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Hit me with your best shot: emotional turning points

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This entry is part 9 of 14 in the series Emotion: it's tough

We’ve briefly mentioned that you have to suit the portrayal of the emotion to fit the pacing of the scene. Sometimes that means we can only afford a quick gesture, thought or even a tell. Other times, that means fully delving the depths of the emotion. So which scenes deserve the biggest emotion, the fullest development?

The short answer: the emotional turning points. This week at edittorrent, author/editor Alicia Rasley shared a useful definition of turning points:

Turning points are the major plot events that cause some big change and modify the trajectory of the characters in the plot. But the “turning” comes from the CHANGE. It’s not just a big dramatic event, it’s an event that “turns” from what’s come before. Yet, if you want a logical, coherent plot, you want that big turning event also growing out of what came before.

Our characters often get to do 180s in circumstances, attitudes and emotions. When these changes come quickly (in a single or short series of scenes), as Alicia says, we have to make sure that the turning event and reactions are organic. And when things change that quickly, we may have to do a lot more emotional exploring so our readers can follow the process instead of just getting jolted from one extreme to another.

For our readers to appreciate the full extent of the change, we also have to set up or establish the beginning point very well. As Alicia says:

Think of the turning point as the culmination of something. Then set up for that in earlier scenes. Then the turning point will have something to turn FROM. It will be a pivot point from one situation to another.

Sometimes the effects of an emotional turning point will be obvious. But most of the time, we can’t jump from fear to anger or joy to despair without showing at least a little of the thought and emotional process. We have to show the turning so that our readers can experience the full emotional journey.

Next time, we’ll look at showing the process.

What do you think? What are your favorite emotional turning points? How are they set up? How are they portrayed?

Photo by Stacy Lynn Baum

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Technique

Getting through emotions

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This entry is part 10 of 14 in the series Emotion: it's tough

A version of this post was originally posted 17 November 2009 as part of the character arcs series.

Emotions are important in fiction and can be hard to get right. After highly emotional scenes, for me, the next most difficult type of emotion to convey is multiple emotions in a single scene. Although most passions are composed of multiple emotions, we typically don’t experience, say, love, ambivalence and annoyance all the same time. But sometimes we need our characters to.

Typically, these evolving emotions are easier to handle with constant stimuli/input to create these emotional reactions (as in a scene). It’s more of a challenge in a sequel: what comes after the scene—the emotional response. However, the sequel also has a structure that can help with this kind of character arc.

In Scene & Structure, Jack Bickham gives a structure for the sequel: Emotion – Thought – Decision – Action (which leads to another scene). The Emotion is the initial response to the events of the scene and its Disaster. When the character moves past the initial emotion, they think through the events, their response and their options in the Thought phase. This ultimately leads to a Decision, which takes the character to another Action.

Not all the steps of the sequel are necessary. In fact, the sequel itself might not be necessary—depends on the pacing and whether the emotional reaction constitutes a change. But when the character is going through a major change, we can spend a little more time here. And this is where we motivate the next action.

When an emotional change in the sequel follows the full steps of the sequence, we know that there’s a logical progression of the events of the sequel. By moving through these steps, we can lead the characters and the readers through the steps of the change and create a compelling, convincing change.

For example, if we need our character to go from shocked after the last disaster to furious in the sequel, we start with that initial emotional response—the shock. We don’t have to spend a long time exploring the shock, especially if that’s the kind of reaction you’d expect in light of the disaster. Once we create a vivid picture of the shock (and that’s a toughie, since it’s characterized by the absence of feeling, really), we can give the character a minute to get her bearings again.

Once she’s had some time to recover, she’s ready for the Thought phase. Here we can explore exactly why she’s so surprised—because, say, this revelation is something that the hero could have told her. It’s something she would understand and would have even made her happy, if he had just told her, and he knew that—but he’s chosen to lie to her about it the whole time they’ve known one another.

And that can lead us to the Decision. The Decision can be about the coming Action and set up the next scene—or it can be a further decision about the emotional response. You know what? He should have told her. How dare he not? And if he could lie about that, what else about their relationship was a lie?

And now she’s mad.

What do you think? How have you handled drastic emotional changes in sequels?

Photo by Dan Foy

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Technique

E is for Emotion!

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This entry is part 11 of 14 in the series Emotion: it's tough

I’ll bet you thought I forgot. I didn’t. In fact, I’ve been thinking about the conclusion to the series on emotions for a long time. Emotions keep coming up in everything I’m reading, it seems, and I don’t know if I can say it any better than these guys.

