How writers put personal feelings to work

As writers we have the option of using our daily,
often chaotic, emotional range to our advantage.
Image courtesy of SXC.hu ©2005 je1196.

How is your writing going this week? Is your current project still exciting, or is it causing you intense anguish? Is the work moving forward, or have found yourself stumped and at standstill?

How are you doing this week? Are you proudly declaring yourself a writer or do you secretly fear being outed as a "fraud" because you haven't had a moment to devote to the craft?

As writers, it's common to feel an entire range of emotions regarding our writing and ourselves — sometimes several times in a single hour! But that emotional roller coaster doesn't have to be a curse. In fact, it can be a blessing.

Human feelings are complex, but the emotions we experience are universal. That's what makes the characters we love so much so relatable.

Feeling the arm-hair-raising thrill of anticipation? I'm sure there's a chapter in your book where one or more of your characters feels the same way. Take that excitement and work it into a scene.

Are you being pulled down into the darkness by the invisible weight of fear? One or more of your characters should feel that often. Time to tap into that boiling stomach acid and pour it out onto the page.

Uncertainty? Concern? Happiness? Heartache? Whatever describes your current state of mind, put it to use. Don't think about how pretty the words sound, don't worry about form or grammar. Just get it out and set those words aside in a special file for later. That way you don't have to wrack your brain trying to convey feelings that may be contrary to your own later on.

Franz Kafka once said, "Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your soul according to the fashion. Rather follow your obsessions mercilessly." 

He may have been speaking about writing in general, but the same is true of conveying emotions. We were created to feel intently, so let your characters (and your readers) feel what they are intended to feel. After all, the best stories are the ones in which we as readers believe that whatever is at stake for the characters is going to affect our personal lives as well.

By the way, I honestly do wonder...how are you doing this week? Feel free to share in the comments below.

Using music and words to stir the soul

There are few things that stir my soul the way music does. I love how the arrangement of melodies and harmonies can capture the essence of the human spirit; how a few simple cords can inspire one to climb to new heights or descend to the lowest of depths, all in the space of a moment. If you looked at my iTunes library, you’d find I’m particularly drawn to instrumental music, and I don’t mean strictly “Classical.” Although there are no words, each piece paints a vivid picture that speaks specifically to me. 

As with reading and writing, my parents introduced me to music at a very early age. It was rare something wasn’t playing at home or in the car. My siblings and I grew up taking pieces by Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, and numerous others and creating plays to go with what we heard. We climbed endless staircases made of couch cushions battling to “Mars” from Holst’s “The Planets.” (Luke Skywalker’s famous battle with Darth Vader was the inspiration for that one.) When it was time to clean up, we often danced about the living room like little cleaning fairies to “The Nutcracker Suite.” And there were more than a few café scenes done to “An American in Paris.” 

It wasn’t just classical music that played in the house, though. My dad loved artists like Vangelis, Ray Lynch, and Jean-Michel Jarre, whose works were the soundtracks to many space-themed adventures. My mom grew up with Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra. So I suppose it doesn’t come as such of a surprise that when I’m writing I have appropriately themed music playing in the background. For example, when I’m writing a reflective scene I tend to have my soft reflection playlist going which has music from movies and video games mixed in. There are also Techno and Electronic albums I turn to when editing. And when I need a pick me up, I love listening to music that really should be played on an old turntable rather than my laptop.

I think one of the things that has always fascinated me so much about music is that though there are relatively few notes available, men and women are still able to create art that is so incredibly varied. Each piece is like a snowflake; you can spot similarity to others, but it is also a uniquely individual thing. Somehow the composer is able to capture and express a specific emotion that I can completely relate with, and yet at the same time when I’m listening to the music it feels so incredibly personal — as if I’m the only one who can ever truly understand its meaning.

That feeling is something I want to happen with my writing. When a reader sits down with me I want them to see the similarities and the differences of past experiences. I want them to feel as if the story was written specifically for them — as if it’s a secret only the reader and I can share in. Like music, there are only so many stories to be told (really, everything has been done before), but like the snowflake it can also be unique. And like the music playing in the background as I write this, it can be used to stir the soul.

The Writer’s emotional bond

As a writer I have a ton of books I’ve collected over the years on becoming a better writer (I’ve often joked that if you want to make money writing, all you need to do is write a book about writing). One of the books I turn to the most, and often lend out to other writers, is Stein on Writing. He reminds me of my favorite writing professor in that he doesn’t pull any punches.

In the chapter, “The Writer’s Job May Be Different Than You Think,” Stein discusses the importance of considering the reader’s needs, the necessity of capturing emotion, and the importance of practicing, developing a thick skin, and becoming an observer of the unspoken.

“It is our job,” Stein writes, “in nonfiction as well as fiction, to juxtapose words that reveal what previously may have been blinked, and prove insights obscured by convention and shame.”

In other words, we have to be willing to say what is otherwise left unsaid. We not only need to answer the question “What?” but “What if?” as well.

Throughout the chapter, Stein compares and contrasts nonfiction with fiction, but boils the differences with the following: Nonfiction conveys information. Fiction evokes emotion.

One of my favorite writing quotes by Dave Lambert says essentially the same thing: Nonfiction communicates truth to the intellect, through logical thought. Fiction communicates truth to the heart, through emotion.

As a writer, my job is not to focus on saying what happened, but to allow my readers to feel what is in progress.

It’s the age-old “show don’t tell,” yet before I was introduced to Stein, this concept had never been expressed in this manner to me. Stein points out that when we curl up with a good book we forget about the words on the page. We love a book not because of the writer, but because of how the writer makes us feel. We thrill and despair without leaving our chair. Each word is carefully crafted and chosen to excite us and break our hearts.

I’m currently reading a series of books that does just that. I’m invested in the lives of the characters because the author forges strong emotional ties between the reader and the characters. There are the wicked people I long to see brought to justice because of the pain they’ve caused without remorse, there are the “innocents” trapped in situations far beyond their control who I want to see brought out safely, and even when I’m not reading I’m thinking about them, wondering what hand fate will deal them.

It is that essence I long to capture in my own writing.

Like in the real world, so much of what happens in a story happens underneath the surface. 

For example, my sister can read my emotions by looking at my eyes. She knows when I’m thinking about a particular person because the corner of my mouth will twitch. It doesn’t matter which words I use, she knows via subtle clues if I’m being honest or not. It’s determining how to take those clues and commit them convincingly to the page that often becomes the challenge for me.

I once heard someone say, “Everything is easy once you know how to do it.”

So this evening after work I’m going home to practice conveying emotion through the written word a little more.