In this piece, I am going to share with you a method that you can use to maximize the emotional power of your story. There are three processes to this method: (1) Understanding where and how the emotions of your story unfold, (2) allowing your reader to blend his/her emotions with those of the story, and (3) showing your hero achieving significant personal growth.
Then we will workshop these processes so that you will have the hands-on experience to be able to seamlessly control the emotional development of your story.
Process #1:
Process #1 is understanding where and how the emotions of your story unfold. For this, we need to begin with the following question:
Where do you want the emotions of your story to live?
You have two very real choices of where you want the emotional tug of your stories to live. Each is quite distinct. The emotions of your story might live on the page. Your descriptions could be so vivid that your reader feels as if s/he is watching the scene play out. Your reader picks up on the emotions within the scene and relates to them empathetically. A car-chase scene or a love scene are obvious examples. A well-crafted scene can be deeply engaging, and books like The Emotion Thesaurus can help you get the emotions of your story onto the printed page. But there is another place where the emotions of your story can live. They can live within the heart and soul of your reader. It is this second choice that we are going to talk about here.
The most obvious example of delivering the emotions of your story directly into your reader’s heart is the suspense thriller. Your character doesn’t know she is being followed, but your reader does, and your reader feels the fear your character would feel if she were aware of the danger.
You can probably list a number of emotions besides terror that can be delivered to your reader’s heart easily and effectively. Jealousy, rage, greed, and other very strong emotions can be transmitted to your reader without accessing a thesaurus of descriptive words. You sketch out the situation, and the emotions arise in your reader’s heart. It is this second type of emotional portrayal that is the subject of this article, although we won’t limit ourselves to just the obvious strong emotions.
If you want your stories to be memorable, you must place the emotions of your story firmly within the heart of your reader.
Process #2:
Process #2 is allowing your reader to blend his/her emotions with those of the story. Again, we must begin with a question:
Why is it important to let your reader bring his/her own emotions into your story?
Again and again, psychological studies have shown that we humans remember emotional content better than fact-based content, and content that is related to ourselves better than content related to even the most beloved other people in our lives. That’s just the way our brains are wired.
So, to create the most memorable stories possible, we must have emotional content that takes place within our reader, where our reader is given the opportunity to inject his/her own experience and feelings into the scene.
In our suspense thriller, for example, we can leave space for our reader to recall a time when s/he felt s/he was being followed.
Leave space for your reader's emotions.
Process #3:
Process #3 is showing your hero achieving significant personal growth. Our question for this process is:
Why should your story show growth to your reader?
This process is my “secret sauce.” We all have unfulfilled dreams of personal growth we hope to one day accomplish. Reading a story where the hero accomplishes that growth is uplifting and inspiring.
If your story demonstrates your hero making significant personal growth, your story will create a desire within your reader to experience that growth for him/herself. Effectively, your reader will mentally mark your story as really worth remembering.
Your story should inspire your reader by showing a path to significant personal growth.
The Workshop
So that’s the theory behind our three processes, the what and why, and now we must discuss the how, because we have scoped out a significant task for ourselves as we begin the workshop portion of this piece: