Finding the passion

[Feo Takahari]

As I've mentioned in other threads, the last story I wrote was pretty much me ripping my heart out and painting the pages with blood. A lot of it was extrapolated from the worst time of my life, if instead of getting help and getting better, I'd become more isolated and gotten worse. It was incredibly painful to write at times, but looking back on it, it feels like a really good story.

I think what I'm trying to do with my current story is valuable, and there are meaningful things I want to say, but looking back on what I've written, it doesn't feel as good or as powerful to me. Even when I try to connect it to my own experiences, I haven't gone through a lot of the things the main characters have. I can write how they react, and portray their emotions, but it just doesn't feel quite as real.

Is there a way to find that passion even in a story that isn't based on my life? You folks are all fantasists--how do you put emotion into events you've never experienced?

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Just because I've never fought a ghoul or lost a friend to a goblin's arrow, doesn't mean I don't understand terror or heartbreaking loss. All of the things my characters experience are, at their root, general experiences of the human condition.

In that respect, I've felt the same as my characters. It's the context, or how those feelings came to be that's fantastical.

 

[Penpilot]

I'll agree with that T.A.S. said.

Also, sometimes it's hard to tell if something is connecting emotionally or not without some perspective. Sometimes when I write a scene, I feel it's flat, but then I come back to it a few days/weeks/months later, and it's not as flat as I thought it was. The reverse is true too. Stuff I thought was gold turns into fools gold.

Your personal state of mind can color how you read something. When I'm writing a tough scene, it can feel cold at first, because I'm not reading it as a reader. I'm reading it as a writer as I'm putting the words down. Sometimes I'm consciously directing the prose and dialogue so I'm to covering X-Y-Z and that's something that can distance me from the emotion.

A few of the things I do if I'm unsure if the prose is emotionally engaging is I make a note at the beginning of the section stating exactly what emotions I'm going for, so I can double check when I come back with fresh eyes. Other times, I'll overwrite the emotion till its purple in the face then dial it back later.

And finally, when scene feels flat, I stop and ask myself a few questions that if I nail will give me the emotional core to the scene.

1) What does this scene mean emotionally to the character?
- Knowing what the character wants emotionally in terms of the over all story is key here. It's the emotional anchor point for your character. In Star Wars Luke's emotional anchor point is he wants to be a Jedi like his father.

- So when you're writing a scene, you have to figure out how it relates to that emotional anchor point, if at all. Most likely it is if it's a particularly emotional scene. In Star Wars look at the scene where Luke argues with his uncle, and where he mopes as he cleans the droids. At their emotional center, they're about him being denied a chance to become like his father, a father he never knew. So part of his overall adventure is him, in a way, chasing after his mythical father and learning about him.


2)How does it challenge their beliefs, bringing them into question?

Taking the Star Wars example, Luke finding out more about his father challenges his beliefs in who his father was. If memory serves, he didn't know his father was a Jedi.

3)How does the scene change them, if at all?

When Luke discovers the secret message in R2, he changes just a little, taking a step out of the obedient nephew mold into the rebellious one.


Any way hope this helps a little.

 

[FatCat]

Find something in common with your character. A personal touch, deep-rooted, that matches a life you could have led instead of the one you do now. How you reacted to your personal pain, as how the MC reacts, make it different yet rooted in the same understanding of what you've experienced, just cast in a different light.

 

[Devor]

I don't take for granted that people share the same emotional depth. I think some people have explored more emotions longer and at greater depth than others. And certainly we can write about characters who have gone deeper into areas we haven't. I think some level of . . . . well, speculative empathy, might be necessary to jump through the hurdles for some of the characters you write. As well as a personal awareness of how phenomenally deep your emotions can get.

I'm too exhausted to be more specific at the moment. I might try to say more tomorrow if I think of it.

 

[Ankari]

We can only have so many experiences in our life. Personal experiences will always feel sharper, more poignant to you. The reader may not have experienced as you have, but your writing may sweep away the reader because of your intimacy with the subject/experience.

By extension, you should strive gather feedback from those who have endured what you have not. Interview survivors of trauma, of war, or of loss. Note their body language as they talk. Note the volume of their voice, the pauses between words, and the words they choose. Write everything down.

