Feel It

“You are the last of your kind,” he chuckled at her.

They watched the great red orb of the sun dip its toes into an oily Pacific.

“I shall not become extinct,” she grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling mischievously.

“You are the last of your kind,” he snarled at her.

She watched the rivulets of water run down the grimy windowpane that failed to hide the grey misery of a wet Chicago.

“I shall not become extinct,” she hissed into the telephone, her eyes glistening with hate.

Same conversation, different emotions.

We could, reasonably, introduce another version that evokes fear; we could, reasonably, write different versions that hold out other emotional qualities. These two will suffice lest we plunge into a string of examples that will, ultimately, become boring.

I have mentioned, in a previous ‘Blog’, that it is important to feel the emotion when we write. So it was when I wrote the two examples that I started with here.

The problem arises when we bump into our own lives.

Even writers have personal lives. We still, at some point, have to go shopping, go to the bank and, for some of us, we still have a job to do.

That personal life will clash with the lives of our characters. We cannot always arrange to feel angry, frustrated, irritated, happy or sexy at the same time as the people that we are writing about.

Life is just not that simple!

There will be times when we are not at our best for one reason or another but our characters are pursuing some humorous part of the plot.

It is difficult to ‘switch off’ the private life and ‘switch on’ our vicarious life. Sometimes we need help.

There are times when I get so lost in the lives that are in my head that it comes as quite a shock to discover that, in the real world, it is lunchtime or that my beloved has brewed a splendid (and large) mug of tea for me.

What a jewel the lady of my life is; how fortunate I am.

But I digress.

How can we switch from one emotion to another in order to fill the needs of the world in our head?

Sometimes with difficulty. I find that there have been occasions in my life, which has been a full one—full of experiences both good and bad, when something has happened to make me feel a certain way.

Grief is easy. We have all had times when we have been overwhelmed by sadness; the tearstains on the keyboard will attest to mine! There will, equally, be times when you have been in fear of your life. Perhaps a car crash from which you unexpectedly survived. Happy times, too and, without doubt, times when you were wrapped up in lust!

These are the experiences that you write about. You do not, ever, unless it is an autobiography, write about the actual, real life, experiences but you write about your character’s experiences while soaking up your own memories.

It is a trick. Of course it is. It is a trick used by entertainers of all kinds. Actors have to emote, even sports people are emotional and writers are no different.

Feel what you are writing. Live it.

These are not just words strung together in a fine academic prose. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, syntax—all these things are important but, on their own, they are just words.

Your job, as a writer, is to put the humanity into those words. You can reinforce it by the supporting words.

Notice, in the examples above, that I have used ‘orb’ and ‘oily’ together in one sentence and then ‘grey’ and ‘grimy’ also in one sentence.

‘Orb’ and ‘oily’ are neutral to ‘sexy’ (the ‘oily’ is anyway!) but ‘grey’ and ‘grimy’ are definitely sad or threatening.

Think about what you are building; bring on the emotions. This is why, as a writer, you are a ‘wordsmith’ because you are creating a picture with words.

Let yourself go, let it flow and then go back and work on it.