MAKE ‘EM CRY AND THEY’LL REMEMBER YOU
Jeannie St. John Taylor ©
2000
“A story is never really about anything. Always it concerns, instead, someone’s
reactions to what happens:
Dwight
V. Swain
Four
rules I heard at writers’ conferences but never totally understood:
1.
Write
something with universal appeal.
This rule means I should write
about something with which everyone
can identify. Or at least
something that appeals to as many people as possible.
Nothing is more universal than emotions. Everyone experiences the same emotions in varying degrees. Even God. (You doubt this? Read the Old Testament.) God has firey emotions. He passed them along to us when He
created us in His image.
2. Write what you know.
Well, let’s see. I’m a housewife. My house has a kitchen and a back door. Universal to a majority of women, but boring.
However, the panic that surges
to my chest when I hear the back door open and close unexpectedly may
contain the germ of a story. If
joy rushes over me when I hear the same sound I have a different story. Notice: at the core of each was an
emotion.
I know emotion.
3.
Write what you feel passionate about.
This is a direct “write with
emotion” command, but when I’m struggling to keep my eyes open in a 2
PM writing class I don’t feel particularly passionate about anything but
a nap.
However, sometimes I get so
upset I just have to rush to the
phone and vent so that I don’t explode.
Or I feel so excited I have
to share it with someone.
Did you ever feel like that? That’s your passion. Write about those things. Turn them into a non-fiction
exhortation. Create a
character and put them in a situation similar to the one you just faced.
4.
Show, don’t tell.
This rule is much more complex than the others. “Showing” is the
vehicle that enables you to communicate emotion. And to affect positive change in a
reader, you must transfer an emotion.
Rule: To
impact your reader, there is one thing you MUST do.
All
elements of a story—setting, plot, character and conflict—can be used
to heighten emotion. Look
over your story. Ask yourself
the following questions to make certain you are showing, not telling to increase the emotion in each
part of your story:
• Does my story have conflict? Nothing brings emotions to the surface like conflict.
Fill
in the blanks: Name of a character_____________ wants______________ and
can’t have it because ____________________________________. If you can’t fill this in, you don’t have conflict. If you don’t have conflict, you
don’t have a story.
Rule: Conflict
=story.
No conflict = no story, just a situation.
• Do I present the conflict early
in the story?
For a
short story the conflict should be presented in the first paragraph. The
first sentence is even better.
“I won’t go,” Gerald said.
“Dad, you don’t have a choice.”
For a
short story, you don’t need more than one conflict—problem.
Rule: Introduce
conflict as soon as possible. Keep it strong through the whole story.
• Do my characters appear in a setting, or are they merely ‘talking heads’?
Early
in your story (in the first sentence if possible) tell the reader where
your characters are.
From
his wheelchair, Gerald watched the white van wind down the long driveway
and pull up in front of the bay window.
Even without glasses he could read the large blue letters on the
side that said, Loving Care Retirement.
“I
won’t go,” he said.
• Do my characters react with emotion to each stimulus?
From
his wheelchair, Gerald watched the white van wind down the long driveway
and pull up in front of the bay window.
Even without his glasses he could read the
blue
letters on the side that said, Loving Care Retirement. He set the brake on his wheelchair
and bunched his lips to keep them from trembling. As soon as he felt in
control of his emotions, he squared his shoulders and spoke. “I won’t
go.”
Out
of the corner of his eye he saw Ted tip his chin up—almost
imperceptibly. “Dad, you
have no choice.”
The
lump in Gerald’s throat swelled to the size of a fist. He wanted to sit
Ted on the couch and lecture him about responsibility to parents. He wanted to shout that he was
still in charge. He wanted to
leap out of the wheelchair and stride arrogantly from the room.
Instead, he sat
silently—shoulders slumped, lips quivering.
• Do I give extra story space to emotion-packed passages?
I
could have simply started the story with:
“The van from the nursing home pulled up and Gerald’s son
wheeled him out the door.” I
gave it extra space to build the emotion—the tension.
