[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 06:44:24 -0400

based on Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, ISBN 0-14-02.8852X

(very loosely -- mostly, I borrowed their list of emotions and the notion of layered emotions.  Don't blame them for where I took the notion, though :)

p, 94 talks about the way that we often miss the bundle of feelings (or the spectrum of emotions) hiding behind simple labels or a strong emotion that overshadows the rest.  So, let's give our character two emotions (pick two numbers in the range from 1 to 11, okay?):

1.  Love -- affectionate, caring, close, proud, passionate
2.  Anger -- frustrated, exasperated, enraged, indignant
3.  Hurt -- let down, betrayed, disappointed, needy
4.  Shame -- embarrassed, guilty, regretful, humiliated, self-loathing
5.  Fear -- anxious, terrified, worried, obsessed, suspicious
6.  Self-doubt -- inadequate, unworthy, inept, unmotivated
7.  Joy -- happy, enthusiastic, full, elated, content
8.  Sadness -- bereft, wistful, joyless, depressed
9.  Jealousy -- envious, selfish, covetous, anguished, yearning
10.  Gratitude -- appreciative, thankful, relieved, admiring
11.  Loneliness -- desolate, abandoned, empty, longing

Pick one of these terms (either the main one or another, your choice).

Let's see.  You have the two written down in front of you?  Please make sure you've numbered them (1 and 2, very simple).

Do you have a coin?  Yep, flip it.  Heads for 1, tails for 2.

[what do you mean, your coin doesn't have heads and tails?  Oh, pimento trees?  Leaping frogs?  Well, pick a side and call it 1, call the other 2, and flip, flip, flip!  Or just pick one of the two emotions, poor favor, okay?]

The one you've selected is the one the character starts out knowing about, while the other is simmering and bubbling away just under the surface.  May (or may not!) be visible to others, but the character really isn't aware of it.

Toward who?  Well, that's for you to come up with.  Sister, brother, parent, child, boss, employee, spouse or spice or some other person, probably in a situation that makes things a bit tense.  Pick your scenario, okay?

Oh!  Just for fun, take a few minutes and think about ways that each of these feelings might come out in judgments ("If you were a good friend, you'd do this for me."), attributions ("Why are you trying to hurt me?"), characterizations ("You are just totally inconsiderate."), and solutions ("Obviously, the answer is for you to call me more often.").  These are some ways we often think we are expressing emotions, while actually carefully making sure that the person we are addressing isn't given a clear indication of our feelings, and (as a bonus) will almost certainly respond to the judgment, attribution, blame, and direction in a negative way.  So let the character use these diversions.

And the scene?

You put it together.  Essentially, we want to start with the character happily dwelling on the dominant emotion, expressing themselves... probably add a bit of conflict, a few uppings of the ante, and then... something helps the character realize that there is this other emotion lurking and gurgling underneath, and they need to reassess themselves.  Give us a little of that change, that shift in the sense of persona as the character realizes that not only are they angry, but afraid too (or whatever the pairing is).

Go ahead and write.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:08:00 -0500

Let's take a look at some thoughts from Writing As a Lifelong Skill by Sanford Kaye, ISBN 0-534-22218-8

Up to Now: Your Writing History

(Page 13) Continuing, "Then try to put into words your attitude toward writing.  For some people writing is an act of futility, while for others it plays a crucial role in personal development...."

And for the next slice, write down your attitude toward writing.  What do you feel about writing?  What do you feel while writing?  How are your emotions tied to your writing?

Definition, attitude,...
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
[In case anyone hasn't been paying attention, this is another chapter from Make a Scene by Jordan E. Rosenfeld. We're wandering through various specific kinds of scenes at this point. And today, we've got . . .]

Chapter 14: Dramatic Scenes

Rosenfeld says that dramatic scenes are where you bring emotional content to the readers. When you deliver stunning emotional consequences, pushing the protagonist and the plot into new territory, you use dramatic scenes.

