When it comes to writing emotion (just like everything else in writing!), we each face our own challenges. I tend to leave it out too much—but putting too much emotion in can be just as deadly to our writing (or even more so, since it can be an even more obvious problem for readers). This is especially true in highly emotional scenes. I think we’ve all heard the adage, “If the character cries, the reader doesn’t have to” (or something like that).

This reminds me of a scene in a recent episode of one of my favorite TV shows. Two characters (whom we’ve just met) discovered the niece they’ve loved and raised has drowned. When they view her body, they bawl.

And they bawl.

And they bawl. (And this is a comedy!)

At the opening of the scene, knowing what they’ll find, I was on the verge of tears myself. (I’m a mother, and for once I didn’t resent the emotional manipulation.) But after what felt like several minutes (though it was probably only one) of watching these people cry, my feelings changed from deep sympathy to alarm. “Why are we still watching them cry?!” I asked my husband. “This is torture!”

Don’t torture your readers! Too much emotion can pull your reader out of the story. It may be overwrought or melodramatic, or perhaps it trips your readers’ sensitive emotional shutoff valve (exactly what happened when I watched that show).

How can you avoid using too much emotion? We need to know when and how to portray emotion to make sure we don’t turn our readers off.

Set it up in advance
Don’t just drop an emotional scene out of nowhere, without giving the readers some frame of reference. Foreshadow. Set it up. Give us a chance to find out how the character feels about others in the scene or the general situation or similar events, etc. Then it’s safe to let the reader feel along with the character with a lot less emotion words. As author/editor Alicia Rasley says:

I suspect "less is more" really works here; most of the scenes that bring me to tears are underwritten, without emotion words.

But these passages are usually at the end of an emotional set up– that is, the author sets up the emotional situation so that I know what the stakes are, and then there’s the moment of emotional release.

Even then, though, there’s a fine line between subtle and just plain underdone.

Make it clear in the scene, but don’t beat us over the head with it!
Using common gestures probably won’t make it perfectly clear (unless you’re going for a common emotion—and then, dig deeper). We don’t need to be reminded every five lines, and we don’t need paragraphs about the feelings, but do make sure it’s there.

Use emotional imagery, especially something physical in the setting or props
Going along with the physical sensation of emotions, physical objects in the setting—whether scenery or props—can imbue even more meaning and resonance into a scene, as editor/author Alicia Rasley points out:

We really do endow things with emotional significance (wedding ring!), so that works better for me than emotion WORDS, which are necessarily a step removed.

Know when to put it in, and when not to
A number of factors influence this. One of them is pacing: if the scene is fast-paced and the emotional beat is short, don’t delve too deeply into it. (Gasp! You could even get away with telling!)

Get feedback
Probably the most important step here: get some objective eyes on it!

What do you think? How do you tell whether your emotion is overdoing it?

Image totally lifted from Wikipedia. Fair use FTW.