“There are two kinds of time in this world,
chronometrical and emotional.
One you measure with a watch, the other with
the human heart. …In writing,
you translate tension into space…the more
tension …
your focal character experiences…
the more space you give it.” Dwight V. Swain
• Did
I pick a Point Of View character and mention only what she
can see, hear, touch, taste or feel?
Readers feel emotion when they identify with your focal character. Stay in your character’s skin so they can feel with him / her. If your POV character can’t see it, hear it, taste it, touch it, feel it, or think it—don’t mention it.
When Tom revs the engine on his blue Mustang, don’t tell your reader what Seth is doing next door—even if it is really exciting. Since Tom can’t see Seth, mentioning that Seth just chain sawed his wife’s couch in half pulls the reader away from your story.
If it is important for your reader to know what Seth is doing, let Tom glance over and see him through the window, or let Tom hear a chainsaw and suspect Seth of ruining the couch.
Though there is an author omniscient point of view, it is best not to attempt it until you have honed your skill. It is impossible to get the same depth of feeling with an author omniscient point of view because you can’t get into the head of your focal character.
Your focal character and your point of view character do not have to be one and the same, but it will simplify matters for you if they are.
Read best selling author Dean Koontz
for an example of a writer who is able to stay solidly in the single point
of view of his focal character through an entire novel.
A good story is plot wrapped around
emotion.
In the best stories, the emotion is
so strong it bubbles and churns and burns
as you weave your words around it.
• Does my story include details
to help the reader see, hear, touch, taste, and feel?
Specific, concrete details make a story come alive.
Nancy walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light. Dirty dishes littered the counter and crowded into the sink. A dripping faucet had cleared a path through the dried spaghetti sauce down the center of a blue plate. The aroma of burning chocolate chip cookies and the buzz of a timer drifted to her from across the room. She hurried over and switched off the timer, then pulled open the oven door. Shielding her face against the heat, she lifted out the sheet of burned cookies.
• Does my story follow Dwight V. Swain’s motivation/reaction sequence?
Sometimes confusion results when we mix up the stimulus/response order. Although in life things can happen simultaneously, in writing one word follows another. So you have to act as though only one thing happens at a time. Keep events in the following order:
1.
There is a stimulus. A bomb explodes outside. After the stimulus (never before), your
character reacts. He:
2.
Involuntarily feels something.
Panic surges through John.
3.
Acts. He drops to the floor.
4.
Speaks. “Get down!” he yells.
The sequence never changes.
Rule: Character reacts
to stimulus in the following order:
1. Feels 2. Acts 3. Speaks.
Rewrite the following paragraph in the
correct motivation /reaction order:
Julie
slowed her car when she reached a busy intersection. A loud screech of brakes sounded
behind her. Turning her head,
she saw a truck heading towards her.
SMASH! The truck
rear-ended her car. Flying
sideways, Julie let out a scream. The
side of her head smacked hard against the side window. Julie heard a loud crack. Everything went black. Oh, my head! she thought.
• Did I include the emotions of my POV character?
There are two easy ways to show the emotions of your character:
1. Enter into her mind in order to share her thoughts with the reader.
2. Mention your character’s physical responses to stimuli.
“Beulah?” Nancy walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light. Dirty dishes littered the counter. In the sink, a dripping faucet had cleared a path down the
center of a blue plate. A cold knot of fear balled up in Nancy’s stomach. Beulah would never leave a dirty kitchen.
The aroma of burning chocolate chip cookies and the buzz of a timer drifted across the room. Why hadn’t Beulah turned off the timer? Nancy hurried over and switched off the oven then pulled open the door. Shielding her face against the heat, she lifted out a sheet of hard, dark cookies. Beulah would never leave cookies in the oven.
Here’s part of the same scene with different emotions:
“Bambi?” Nancy walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light. Dirty dishes littered the counter. In the sink, a dripping faucet had cleared a path through dried spaghetti sauce on a blue plate. Nancy pressed her lips together and shook her head, anger tightening her throat. She would not clean up one of her roommate’s messes again. Not tonight. She needed sleep
Rewrite the paragraph on the car
accident. Add more specific
details and the character’s emotions.