Rosenfeld says the goal of drama is to get the reader's feelings involved, not fancy writing or even the characters' emotional range. Dramatic scenes often lead up to epiphanies or climax scenes and usually include:
  • a focus on emotional intensity
  • heavy relationship-oriented interactions, deepening connections or sometimes breaking connections
  • actions that push the protagonist into reflection on inner consciousness
  • indications of an upcoming turning point
There are lots of forms of drama, but they all push characters into change. Drama forces characters to make decisions and face complications that makes them think about their own behavior and actions and beliefs.

Dramatic scenes often counterbalance contemplative scenes or dialogue scenes, bringing out the emotional confrontation. Since they push protagonists into change, they're more likely in the middle and the end of the narrative than in the very beginning

Structure of Dramatic Scenes: dramatic scenes often open and close at a slow pace, although the emotional intensity and pacing should grow higher and faster until there is some sort of climax, and then may back off again. Often there are three parts:

1. Slow opening, with exposition, setting details, and interior monologues
2. Rising pace and emotional intensity, with dialogue, actions, and emotional content rising to a crescendo.
3. Slow down for reflection, with increasing interior monologue or exposition

Rosenfeld suggests thinking about emotions as hot and cold. Hot emotions such as anger and passion erupts and spillover, they're loud. Too much hot content leads to melodrama. Cold emotions like shock and hurt often results in silence and withdrawal. Too much cool emotion though can make the scene flat and frozen. You need a balance of both for a good dramatic scene.

Dramatic Scene Openings

Dramatic scenes often builds slowly towards the real crisis. Dramatic tension, the potential for problems and conflict, often needs a setup. Narrow the focus down, bring in actions and characters with a sense of foreboding and emotional intensity. Introduce the interaction with another character or with a larger force of opposition.

Then, through escalating events and their actions, push the protagonist to change. "Dramatic scenes put the pressure on your character to transform so that your plot can move forward." Some examples of emotional complications in dramatic scenes include:
  • confrontations
  • reunions
  • borrowed or limited time
  • crushed expectations
  • the threat of bodily harm or death
"What matters most is that at the end of a dramatic scene, your protagonist has had a new or enlightening emotional experience that causes her to behave, think, or feel differently."

Keep in mind that dramatic scenes need to be based in the overall plot. Intense emotional conflicts should push this story forward.

Closing the dramatic scene: given the emotional intensity of a good dramatic scene, you don't want to end with a cliffhanger. Give the protagonist, and the reader, a moment to reflect on what happened.

Avoiding Melodrama

One of the concerns of many writers is that their dramatic scenes will slide over the line into melodrama. Melodrama, with over-the-top excessive emotional intensity is hard to believe. It's usually a result of a writer not quite trusting the readers to get the point. So to avoid falling into that trap, be subtle. Let your readers figure things out, let them put together the puzzle of the hints and images that you provide.

So where does melodrama happen?
  • sentimentality, with cliches, trite, and corny dialogue and sentiments
  • hysterics, too loud, too emotional, too far out
  • grand or unrealistic gestures, with changed characters acting out their new understanding in bigger than life ways
  • silver screen speeches, with the characters suddenly sounding more like actors than actors. When the reader wonders who is writing this dialogue, you're in trouble.
  • knee-jerk reactions, with characters changing too easily
  • an overabundance of descriptors, a.k.a. purple prose. A heavy layer of adverbs and adjectives sometimes contributes to melodrama.
Reducing the Melodrama Quotient

1. Check the emotional intensity. Is there sufficient grounds for the emotional responses?
2. Fine tune dialogue. Read it aloud, get someone else to read it, and work on it until it sounds like real people talking, not puppets for the writer's voice
3. Adjust character behavior. Make sure the motivations and the actions line up and are natural.
4. Keep gestures human scaled. Your characters need to do things, but they should seem possible.
5. Balance your characters. All of your characters need to be roughly in the same scale. Villains that are so much stronger, interesting, and so forth than the protagonists can make a scene unbalanced.

