is the way the story is built. I don't think the trick is "emotional writing," whatever that might be. Your mileage may well vary; I only know what works for me!

Me: I'll be honest. I want every scene I write to be emotionally charged. I want emotion from the get go. I want my reader to adore, loathe, or envy the characters and their situations. But both Davin and Scott have very good points. One, you should never manipulate your characters or plot simply to get an emotional reaction. And two, you can't expect your reader to care about flat, inconsistent characters, a mismanaged plot, or slow, pointless scenes.

No matter how beautiful your descriptive passages of emotion, you'll never tug at your reader's heartstrings until they believe the characters you've created. Here's a few ways to make them believable.

Manipulate Your Reader, Not Your Characters
One of my beta readers recently sent me a critique of my novel. Like most of my other beta readers, she noticed that the men in my book cry way too much. She suggested that these characters shouldn't be devoid of emotion, but that it seemed pretty stupid to have my super-tough main character break down like a baby in the middle of a scene. Or any scene, for that matter. She said, in reference to Orson Scott Card's book on characters:

"If you let a character cry, the reader doesn’t have to. If you give the character every reason to cry but don’t let him, the reader cries."

Get Your Character Out Of His Box
To me, there's nothing worse than stereotypes. While writing, I often stumble into them by accident and have to fix them later. Now, don't get me wrong - predictable situations and characters have their place, mostly in comedy. But you should learn when and where these are appropriate. I have yet to write an emotionally charged scene where a stereotype or a predictable situation worked in favor of what I was trying to achieve.

I found a good example of this in an online article by Anne Marble:

Let's say you are writing a Medieval romance novel about a heroine who spends her day toiling for an evil stepmother and three ugly stepsisters. You've been here before, haven't you? How can you make this story different? The movie Ever After - A Cinderella Story found ways to twist the supporting characters, including making one of the stepsisters completely different from what was expected. Don't be afraid to take similar liberties in your story. Just because you're inspired by a favorite fairy tale, that doesn't mean you can't make the plot your own in some way.

Also, try to avoid using stereotypical language like:

Shakily clenching her hands into fists, she suppressed a tremor of hate.

Yes, I wrote that in my first novel. I could do so much better. It's terrible. Cliched. Telling. And there's an adverb I don't like. As Beth suggests in her post about showing vs. telling, it may take a lot more words to explain this character's feelings. And the emotion might come off better if I try it that way. In the end, it's not about the specific line, but the emotion I'm trying to convey in the scene that needs help. That specific line just shows that it's not working.

Are You Listening To Me?
Raise your hand if your characters talk to you? Okay, I see a lot of hands. It's true. Characters come to life if we've written them well enough.

While writing my first novel, I reached a scene near the end of the book where I planned for my secondary character, Eric, to physically harm the main character, Naomi. I had established Eric's anger throughout the book. I had backed up his intentions for him to almost kill Naomi with example after example that he is the type of person that would do this. The situation was perfect, but when I got to that intense moment of the scene, I couldn't write it. Every sentence on the page felt off kilter. The emotion didn't work. Eric looked more like a buffoon than a man exploding in anger. I got so angry with the scene that I couldn't write it for days.

Then I opened my ears.

Eric was talking. He told me anger wasn't the key to that scene. He was angry, yes, but he was more disappointed and filled with extreme sadness than anything else. That was a shock. A twist. Something I never expected. "Show that," he said. Not my anger." And I did. It is one of the best scenes I have ever written.

What I want to tell Traci today is that there aren't any set rules to writing an emotionally charged scene. Write what comes from your heart and what you know works for you and your characters. Read other scenes that work emotionally for you. Write. Practice. If you're not moved during the scene when you read it later, chances are your reader won't be moved either.

Question For The Day: How do you write an effective emotional scene?

~MDA (aka Glam)