One…I don’t wanna. I hate to read books that make me cry. I’d rather not, thank you very much. I’ll take a misty eyes moment or two, but actual tears? I can cry on my own. Make me laugh instead.
Two… Everybody is doing it. Forget parnormals and erotica, EMOTION is the trend. Case in point? The author of this article on emotion is a VERY FUNNY writer. So are many of the authors she quoted.
Dang. I have to get over number one and embrace reality. “You have to embrace parts of yourself you’d prefer to leave alone.” If I have to…
Kate Douglas likens deepening emotion in your stories to emotional foreplay. “There’s got to be emotional foreplay just as you’d build sexual tension in a story.” Tanya Michaels likens “throwing in last minute bad news just for the heightened drama” to cheating. Oops. No wonder that book was rejected. I tried to up emotion with melodrama. Never a good idea.
Thankfully “a little levity is necessary to balance deeply emotional scenes." Karen Templeton agrees, feeling that “the juxtaposition of humor and more gut-wrenching emotion makes each stand out more clearly.”
This article has really stuck with me as I wait to hear back from my editor on 4 emotional ideas…well, 3 now that I realize one was melodrama…and write on the purposely plotless Cinderella Complex.
Off to do as Shirley Jump suggested and work through Melissa James online The Emotional Depth Article Series. But before I bail, what do you like to read? Heavy emotion or light stories? What do you naturally tend towards in your writing? I’m obviously a ‘go for the joke’ girl. How do you balance humor and levity with getting an emotional punch to your stories?
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2 comments:
J, emotional depth doesn't have to mean making the reader cry! It can be achieved on other levels. Writing emotion is tough and I found it forced me to look inside and really take it to heart. But let's face it, not every story is going to lend itself to the depths of emotion.
I like an emotional read as well as a funny read. And I've actually read a few that combined both! I write lighter, but my 1st full length is pretty emotional. Not much light in it. Maybe that's why it makes me want to tear my hair out, cos I know it's not good enough. Maybe I'm writing out of my depth. I don't know...
But I do know this - I haven't rec'd my RWR yet. Where the heck is it???
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