Checklist for dramatic scenes

1. Does the scene focus on characters' feelings?
2. Does the scene have an emotional climax that pushes the protagonist to change?
3. Are character relationships and interactions the focus of the scene?
4. Are the reactions intense without being melodramatic?
5. Does the dramatic scene introduced an epiphany or contemplative scene?

[Hum? Interesting that we had a whole chapter on dramatic tension that focused on delayed conclusions -- the truck barreling down the alley towards the protagonist, and postponing showing exactly what happens for a while. But now we're talking about dramatic scenes, which I sort of thought might be those that fill in that waiting time, and we've gone off into the emotions and feelings? Oh, well, I shan't let the hobgoblin of small minds hold me back:-]

So instead of Sergeant Friday's "just the facts," we're going to get some emotion into our dramatic scenes, right? One suggestion from me -- think about times that you've felt the emotions and feelings. Pick up details and bits that helped make you feel that way, then transform them for your stories. Maybe that picture of a mother frantically digging into the rubble where a child was buried in an earthquake makes you gulp? Okay, now how can you use that in your story? Or the proud stance when you listen to a song with a someone chasing that impossible dream? Put that into your story!

Assignment? Well, the obvious one is to check out a dramatic scene in one of your stories, and feel free to do that. But . . . let's find that song that makes you sniffle a bit. Might be someone lighting up the sky on Independence Day, might be someone saying "You can let go now, Daddy" or whatever, but take that song. And write up the scene. Go ahead and make it melodramatic if you want to, this is practice. Then tone it down. Can you make that tearjerker just hints and images? Just an impression that makes the reader sigh?

Go ahead, write!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original Posting: Fri, 08 Feb 2002 23:32:00 -0500

A Japanese friend took me to an art museum, showing paintings about India by Akino Fuku.

As we sat on the floor in front of one of his favorites, entitled simply "Ganges," he pointed to the heads of the cattle swimming in the torrent and said, "Those are people."  Then he asked if I knew a Japanese saying.

"Hi kurete, michi too shi."

"As the day draws to a close, the road still stretches ahead."  Or maybe "At the end of the day, the road is still long."

He explained that this is a saying referring to people's lives, that at the end of their life, their goals are still far out in front of them.

And he thinks the picture of the Ganges is another reflection of that.  The cattle swim, their heads just above the water, even as the evening dusk settles.

As the sun sets, the road still stretches ahead?

How would you say it?  And perhaps more interestingly, can you use that saying in a poem, or a tale?

Or is there an English saying that mirrors this?  I couldn't think of one, but maybe you can.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 22:44:42 -0500

So, here's the basic scenario.

Two people (you pick the characters, the location, the scenery, what have you).

Pick a number from one to twelve.  Got it?

Good.  Here's the emotion you have picked:

1.  sadness  2. distress  3.  relief  4.  joy 
5.  hate  6. love 7.  fear  8. anticipation 
9.  anger  10.  guilt  11.  gratitude  12. pride

Now, pick a number from one to six.  Here's the result:

1.  a plastic flower
2.  a stapler
3.  a birthday card
4.  a lighter
5.  a toy wheel
6.  a pair of pliers

Your two characters are immersed in their scene (what are they doing?  Oh, that?  Kewl.)

Ding-dong.  Delivery boy, the daily mail, a box dropped from heaven, in one way or another, the object you picked gets delivered (consider having it wrapped, or in an envelope, as you then have the fun of opening it!).

And one of your characters (you flip the coin) experiences that emotion (remember?  one to twelve) in regard to that object.

What is it about that object which pulls them into the emotional maelstrom? What happened that dark day?

And how do they explain this to the other person?  Do they keep a stiff upper lip as their heart breaks again?  Or do they sob on the shoulder of their friend?

A small scene, but one that can go many places.

Just two characters, an object, and the emotions it brings with it.

Write it up!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 18:35:01 JST

Some writers and other people have suggested that each of us has a great depth of experience about being human to draw from. But, of course, sometimes it seems as though there just isn't much there. Here's an exercise to help dig your personal well of knowledge a bit deeper.