I’m not alone in seeing emotions as vital for making an impact on readers:

I once critiqued a novel whose opening scene failed to draw me in to the protagonist’s emotions. Yet all the other aspects of the scene were well done. . . . In reading the scene a second time, I realized what was missing. As this character waited, he displayed very little sign of the inner rhythm he would have been experiencing at such a moment. There he was, after two years’ meticulous planning, supposedly poised to spring into action. Numerous thought of what could go wrong were cycling through his head. Yet he just stood quietly waiting. No sign in his movements of fear, apprehension, the rush of adrenaline. No feel of his muscles tensing, shivering with the knowledge of action to come. And because he didn’t exude it I didn’t feel it even though the author informed me, through the character’s thoughts of all possible mishaps, that I should. (Brandilyn Collins, Getting into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors, 121)

Emotions can improve almost any scene, and they can even make formerly boring scenes vital keepers:

Micro-tension has its basis not in story circumstances or in words: it comes from emotions and not just any old emotions but conflicting emotions. (Donald Maass, The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great , 190)

In reality, it is feelings, specifically feelings in conflict with each other, that fill up an otherwise dead span of story and bring it alive. (Donald Maass, The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great , 225)

I believe that emotions are vital to writing. They’re not easy to convey well, to balance or to keep fresh—but they’re at the heart of fiction. And you don’t just have to take my word for it:

Novels are unique among art forms in their intimacy. They can take us inside a character’s heart and mind right away. And that is where your readers want to be. Go there immediately. And when you do, show us what your hero is made of. If you accomplish that, then the job of winning us over is done. (Donald Maass, The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great , 32)

What is fiction about if not the true portrayal of human emotions? That is the goal authors should strive for most. (Brandilyn Collins, Getting into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors , 103)

What do you think? What’s your favorite lesson about emotion in fiction?

Photo by Duncan C

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Technique

F is for finale

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This entry is part 12 of 14 in the series Emotion: it's tough

Okay, so yesterday was the finale of the series on emotions. But there’s always so much more to learn about getting emotions on the page! So here are some awesome resources on writing emotions:

Emotion is how we get into our readers’ hearts. Emotion can take our book from “well written” to “captivating.” We read for an experience, and emotion is the best way to convey that experience. In fact, it is the experience.

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Works

S is for Show Not Tell Crusader Challenge

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This entry is part 13 of 14 in the series Emotion: it's tough

It’s the last challenge of the Crusade! Here are the rules for the Show Not Tell Crusader Challenge.

And here’s my entry, flash fiction in an urban fantasy setting:

The footsteps echoed in the empty canyon of a city street—more than just my footsteps. I stopped short. The footsteps behind me stuttered to a stop, too. The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. The feeling of being watched was as palpable as the brick wall next to me. I caught hold of the rough bricks to steady myself as a current of ice shimmered down my spine.

Though I willed myself to stare at the sky blazing orange, not to give into the terror, I glanced back. It was hard to make out his features in the fading light, but his gaze clearly swung away from—and right back to—me in a sharp, saccadic shift. Tall and unnaturally gaunt, in a long black coat, he gave substance to the shadowy nightmares that had plagued me.

I licked my lips, the salt from my sweat a cruel joke to my empty stomach. The man stepped closer, his eyes still flicking back and away over and over. A sharp, acrid scent filled my senses, a mix of panic, sweat and decay.

I ran.

Hm. Wonder how it ends!

Photo by Kelly Teague

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Technique, News & Contests

New PDF Guide: Emotion: it’s tough

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This entry is part 14 of 14 in the series Emotion: it's tough

When I figured out which series were the tops in 2011, I suddenly realized how long it’s been since I put together one of my series into PDF format (hint: years). Plus, it’s my husband’s and my second anniversary of our first kiss. I wanted to celebrate, but I can’t really take you all to dinner. So I made you something instead. (Ten guesses what it is!)

I’m starting with the most popular of last year’s series: Emotion: it’s tough. Portraying emotion in fiction isn’t easy—but an emotional experience is exactly why readers buy and read books. Using that emotion makes your writing more powerful—when it’s done right.

Emotion might be a double black diamond ski slope, but it doesn’t have to be treacherous terrain in your writing. Hard work, perhaps always. But impossible? Nope!

So check out the free PDF version of the series Emotion: it’s tough!

More free PDF writing guides.

Photo by Peter Dutton

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