I love to watch people. Especially in an airport. Yes, I admit I compare myself to others (it’s a woman thing, I think), and I discovered that it’s a great way to reveal the emotional landscape of a character. See, we often project how we feel in how we might describe a character. Consider this description from the POV of our test subject, Darla, a woman who is afraid to fly. She sees this woman in the gate area: Across from her, a woman’s sandaled foot tapped to unheard music, her eyes closed, her hand draped over her carryon bag. In her other hand, an empty coffee cup from Starbucks – had she passed a Starbucks on the way in? — as if she’d started her morning early. Sure, fatigue […]
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Conversations: How to write Emotions part 2
Yesterday, I told you the story of Darla, and how she showed us 2 of the four layers of emotions. Today, let’s talk about the final two layers. Just as a review: The first layer of writing emotions is simply that surface emotion – the name of the emotion. The sectond layer is called: Just Under the Skin Layer. This layer names the emotion and pairs it with a physical response. But let’s go deeper: Sweat dribbled down her brow. She gripped the seats with whitened hands. She practiced early labor breathing. Even if I hadn’t heard her on the phone, seeing her actions, I would have gotten it. I don’t need to know the emotion to know she afraid. The next layer is simply the physical response only. […]
Read the RestConversations: How to show emotions part 1
I am sitting in a different coffee shop this morning¸ in Oregon, missing Sally, but happy to be with my co-writer, Rachel Hauck as we teach at the Oregon Christian Writer’s Conference this week. My flight over reminded me of meeting that occurred a few years ago. I was sitting in the O’Hare Airport when a woman walked into the gate area. She was in her early twenties, and carried a backpack, which she held with a whitened fist. She sat down and began to fidget in her seat, checking her watch, looking at the gate, pawing through her bag. She pulled out a book, and clutched it to her chest a moment before opening it, and pulling out a highlighter. The books said, in large black ominous letters – […]
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Interview with a Hero
I was working on the hero of my next book and found I couldn’t get anything real out of him. He was a bit two-dimensional. Flat. Too single purposed. I went through my standard exercises – dark wound, lie, fear, secret desire, true destiny… You can see that here: Dark Moment: Being yanked from his school, his family, his home to go to another boarding school. Lie: Don’t get close. Don’t open your heart too wide. Fear: Love involves pain. He’s even assigned that to God. Look what He did to His own son. But Tanner knows God is real and true, and he must seek Him. But is standoffish Secret desire/true identity: ?? What can he do in the end he can’t do in the beginning? Be honest about […]
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