Tear-Inducing Emotional moments

[technopony13]

I've always wondered, how does one write a story in which it causes the reader to cry and feel like they are there? Those moments that you can't stop crying, the moments you will never forget because they triggered your brain. Made you cry a pool of tears as you felt their sorrow. Does anyone know how you do that? I just can't seem to get the idea of it. Last time I tried it, it just turned into a gory mess. I would appreciate all the help possible.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I don't know.

But, not knowing isn't going to stop me from trying.
I don't think there's any kind of formula that will tell you how to do it. You'll just have to go by gut feeling and "get it right". I'm pretty sure I know where to start though. I think the first thing you need to do is make your reader care for your character. Once your reader care about your character, they'll get more involved in what's happening to them.

Pick a sad situation. Someone's mother dies. That's a bad situation for anyone involved. However, if you don't know or care about any of the people involved, it's just statistics, like on the news. Sure, it's a horrible thing to have happened, but if you don't know the person, it's not that big a deal - you'll get over it.

So, I think that the first thing you need to do in order to create a tear-inducing emotional moment is to make sure the reader really cares for your character. That's not easy and it takes time. Making friends is hard and takes time. Making good friends is even harder and takes even more time - unless things just click, but that's not something to bet on.

Once you've got your reader caring for your character, just have something really bad happen to them.

 

[technopony13]

I don't know.

But, not knowing isn't going to stop me from trying.
I don't think there's any kind of formula that will tell you how to do it. You'll just have to go by gut feeling and "get it right". I'm pretty sure I know where to start though. I think the first thing you need to do is make your reader care for your character. Once your reader care about your character, they'll get more involved in what's happening to them.

Pick a sad situation. Someone's mother dies. That's a bad situation for anyone involved. However, if you don't know or care about any of the people involved, it's just statistics, like on the news. Sure, it's a horrible thing to have happened, but if you don't know the person, it's not that big a deal - you'll get over it.

So, I think that the first thing you need to do in order to create a tear-inducing emotional moment is to make sure the reader really cares for your character. That's not easy and it takes time. Making friends is hard and takes time. Making good friends is even harder and takes even more time - unless things just click, but that's not something to bet on.

Once you've got your reader caring for your character, just have something really bad happen to them.

Thank you so very much I think I now know what my problem has been all along. I never really got far into the book before BAM something happens, I guess I've never gotten them to know the character.

 

[Philip Overby]

I don't know if it's just me, but I've never cried reading a book. I've laughed, I've gone "What?" but never cried. I tend to not get emotionally connected to characters as much in that way. I've mourned characters that have died for sure, especially when I was younger and I read Dragonlance books. However, I've cried watching movies many times. Perhaps I'm a more visual and aural person in that way. Seeing something happen and then music setting the mood tends to make me more emotional.

The best way I'd find to make people feel strong emotion is to think about things that have effected you emotionally. A lost pet in your youth, a beloved relative dying, the love that got away. These are things that people can latch on to because we've experienced different kinds of loss in our lives.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I too, don't cry.
However, I did get rather shaken up by an episode in the latest part of the Dresden Files which I read just recently. I haven't gone back and analyzed in any kind of detail what caused that, but I wager it's not something specific in the writing. Rather, I think the fact that it's the fifteenth book in the series that I read has a lot to do with it. It's a character I've known for a long time and that I have a connection with and I think that that's what causes me to be emotionally involved with them.

EDIT: you can probably reach a similar effect in a lot less than fifteen books.

 

[Ankari]

Deadhouse Gate by Steven Erikson nearly reduced me to a sobbing wreck. It is the only book to bring a tear to my eye. Afterwards, I sat on my balcony and reflected.

 

[Steerpike]

Deadhouse Gate by Steven Erikson nearly reduced me to a sobbing wreck. It is the only book to bring a tear to my eye. Afterwards, I sat on my balcony and reflected.

That book certainly had a substantial emotional impact. Erikson did it right.

 

[technopony13]

I must thank you all for this information, it truly has been helpful

 

[thecoldembrace]

I don't know if it was because it was the first fantasy series I ever read, but at the end of the Belgariad by David Eddings I was a broken person. I was young sure, but nothing had reduced me so low as to get to the end of a book series and feel lost of not knowing what the hell to do next. (I didn't know the second series that picked up from the first was already published) and when I did I was ecstatic. My family thought I was nuts.
Very, very few stories have had that impact on me. I've teared up now and then at a few things, but nothing crippled me as much as that first time.

-Cold

 

[skip.knox]

thecoldembrace touches on a key element, one that might reassure you or might reduce you to despair; namely, it's not all on you.

The reaction to a book, or to any other work of art, is a complex formula involving the story, the reader, and the setting. In particular, the reader will react in different ways to the exact same book depending upon circumstances in that reader's life. How old they are, where they're at emotionally at the time, even whether they're reading home alone or on a crowded train. It's the same, btw, with music and even with film.

In other words, there are circumstances beyond your control. All you can do is write the best story you can. If there are sad scenes or happy ones, do your best. It's really up to the reader to cry or laugh. There are indeed "tricks" you can use to manipulate your reader, but these are effective only when the author actually cares about his characters. Bending a string on a guitar is a "trick" but it means nothing if the guitarist doesn't care.

IOW, donworryaboudit. Do your best. Age quod agitis as the Latin has it: do what is within you. Or, in this case, write what is within you.