1. Pick one of the following emotions (or look in the thesaurus and grab a synonym):
Love, Hate, Joy, Relief, Distress, Sadness, Fear, Anticipation, Pride,
Gratitude, Guilt, Anger, Benevolence, Pride in the Other, Malevolence.
2. Pick a character and a setting. Write them down and hold on just a moment.

3. List at least five situations or events in your life that made you feel that emotion. Think back, and look for the times when you felt strongly.

4. Now take at least one of those points and dig into it. What triggered it? What were the steps, what was the process of feeling it that time? What did your fingers feel like, your toes, your scalp, your heart, your eyes, your mouth? Go back and relive that time in your mind. Remember the sights, the sounds, what you touched, what you smelled, what you tasted, how you moved, all of it.

How did you resolve it? Did you bury it, work through it, get over it, or what?

How did it change you?

5. Okay. Enough reminiscing. Now take that character and setting, and write up their encounter with that emotion. Select some of the points from your investigation of your own life to use, and make the reader feel it. Don't be afraid to change some things - perhaps your chat with your teddy bear can be transformed into a session with a psychologist, or...

(advanced lesson: write it three times - once first person, once third person, once "external views" only)

Hum - seems to me I've heard something like this described once under the heading "method acting" or something like that. It works, whatever you call it, and I recommend practicing it - find the emotion you want in your own background, stir up the embers of memory, and then use those old ashes and charcoal blocks to paint your fiction. Helps the story catch fire!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original Posting: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 18:35:02 JST

Step one: Pick two characters (any two will do)

Step two: Pick one of the following emotions:

Love Hate
Joy Relief Distress Sadness
Fear Anticipation
Pride Gratitude Guilt Anger
Benevolence Pride-in-other Malevolence

Step three: Character one feels this emotion towards character two. At the moment in question, character one is sitting in a room with a pet of character two. Get that picture in your mind, with a specific pet, a room that you can see, and some reason for character one to be waiting there...

Step four: Now, describe that waiting with the pet, bringing out the emotion that character one feels toward their owner - without ever mentioning it by name. I.e., let them talk, rub, whistle at, or whatever the pet - and in that interaction, show what they feel towards the owner.

On your keyboards, get set, write!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Sun, 19 Dec 1993 18:35:02 JST

Take a common action, such as a waiter getting the order for food from your character. Something very simple like that, preferably with a "spear carrier."

Now, take five (5) emotions from this list:

Amazement, Anger, Boredom, Desire, Envy, Fear, Greed, Grief, Happiness,
Hate, Jealousy, Joy, Love, Pity, Pride, Shame, Spite, Surprise, Worry, Worship.

CHALLENGE: For each emotion, write the same scene, showing the reader which emotion your character is feeling. Don't use the word for the emotion - show us! Incidentally, don't take the easy way out and let your character feel this strong emotion for a mere "spear carrier" on the scene - make the object of the emotion another character, off-scene right now!

And they're writing...
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Fri, 12 May 1995 10:18:23 EDT

(mix the dough...)

A. Pick a pair of characters. If you want to, use the three minute speed writing method from last week...

(some cinnamon and spices for taste...)

B. Roll your die. Character # 1 feels

1. Love 2. Joy 3. Distress 4. Fear 5. Pride 6. Guilt

C. Roll again! Character # 2 feels

1. Hate 2. Relief 3. Sadness 4. Anticipation 5. Gratitude 6. Anger

(put it in a pan...)

D. Roll again! They are sitting together at

1. Restaurant 2. Business Meeting 3. Bar 4. Bus Stop 5. Airport 6. Church

(and bake it when you can...)

And write up the scene. How does their emotional underpinning poke up in motions, dialogue, expressions, actions? Are they feeling these emotions about each other or about someone else--with the current "insignificant other" getting the brunt of the blowup?

roll those keys, toll those keys, make them sing...
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: July 21, 1995

[well, well, well.
sitting on your words again?
UP AND AT THOSE KEYS!
no strain, no gain, so work those words!]