You can also watch vidoes of people who share their experiences if interviewing is too personal.

Finally, watch documentaries or online new sources (CNN, Fox, MSNBC are bad choices for in depth human interaction) with the least amount of censorship. Slow down, replay, pause scenes that are laden with emotion.

It's simply a matter of building empathy.

 

[Philip Overby]

I've watched several videos recently. One was about a boxer who self-harmed himself because of abuse he experienced as a child. Another was about a child with cancer who got to score a touchdown in a game. Both of these things affected me emotionally because I think experiencing pain, loss, or a traumatic event can be relateable to almost anyone. Translating these moments into fantasy could be easy if it's not over-thought.

I think it's the details put into a story that help something more general resonate. It doesn't even have to be anything heart-breaking either. I don't normally write with the intention of pulling on heart strings. I just write characters and moments that interest me and hope they connect with readers in some way.

 

[Scalvi]

Because I write a lot of crazy stuff, nothing I've written in directly from my life. In the beginning, I would infuse a main character with one of my own character traits and that would help carry development. But after doing that so many times (writing out the beginnings of a story with MC heavily characterized), I feel like I can just understand how people would work, in a way.

It's sort of like grafting a shoot onto another plant: you take all the pieces and sew them together and then, while you work on it, it grows into its own person.

At least, that's how I do it now.

Edit: reading through this, I feel like maybe I missed my calling as an actor.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I believe this is the kind of problem you might need another reader to help with. Sometimes, scenes I just throw in there to fill space speak louder to crit partner than the ones I slaved away over for weeks, trying to get perfect. It's always helpful to me when I have someone else read the material. One problem you might be having is that emotionally, you are connected to some of your writing, whereas other bits, maybe you're more distanced from. A reader will take it all in on their own, pace-wise, emotion-wise, etc. and it will resonate with them differently. I think that's one of the benefits of being a writer, really. You get to experiment with real things and made-up things, and see what sticks to the wall of the readers mind in a way.

 

[AshleyTaylor]

I think it is an important factor to feel the feelings of your character to make them live as and more realistic, I only feel like my charecrer while writing and thinking.

 

[Gurkhal]

As I've mentioned in other threads, the last story I wrote was pretty much me ripping my heart out and painting the pages with blood. A lot of it was extrapolated from the worst time of my life, if instead of getting help and getting better, I'd become more isolated and gotten worse. It was incredibly painful to write at times, but looking back on it, it feels like a really good story.

I think what I'm trying to do with my current story is valuable, and there are meaningful things I want to say, but looking back on what I've written, it doesn't feel as good or as powerful to me. Even when I try to connect it to my own experiences, I haven't gone through a lot of the things the main characters have. I can write how they react, and portray their emotions, but it just doesn't feel quite as real.

Is there a way to find that passion even in a story that isn't based on my life? You folks are all fantasists--how do you put emotion into events you've never experienced?

One way could be to read what people who have had those experiences write, or even better, say about them. Seek out people and texts that are not fantasy and read about their experiences. You might not make them your own but you can understand them. Or so I think.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm a medieval historian by trade. One of the things historians have to do is try to imagine themselves into the past. We have aids for this (primary sources), but historical imagination is a real thing. Some are better at it than others.

I have found this to be useful in my writing. I don't start with passion, I start with situations and characters. As I get a character into a situation, I try to see the event from that character's point of view. Just as I do not judge historical people but rather try to understand them, so I also try to understand my characters. It is an exercise not so much in passion as in sympathy.

The trouble I have with the whole personal experience, deeply felt passion, approach is that it's narrow. It works fine for a main character, but what about all the other poor schmucks in your story? They deserve some love, too. I might have a dozen bad guys and a dozen good guys in a story, and they all need my writerly attention.

So, you asked how. The only way I know is to imagine each character as thoroughly and honestly as possible. I'm not writing the story to somehow re-experience my own emotions. I done did dat. I'm writing to experience vicariously the emotions of people (and non-people) in situations I can never be in. That's more interesting and more fun. I'm well aware not every approaches writing in this way. ymmv, and all that.