Showing posts with label emotion in writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotion in writing. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

What Rainy Weather Can Do For Your Writing

Last night around dinner time I mowed the lawn. It needed it. After all the fertilizing my husband had done and the wicked rain we've had recently, there just wasn't any other choice.

Photo by aussiegall, courtesy of Flickr
I'd considered mowing this morning, but THAT choice would have been poor seeing as it's pouring today. I love and I hate rainy days. I love them because I am often in-doors when it's coming down and out and about when it's not.

If you're cooped up today as well, consider these options for your writing:

  • Get one or both of my e-books and Amazon.com TODAY for FREE and do some reading. Reading is always helpful to writers who want to learn a particular style of writing or improve their craft.
  • Take some time off to relax. Most of the time we're going a hundred and one miles an hour, down a curvy street. (Have you been down the one in San Francisco?) After relaxing, you often feel rejuvenated; something all writers need to keep going on their projects. 
  • Write like there's no tomorrow. One thing about rainy days--you often want to stay indoors, so why not get your next novel going?
  • Visit over the phone rather than through email. When we get busy, we send off emails because it's quicker and easier to get the information we need. Convenience is often the key, and we may neglect to speak with our loved ones live because we are so busy doing other things. But talking with others often brings up great ideas for your next work, you may even find yourself digging into that stalled project because of the great talk.
  • Photo by FindYourSearch, courtesy of Flickr
  • Turn off the television and listen to music. I know writers who play certain pieces of music to get their creative juices flowing. 
  • Watch the rain through the window and write a scene about it. You may decide to use this scene in your next short story or book, but being there and writing as the raining is happening will help your writing to be more authentic than if you were merely remembering what it was like the last time. Use your five senses so the writer will feel the scene.
  • Go dancing. When was the last time you danced in the rain? 
Perhaps the rain is coming down and you didn't mow your lawn--the grass looks more like a jungle. I've experienced that too. Write about it.




Monday, March 26, 2012

Using Emotion in Your Writing

I love trees. They are beautiful things. But even beautiful trees carry sap.

And the truth is, so do many writers. I am among them.

Photo by: jrsnchzhrs, courtesy of Flickr
It is easy, far to easy, to get sappy in our writing. We think that our beautiful love scene is perfect; but we let it sit for a couple of weeks and wala! the beautiful stuff we thought we'd written sounds more like that gooey stuff coming from a tree.

The kiss is not quite as perfect as we thought, the actions of the main character and his beloved are far from romantic, and the very spot in which they are standing might just have turned itself into an unwanted cesspool for its UN-connectivity to reality.

How did it happen?

Photo By: Alex Groundwater, courtesy of Flickr
I'm not really sure, but I think emotion in writing has a way of getting away from us if we're not careful. It floats away and dances on its own and before long we realize that we are no longer connected to what we have written. I have read far too many romance books that are like this, but many people still read them anyway and it scares me.

I am reminded of a soap opera that I used to watch. I could count on two things: Breakups and getting back together. I wondered why my life wasn't as exciting. Not that I wanted to go through a break up, it's just that my life seemed so boring in comparison.

I have since realized that what most readers want is some sort of grounded reality in the midst of fantasy, or a western, or a modern romance. They want emotion that is real and emotion that they can relate to. Life isn't all about breakups, it's about sacrifice and truth. Giving and getting. Being real.

And the best books I have read where emotion (and not sappiness) are at the center, do just that.