Change is one of the essences of plot. So, let's try this:

a. Pick a pair of characters.

b. Pick one of the following 12 emotions. You may use two dice if you like.

1. sadness 2. distress 3. relief 4. joy
5. hate 6. love 7. fear 8. anticipation
9. anger 10. guilt 11. gratitude 12. pride

c. Pick another one of the 12 emotions. If you happen to roll the same number with your dice, roll again.

d. The plot skeleton--

one character feels the first emotion (towards the other character, if appropriate).
the characters interact...
the first character feels the second emotion (towards the other).

e. WRITE! How does fear change into gratitude? Pride curdle into anger? Guilt turn into joy?

Don't forget, you want to show us the person, rather than just telling us about the emotion. Okay?

(wow! these alchemist writers, bent over their strange alembics and intoning unspeakable tongues of demonic descent, with the philosophers' stone as an anvil and dialectical enlightenment as a hammer, forge the humors of man into new and marvelous shapes of mist and glitter.:-)

Watch as the plots thicken! See them twist, see them bend, and gaze upon raw climaxes exposed by you. Just put your belief in overdrive, your disbelief in suspension, and write on into the sunset...
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 11:05:13 EST

Step 1. Pick one of the following 12 emotions. You may use two dice if you like.

1. sadness 2. distress 3. relief 4. joy
5. hate 6. love 7. fear 8. anticipation
9. anger 10. guilt 11. gratitude 12. pride

(yes, variations, thesaurus strolling, and similar attempts to delineate or arrive at finer precision in your toils are all acceptable--just get your emotion selected, okay?)

Step 2. Here is the basic beginning. Please elaborate at your pleasure.

The elf/troll/angel/devil/being of light/monstrous mutation
strolls/hops/flies/pops in with a puff of sulphur/transports down in
sparkles/drips into being before you. They reach out a something
and... spin/drop/one finger touches lightly/a horny nail nudges/out
of nowhere creates/slimily vomits it out before you.

Step 3. The pile/nugget/piece/lump/other word at your description that has been delivered to you IS your emotion, turned into reality.

1. What does it look like? Show us...
2. What does it sound like? Make us hear it!
3. What does it smell/taste/feel like? Make us cringe...

Step 4, 5, and so forth--what does having this concrete emotion do to (or for?) you? Why did you want it so much? What did getting it cost (uh-oh, what did the little dwarf want for the service? did you really want to pay that, and was it worth it)?

For the one-sentence starter crew:

"I got it for you," my visitor said, and dropped it in my palm.

[in case you're not sure, you can use this sentence as a beginning point. Go on from there until you come to an end. Revise, polish, and decide what you want to do with what you have just wrot.]

let's write again, like we did before...

In The Way

Feb. 25th, 2008 10:07 am
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:35:44 EDT

[I am gleefully ignoring the Quarterly report that is due, the idiot who thinks our development group has unlimited resources, and all the other minor distractions...]

1. Pick a character. This character, like so many of us, is over here (pick your place!). Due to the machinations of the author (that's you!), they want to be over there (you decide again!). They are going to meet--a minor character, a romantic conquest, a sinister antagonist, sterling protagonist, or ??? --someone anyway.

2. Roll the die. First roll, pick odd or even. Second, pick a number. (or you could just pick a number from one to twelve, but that would be simple...)
ODD
1. sadness 2. distress 3. relief 4. joy 5. hate 6. love

EVEN
1. fear 2. anticipation 3. anger 4. guilt 5. gratitude 6. pride
(other lists of emotions can be found in thesauri, etc.)

3. So, your character is going from here to there to meet another character toward whom they feel your chosen emotion. Stop now and think about why they feel this emotion. Did the other character shoot their dawg, and so they are angry, seeking revenge? Just what happened that inspired our character to look forward with joy-colored glasses to meeting the fellow with the sweaty underwear?

