EXERCISE: Borrowing from the Writing Excuses crew...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting 19 Aug 2012

Over here http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/08/12/writing-excuses-7-33-authentic-emotion/
the Writing Excuses folks talk about how to make the emotion in your writing authentic. And along the way, Mary proposes an exercise. Here's her description at the end of the podcast:

"Take a scene. Describe a setting. Then go back and describe that same setting with three different emotional states. One, your character is happy. One, they are angry. One, they are frightened. You may not use any emotion words, like anger, happy, or frightened."

See, real simple. Start by writing a description of a setting or scene. Just go ahead and write it out.

Then go back, and rewrite/revise that description three different times. First, assume the point of view character is happy. Now describe that same setting/scene, but through your word choice, the parts of the scene that the character pays attention to, and whatever else, make your reader realize that the character is happy.

Oh. Please don't use emotion words. Don't tell us that the character is happy. Just make us feel it.

Second, suppose the character is angry. Redo the description again, but this time let us know that the reader is angry. Use the sentence structure, the way they walk into the scene, whatever to let us feel that anger.

Third, and last, what if the character was frightened? Go over that description again, but make us feel the fear that the character is experiencing.

Simple, right?

Good! Write!