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: Techniques for layering emotion into a scene – Storyworld!
“So, I see that you missed me last week, now, tell me how to write those emotional layers.” I sat down at the coffee shop and Sally was already there, pen in hand, drinking a tall latte. “You read my blogs from last week?” “I don’t appreciate you having coffee without me, but yes,” Sally said, but she wink. “You talked about the different layers of emotions, and drilled down to the last layer, the Soul Deep layer, or a Word picture/Symbolic layer. So…how do I write that?” She lifted her pen, poised it over her notebook and raised an eyebrow. I laughed. “There are 3 ways to work in that symbolism into a scene. Today we’ll talk about the first: Storyworld! Here’s is a passage from my current historical, […]
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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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