Putting reader emotions first

[Brian G Turner]

I thought this article that tackled the subject of emotional engagement in a more interesting way than normal:

http://selfpublishingadvice.org/wri...-stories-putting-your-readers-emotions-first/

And here's the emotional summary.

• What’s this?
• Ooh
• Ah
• Yeah
• Whoa!
• Sniff
• Oh
• Oh no!
• Yes!
• Gasp
• OMG!
• Phew

 

[zmunkz]

Interesting breakdown of a plot cycle into emotions. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Cory Swanson]

Story structure, song writing, visual arts. They all seem to follow the golden mean. Two thirds to one third. Even the twelve bar blues uses the relative tension of the chords to chart a very similar journey to this list above.

 

[Vaz]

Are those the bullet points from the night I lost my virginity?



Good article, though.

 

[Vaz]

Also, if you want to learn how to write strong emotions that kick you in the guts and resonate long after you've closed the book - read Guy Gavriel Kay's work, especially Lions of Al-Rassan.

 

[Toby Frost]

Thanks for posting this, Brian. I'm in two minds, really.

I’ve never believed that the only SF is hard SF, and that any sort of deep characterisation is a betrayal of the genre. And, naturally, almost every modern writer wants some sort of reader engagement with characters to keep them wanting to read on. On the other hand, I’m uncomfortable in trying to force the reader’s experience of the book into a template.

Perhaps it's genre snobbery, but I don’t like the idea of a literature of ideas moving towards a literature of "the feels". I suspect that a lot of people who started reading before the internet are the same. Even in books like, say, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, when there is danger and intrigue and you don't want the (comparatively) good guys to be injured, the primary enjoyment for me doesn't come from emotions but from wanting to find out what happens next. It's a sense of being engrossed rather than emotionally engaged. Certainly there are moments where the question becomes "How will they survive?" but for me, the main reason for reading on is to learn what happens next and discover more about the setting.

 

[Martin Gill]

I like this. I don't really stand by hard formulas but I like the way he presents the concept. Ohh, Ah

 

[Toby Frost]

I thought this was sort-of related to the topic.

Books That Made Us Cry: Kings of the Wyld | Fantasy-Faction

Leaving aside the fact that, while I've read some pretty grim works, I don't read books for the purpose of feeling raw emotion, part of my problem with this is that it's possible for a book to be emotionally fulfilling and really, really bad. A lot of romance and action books, I'd suggest, are there to provide an emotional kick - the heroine falls in love, the bad guys get killed - that's not related to the quality of the novel itself. 50 Shades of Grey is almost universally acknowledged to be rubbish, but it must fill some kind of need beyond pornography. And there are a lot of great books that are comparatively emotionally cold. While emotional involvement will keep readers reading, I am not convinced that it is necessarily a sign of quality and, in fact, striving too hard to hit the right emotional beats may make the book formulaic.

 

[SilentRoamer]

I read the article and think it is a load of tosh to be honest!

I don't look for or expect an emotional journey every time I pick up a book. Especially in SFF where sometimes Big Ideas are more important than characterization or emotional impact. In some SFF the Big Ideas are the really important points, the characters are just a vehicle to deliver those ideas.

There are obviously authors who elicit more of an emotional response in me than others but this is definitely subjective and not a "rule", I expect these authors may elicit slightly different responses in other humans. The post seems to imply a broad homogeneity of human emotion which I don't believe it present.

I agree fairly broadly with @Toby Frost on this point.

 

[The Big Peat]

Mildly cheesed off that the author gives us the template but no actual examples of the template fitting modern popular literature. That's just lazy and makes the article far less useful than it could be.

Slightly uneasy about any "Hey, that's how Hollywood does it" justification too. I'm not entirely convinced that what people want out of a Hollywood movie in terms of story is the same as they want from their books. Although given Hollywood mostly just picks the best of SFF literature for films rather than making its own these days, maybe I'm wrong.

This all said, its a decent look at one way of telling stories. I very much wish the author had thought to link the emotions with a classic plot structure - you can tell its based on one, but without showing what corresponds to what, its again less useful than it could be.

I am rather tempted though to say that if you want to engage your readers by hitting them in the feels, you should simply produce awesome character and stories and let tragedy take its natural course, rather than concentrating on any progression of emotions.