Increase action and heighten emotion with the following:
• Did I use active verbs?
Go through your manuscript and circle all forms of the verb ‘to be’ (was, etc.). Change as many as possible to active verbs.
Joe was running down the sidewalk.
Joe sprinted down the sidewalk.
Rule: as often as
possible, substitute active verbs for passive ones.
•
Do I need to cut adverbs?
Substitute actions for adverbs.
Slowly, she turned to go.
Change to: Amy
lifted her son’s limp hand and pressed the palm to her cheek. Once more,
before she released him and turned to go, she bent to kiss his forehead.
• Do I need to cut adjectives?
Don’t describe a warm fire or a cold January snow. Most fires are warm. Most snow is cold. Most adjectives are unnecessary.
However, Liz Taylor’s violet eyes are unusual and you need the adjective to describe them.
If you tell me: She cradled a beautiful rose and gazed across the lovely valley—the adjectives add nothing and should be left out. Most roses are beautiful and most valleys are lovely.
However if: She cradled a tattered rose and gazed across the smoke-filled valley—the adjectives add to the story.
Rule: use an
adjective only when there is no other way to adequately describe a noun.
Common mistakes that can impede the flow of a story and destroy the
emotional momentum:
• Does my story use past tense
verbs to show what is happening now?
You can only show the present. The past is already gone. In daily speech, we use the past tense to express what’s happening now (the present).
If you are talking on the phone you say: “Hey, Jodi just walked in!” (Past tense verb, but it is happening as you speak.)
You feel a jolt from a toaster: “That thing shocked me!” (Past tense verb, because by the time you get around to saying it, a split second after the event, it is already in the past.)
Rule: Use past
tense verbs to show what is happening now.
• Did I limit use of the word
‘had’?
As
soon as you add the verb ‘had’ to another verb, you are no longer in
the present. You have stepped back into the past. Therefore, you are no
longer showing. Leave out ‘had’ as often as possible. “Each had (italics mine) makes your story
jerk, because it jars your reader out of present action and throws him
into past history.” Dwight V. Swain
Change: Liz had opened the refrigerator.
To: Liz opened the refrigerator.
Change: The lettuce looked like it had been in the refrigerator for a week.
To: The lettuce on the bottom shelf was covered with slime.
Or better: Slime covered the lettuce on the bottom shelf.
A word of caution: You can’t leave out every ‘had’. (Note the “dripping faucet had cleared a path” in the section on emotions.) Omitting a necessary ‘had’ mixes up verb tenses and leaves the reader with an uneasy feeling.
Rule: never use ‘had’ in your opening sentence.
A PLEA FOR EMOTION-PACKED
CHILDREN’S WRITING
Remember the story about the mother hen who gave her life shielding her from a barn fire? When the fire died down, the farmer kicked aside the charred of the mom and live chicks scurried out. I know a Christian children’s author who criticized for using that story in one of her books. It was “too strong” for children some thought.
thought.
Though I don’t recall many stories from my childhood, I remember
that
It reinforced Jesus’ own statements from the last week of his life.
Jesus
referred to the hen and chicks when he stopped on the Mt. of Olives and
wept over Jerusalem. I
wonder, had Jesus seen a hen which had given her life in that way? Because later on that week he reinforces the idea when he
says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for
his friends.”
Doesn’t the emotion in the hen and chicks story help us understand the
positive
Our emotions come from God. Why
would we want to “tone down”—dull—the emotions He gave us? Why would we flatten our
children’s stories into forgettable mush? Especially when television liberally smears violent, negative
images and emotions in their faces every Saturday morning.
The
hen and chicks story makes us cry because it elicits a positive response:
We are awed by the depth of the mother’s love. It makes us want to love.
In trying to protect our children from the negative parts of society, I hope we won’t sweep the positive emotions out of our stories, too—no matter how strong they are.
“Nothing in the
world has greater power to enslave than fiction.” John Gardner