5 Tips To Write an Emotional Scene

I can write a fight scene like nobody's business. A slapstick slip-on-the-banana peel piece of humor? No problem. But when it comes to penning an emotional scene, whoa baby. Those are super hard. Why? Because the emotions I feel in relation to what's happening with my characters might not be the same emotions someone else would feel. Everyone reacts differently. The trick is to write the scene so that it appeals to readers across the board.

How can a writer pull this off? Never fear. Take a step back while I whip out a handy dandy list for you (and me) to follow . . .

5 Tips For Writing An Emotional Scene

Skip the Melodrama
Emotional scenes are important, but don't focus too much time and energy on them. Don't overdo it. Instead, play up the action and the consequence because that will allow the reader to experience the situation without spelling out those emotions. Readers are smart. They'll know when a character's goal is thwarted to automatically feel tense, or when a character's loved one is hurt in some way, they'll feel bad vicariously.

Keep it Tight
You don't write pages of small talk or unending descriptions, right? So why write great discourses on your character's emotions? Answer: don't. It's always the goal to keep the story moving forward. Don't slog it down in the mire of an emotional scene.

Word Choice is Everything
Broken and ruined. Light and hope. The first few words are dark, the second set uplifting. Words carry powerful connotations, so don't mix happy words into a sad scene or vice-versa. Keep your scene consistent by using specific words that correlate with the emotion.

Up the Stakes
For powerful emotions you need to have powerful situations. There's got to be something at stake for the character in order to make your scene believably emotional. Give him a bad or worse choice to make.

Use Setting to Your Advantage
Tie your setting into the emotion to ramp up the intensity. Going for fearful? Night's a good time for that. Lonely? How about paint the walls of the room blue. Excited? Perhaps there's music playing in the background.

And last, but not least, always use the five senses to really tie your reader into the moment.

Proverb

When you live for yourself,
demand others meet your expectations,
demand God behave in a way that lines up with your view of Him,
then frustration with grit your teeth
and disappointment rot in your bones.

Type Racer

Most writers I know use a keyboard. Not all are lightning fast typists, but some get their fingers to smoking. I think I'm a pretty snappy typer, so I put my skills to the test on TypeRacer.

TypeRace is a site that's an online typing competition. It pits you against other people by typing quotes from books, movies, and songs.

But it's not only a game. It actually improves your typing speed, some say as much as 50 words-per-minute. So I decided to give it a whirl.

For my first go around, I played against 2 others. The site chooses who and how many you play against. The text was taken from The Thermodynamics of Pizza by Harold J. Morowitz. I came in first place at 92 WPM. Since I was a little champion, I decided to do it one more time.

I should have quit while I was ahead. I came in 3rd with only 80 WPM typing a quote from the movie The Dark Knight.

Go ahead and pop over there. It's super fun and it's free. And if you're brave enough, let me know how you did in the comment section.

Ten Writing Words of Wisdom

I've learned a thing or ten over the years. Here are some writerly nuggets of wisdom . . .

1. Rejections. One-star reviews. Rotten sales numbers. The writing gig is filled with negativity. You've got to not simply balance that out with positive influences, but over compensate with the cheerleaders in your life.

2. Time for writing or reading or running a marathon doesn't just happen. You have to make it happen. That means you will probably have to cut something else out of your schedule.

3. Great writing engages all five senses.

4. No writer really knows what he's doing. There are too many factors that go into creating art. Insecurity is blankie all writers curl up with and suck their thumbs.

5. Comparing yourself to other writers makes for an unhappy camper. Don't be that camper.

6. Being a rookie can be an asset because you're fearless . . . mostly because you haven't learned what to fear yet.

7. A reader doesn't have to be reading your book. It's your job as a writer to force them to read it.

8. Too much backstory at the beginning of a story is a big fat no-no.

9. Reveal too much information and your reader will wander away to play pinochle or something even more entertaining like watching the fish in the aquarium. But if you don't reveal enough information, your reader will get frustrated and slam the book against a wall.

10. Timid writers don't take risks, and non-risk takers are frustrated artists. Go for it. Try all kinds of writing just for the creativity of it.

Ever Wanted to Run a Bookstore?

When I toodle around the country and/or the world, one of my favorite things to do -- besides start international scandals -- is to stay at Airbnb's. I know. Looks like a stupid made-up word, right? Well, it kind of is, actually, but there's nothing stupid about it.

Airbnb was founded in 2008, so it's been around awhile. It's a website where travelers can find overnight accommodations in a collection of other people's homes, villas, castles, campers . . . you name it, they've probably got it. How cool is that? Well, hold on to your hats little cowboys, because things just got real. I recently discovered a booklover's dream for rent.

You can have your very own bookshop by the sea in Scotland for a week or two for only $40 a night. How sweet is that? In their own words:

We'll give you your very own bookshop, and apartment above, supported by a team of friendly volunteers and bookshop sellers to make your trip as lovely as possible. Set up by The Wigtown Festival Company, the bookshop residency's aim is to celebrate bookshops, encourage education in running independent bookshops and welcome people around the world to Scotland's National Book Town. The fee for your stay is low because we are a non-profit. It covers the running costs of the holiday but that is all. A laptop and WiFi are provided, plus bicycles for those who like to explore the bucolic countryside on two wheels!

Yeah. Beam me there, Scotty.

Top Ten Book Pet Peeves

Do you get annoyed by dog-ears or cracked spines? You're not alone if you do. I ran across an interesting survey on Goodreads that listed booklover's top pet peeves . . .

1. Library books that have crumbs left between the pages.
2. When publishers change covers mid-series.
3. Mystery stains found in library books -- like is it spilled coffee? Blood? Nuclear waste?
4. Dog-eared pages.
5. Books defaced with a yellow highlighter.
6. Sandy pages left by someone who obviously took the book to the beach.
7. A dying Kindle or Nook battery.
8. Price tag stickers that tear the cover when you try to remove them.
9. When you lend out a book and the borrower never returns it.
10. Pages that are ripped, or worse . . . completely missing.

How about you? What's one of your pet peeves?

Writers as Magicians

Every writer has a little Houdini in them because a great story is a slight-of-hand magic trick. Here's how it works . . .

The writer grabs the reader's hand and takes them into a story world. Think of this as the pulling out of the black top hat. Exposing the reader to how things are, turning the hat one way and another beneath the spotlight, showing there are no strings attached.

Then the tension of the story ramps up. The writer creates conflict for the characters, just like the magician shoves his hand into the hat, all the way up to his elbow. You know something is going to happen. He's going to pull something out, but what? The reader expects drastic action is about to take place, everything is going to fall apart, but how?

Gah! The magician yanks out his hand. No rabbit. No roses. There's a big, bitey piranha attacking his fingers. He flails, the audience gasps, and in the blink of an eye, the piranha changes into a rainbow glitter unicorn that he hops onto and rides off the stage.

Whoa. Didn't see that one coming.

And that, my friends, is what a great writer does. Sets up a story. Causes a reader to believe the story is headed a particular direction, then shazam! Switches the story into a whole different direction that the reader didn't expect.

This format works because readers like to think they're smart, that they know how everything is going to play out, but they really want to be delighted with something they didn't expect.