4. Now, the current mania is to do a camera cut and *poof!* we are there. But let's give your character (and your reader) time to really go from here to there. Your character is going to take a walk, skateboard, bike, drive something, ride the bus, catch the trolley... and along the way...

5. Roll the die one more time. Pick a number (one to six). Got it?
  1. a foreign tourist asks for help and directions
  2. there is a detour
  3. mechanical breakdown...flat tire, dead brakes, you decide
  4. a passing stranger screams and collapses
  5. major natural trouble--storm, tornado, earthquake, you decide
  6. a street person really gets in the way asking for change
6. That's it! Your character goes through this little scene, this play, of starting out from over here (with a certain emotional cast, intent on the other person) and heading over there where they expect to meet the significant other. Along the way, there's a small obstacle...

Write it up. If possible, don't tell us what the emotion is--SHOW it to us, in the way they react to the obstacle. Who knows, dealing with this interruption may teach them something about the situation they were headed for--or at least change the way they look at it.

One-sentence starting power? How about...
"I'll get over there right away," she said, and hung up the phone.
Words and more words, please?
sprinkle lightly with punctuation
and smooth with humor.
Can I get that to go? In a pocketbook?
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Fri, 3 May 1996 10:49:46 EDT

[and a one, and a two, and a three to six? Get your dice hot, `cause here we go, ready or not...:-]

A. Take a number! One to six!

Got it? Okay, see what you picked:
  1. a flower (roses, maybe?)
  2. a wine goblet
  3. a beautiful Japanese doll
  4. a coffee table book
  5. a fine silk scarf
  6. a porcelain jewelry case
B. Now another number? One to six, of course.
  1. dirty underwear (T.J.'s panties?)
  2. a dead rat
  3. a very ripe fish head
  4. a pig's foot
  5. used tissues (someone has a cold...)
  6. a well-used toothbrush
C. Last, but not least, another number? One to six:
  1. a gift wrapped box
  2. a paper grocery bag
  3. a violin case
  4. a pillow case
  5. a CD carrying case
  6. a black leather purse
Got your three items? Put the first two objects in the last one. So now your pillow case has a wine goblet and a pig's foot in it, and we're ready to begin.

Pick a character or two, put them in a scene with the little wonder set of three objects you've just put together, and ponder. In the course of this scene, one character will find and open the container, getting out the good and the not so fine contents.

Your assignment, should you choose to try it, is to make us feel the emotional responses of the characters. I kind of like having the people respond in a way which surprises the reader, then explaining, but it's up to you. You might not feel right having your romantic lead laugh heartily at the single rose, then plunge into tears when the panties off T.J.'s bum come to life in our hands...

So, that's it. Start with a little sleight of mind playing with the three objects and a character, and see where your fingers lead you.

[What? You began AND ended in T.J.'s drawers? Well, I hope you washed well afterword, you never know where that furniture has been...]

Incidentally, you may put other objects in the container as desired. After all, it's your story!

Single Sentence Start?

"I never thought she would give it to you," he said.

[tickle, tickle, giggle, I hear a neuron snapping, I hear a synapse popping, is that the sound of a brain frying? Out of the pan and into the frying fingers, here come words, punctuation, and flickering flame of a story!]
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
original posting: Sat, 25 May 1996 00:24:50 EDT

[Friday before a three-day weekend, a pile of work to do, and...nearly everyone has to stop by and tell me all about what they are doing on the weekend? So now I'm going to spend a chunk of my "holiday" trying to do what I thought I would be doing today? What's wrong with this picture?]

Ah, well. Let's quickly turn the pages of "The Writing Workshop, Vol. 2" by Alan Zeigler... oh, that should do the job...

