My Best Writing Advice: Part 2 of 3
“How do I give my readers emotions without breaking ‘Show don’t Tell’?”
For the familiar medium of film, an actors’ method of performing dialogue donates the majority of the emotional connection we viewers perceive in a collaboration between writer, director and performer. In print, we have no performances but the words on the page.
When we’re critiquing live on twitch, a writer’s explanation of their characters’ motivations are vivid and expressive. We have the luxury of the author themselves donating backgrounds. Yet, often the first drafts we experience while on-stream are lacking the context or motivations the author clearly has in utter droves. Things left unsaid can be telling in some circumstances, but the odds are if it’s not written in the prose, the inferences will likely not be made as intended, unless the reader is ‘informed’ (insert discussion on Reader-Response Criticism, for a future date).
“The human desire to know why is as powerful as the desire to know what happened next, and it is a desire of a higher order.” (Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction)
Interpretation becomes an exercise in imagination, based on discernible cues. In a world with divergent cultures, who for the most part have access to the same content (thank you internet), most cues are heteroglossic. Fallible without context. That context needs to be present, if the work is to be understood. This context is where we need to live, as writers of prose.
While we, as the authors and originators of the characters have a wealth of performances in our minds, our readers cannot divine them. They see only the words we’ve written, and if we’re thorough, infer a certain amount of subtext. Anything not explicitly written becomes the game of Reader-Response Critique, where many readers will input context from their lives, or knowledge of similar stories. It is okay for readers to insert their own interpretations, but for moments which drive plot or have the potential to take a beloved character to the realm of misinterpretation, we need to be more specific with a combination of dialogue and emotive prose.
Pacing
Humans are amazing creatures in our perception of time. A single day can feel ten seconds short, or seventy hours long. Think of the moment. Is it something of significance, where we can pause? Have the sum total of weight from multiple chapters/storylines press down, lengthen like gravity in the fabric of spacetime? Or is it a flippant thing to be glanced over later? Choose how long the moment should be, by understanding how readers need to ‘attach’ or how long a character might fixate. If reader feedback states they didn’t ‘get to feel’ the moment, go back and spend more time in that place. What actions are the characters conducting? What symbols or allegories can be reintroduced or developed? Is there part of the setting they can react to? A relatively small item in the corner, which brings their minds to another connective node?
Pacing like tension, is a fluctuation game. Although too much slothful pacing can bore the reader, the opposite makes many a reader feel they’ve been skipped by. Moments they could have disappear, lost despite how significant they ought to be. Plan the eventual closure of the moment’s impact somewhere else, dotting the line until the tension concludes.
While some beats need to be swift and dealt with in aftermath, it is my firm belief every line of tension requires an eventual close the same way a piece of classical music requires rectification in chord progressions.
If a line of emotional tension is not answered by the end, is it meant for a sequel to conclude, or to incite the reader to ponder it long after the book is closed? If not, go back, rectify.
Develop the moments which require the reader to pause, to live within the emotion for a paragraph or three, or even an entire chapter. Hold firm to those within the character’s headspace, while barely touching on others, which may be significant for their emotional ineptitude or the questions they pose.
“But the sense of a solid mass ahead, a mountain round or over or through which the story must somehow go, is most valuable and, for the novels I’ve tried to write, essential. There must be something, some major object towards which one is to approach.” (E.M. Forster, The Writer’s Chapbook)
Ask yourself whether this scene directly progresses the plot or characters. If so? It’s important and the readers need to live in it. If not? However colourfully worded, its time to move on.
So we’ve picked our moments. How do we emote?
Action as Emotive
When a character crosses the room, there’s a reason. It’s not enough they wanted something on the other side. Attach emotion to the way they perform the action. ‘Action tags’ like this make for an excellent way to replace the dreaded ‘dialogue tags’, when one needs to bulk up the emotional impact of a dialogue heavy moment.
How someone picks up a cup, or pours a glass of water tells more about their emotional state than ‘He said angrily’. Is someone bashing the glass down on the table? How someone conducts the mechanical actions of their character is a fantastic way to connect them to their inner motivations, the same way line delivery in an actor shows the emotion on set.
“So when do we see Mom?” Karisma said.
“Chocolate?” Caleb moved to the cabinet and pulled out a box of truffles. He handed one to his daughter.
“Sure Dad.”
or
“So when do we see Mom?” Karisma chipped at the polish on her thumb, watched peeling glitter flick off her nail to the kitchen counter, where she sat shoulders slumped. Mismatched socks kicked off the cabinet with a rhythmic ‘thud-thud’. Her phone buzzed and she left it on the counter, waited for the screen to dim.
Caleb searched the garden outside their kitchen window, sprouts peeked from pregnant ground and roses budded unnaturally a few metres from freshly tilled vegetable beds. A retreat Delilah’d never seen, one which used to be as rotted as their dalliances when her words were still sweet. Her shadow would never grace this hallowed ground, those who protected Karisma wouldn’t let it.
“Chocolate?” The cabinet latch groaned when he pulled it open, mugs clinked in their spots. He pulled out a box of truffles he’d hidden behind the coffee grounds and tapped the corner to his palm. How did one tell their teenaged daughter her mother jumped into an abyss not even he could retrieve her from? How did he tell his daughter her mother tried to sell her soul?
“Sure.” Eyes the colour of glacial ice narrowed. Karisma took a truffle and stared at it, back up to the furrows on her father’s forehead. “Dad?”
Once we have the actions, we can dive into the inner motivations. Is Caleb (Shout out to Son of Abel) grabbing that chocolate from the cupboard because he’s hungry, or is he deflecting Karisma’s questions? Is he hoping Karisma will be distracted by the chocolate until she stops asking questions he doesn’t have answers to? We all hear ‘Show don’t Tell’. This ‘rule’ is astonishingly wonderful, but it can be used to an extreme. Some inkling of inner motivations is key to unlocking context.
Look at your prose. How can you re-approach the image from another angle? Are the actions merely the mechanical stage direction of ‘he needs to move over there, so the window is open and someone outside can see him’ or, is Caleb’s move to the window because the room was stiflingly stale, and if he didn’t get fresh air that minute, he’d shout in front of a wide-eyed 13 year old girl?
The Short List (TL;DR):
Pacing, like tension, is a wavelength not a plateau: Play with moment length, depending on when you want the reader to feel the impact.
Use Actions as a frame for Motivations: How does the character walk across the room? Why? Give us glimpses if they’re important to clarify intent.
Action Tags: Skip off on dialogue tags when necessary, and instead tie the dialogue to an action the character is performing. This is especially important if the dialogue itself could be read in multiple ways.
Setting: How a character perceives a dark room (frightening? Comforting? Is the power out? Did they forget to take off their sunglasses at night?) says more about their mental state than ‘she nervously sat’. Use their perception of their environment to frame emotional states.
Remember who you’re writing for: Different genres have different expectations. Be authentic to your voice, while preparing your manuscript in a way an ‘ideal reader’ will dig.
