Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Story Excitement 3 -- Sharing the fun

If you want your stories to thrill readers, the first step is usually to thrill yourself. I provided some ideas on how to do that in the first entry of this series and how to sustain it in the second.

Acting provides some guidance in sharing emotions. Traditionally, an actor works from the outside, accumulating specific, authentic details. He or she may add a prosthetic nose or cultivate a tic or walk in a specific manner to project the feelings of the character to the point where they come across (and often infect the actor).

Similarly, a writer will use the specifics of a character that readers identify to carry the sense of excitement to them. If your protagonist's heart is beating fast, chances are, so is the reader's. But a writer can do more. Mood can be created by the setting. (Think of almost anything by Edgar Alan Poe.) The writer can also create conflicts and obstacles that can quicken the pulse.

Scene construction can have a huge impact. Comic relief can distract the reader away from building tension so the ultimate impact hits all the harder. Beyond careful timing of secrets and revelations, the writer can make readers feel what the protagonist is unaware of. Irony is a powerful tool, well expressed by Hitchcock, who spoke of the suspense created when the audience knows a bomb is ticking and the character does not. 

Method acting pulls directly from your feelings, as discussed in the previous entries, but you can enhance through finding personal ways to connect with your material. This may be through imagery or sequences within the story that touch you, but, like actors, you can also use sense memory to call up situations (not explicit in your story) where you had relevant emotions.

Sharing the excitement may, however, take more than "feeling it." Everything has to be conveyed through written material, without the expression of your voice and body, so exaggeration is encouraged. Don't be rigorously realistic or shy about going over the top. You can always moderate later.

Finally, sharing the excitement is the perfect reason to be professional about the writing itself. Passive voice? Adverbs? Junk words (like just, even, almost)? All of these distance the reader and muddy the feelings. As do unnecessary dialogue tags and joining dialogue (or scenes) before the last possible moment or leaving it later than as soon as possible. Anything sloppy or unneeded takes away from the excitement.

But it may not be carelessness that holds you back. It could be a reticence about sharing emotion. We often value being "cool" or "in control." Forget that when you're writing fiction (and much of nonfiction). If you don't let loose (at least with the draft), you're cheating your readers and yourself.

Get excited.

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