1. Pick a small number. Anything between one to six will do just fine.
  1. cantaloupe
  2. persimmon
  3. prune
  4. avocado
  5. grapefruit
  6. raisin
(other exotic fruits might include prickly pear, starfruit, mango, papaya, or jockey shorts fresh off the loom? Your choice, just get your fruit armed:-)

2. One more number. Guess!
  1. a bowl of snow
  2. a desert of white sands
  3. an ebbing tidal pool, surrounded by stones
  4. a glacial wall of ice
  5. a field of wheat baking under the August sun
  6. a mountain spring of fresh, cold water
3. Pick another number, any number, just as long as it is a fairly small number (say one to six? I know you could say it!)
  1. Love
  2. Hate
  3. Joy
  4. Relief
  5. Anticipation
  6. Fear
(other emotions, if you don't like those, might include distress, relief, pride, gratitude, guilt, anger, or the cast of hundreds to be found in a thesaurus near you:-)

4. Your emotion IS those two, the fruit and the setting.

You may want to spend a few minutes writing down connections. What does the fruit and the setting have to do with each other? The fruit and the emotion? The setting and the emotion? Let your mind spin its own fine network of associations. Don't worry if something else comes in, that crystalline silverware probably helps you toss the salad?

5. Your job is to describe that fruit and that setting (related in any way your little fingers care to tap the keys) without telling us about the emotion--just make us feel it, show it to us, make us ache with it...

Start your fruit rotting now, please?

(That's not at all what Ziegler suggested, but maybe it will do the job. He has you brainstorming relationships, one liners, without any explanation, all for later expansion. For example, love is a tray of ice cubes. Love is a prickly pear. And so on. Tell you what, if you get bored with my little twisted play on relationships, go ahead and do his.)

One sentence to start? Okay, on your keys, get limbo, and...

"I could almost taste it," she said, and licked her lips.

Sleepily
Write!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Find The Passion by James Scott Bell in Writer's Digest, November 2004, pages 24 to 27 talks about how to put emotional power into your writing. He suggests five steps:
  1. Feeling authentic emotions
  2. Playing with the possibilities those emotions create
  3. Planning
  4. Writing
  5. Editing
So we start by finding the emotion. Pick the tone that you want, the emotional feeling, and then into your own emotional memories. Actors put themselves in the characters place and then imagine what they would be feeling. Remember when you felt the emotion. Remember what you saw, heard, smelled, touched, tasted -- what you felt! Other people use music to remind them of feelings. Get in touch with that emotion.

Next, we improvise. "In the theater of the mind, we learn to let scenes and characters play around; we keep things hopping in new and interesting ways just by giving our imaginations free reign." (p. 26) Take a character, and imagine them in a scene in your mind. What does the character do? How do they move, what are they wearing, how do they act and react? Where are they going and why? Now put in some opposition, another character, or a problem of some sort? Watch the scene unfold and feel the emotions, the struggle, the fight. Find the passion. Bell talks about the imaginary movie that we run in our own head.
 
Oh, and keep track of images or scenes that your imagination tosses up at odd times. I woke to the phrase "getting up on the wrong side of the Bard" today. I have no real idea what that phrase had to do with anything, but I wrote it in my journal and expect that sometime it may expand. Especially if you get images, take the time to write them down.

Third, we're going to plan the scenes. Analyze the results of the brainstorms and improvisation, and put it in working order. Remind yourself of the emotional tone that you want to achieve. Think about whether the scene you're working on will be mostly action or mostly reflection. Should the stakes be high or low? Are the characters working at the top of their game or are they recovering from a major scene? And make sure that the end of the scene makes the reader desperate to turn the page and keep reading. One hint: you don't have to resolve everything. Leave the reader wondering!

Fourth, write the first draft. Write your heart out. Many writers recommend writing the first draft passionately and quickly. Put the inner critic away and just let the words flow.

Fifth, finish the job. Clean up the draft. Cut out the big, stupid mistakes. You may be cutting entire sections, but that's okay. Then clean up the details. Refine the cliches, tighten up the wording, make those diamonds that you wrote sparkle.

"Great fiction is formed by heat. Feel your characters and plots intensely, write in the heat of passion, then cut judiciously." (p. 27)

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