Write With Intensity

There’s a lot of psychology and emotion that goes into great writing.

Emotion is something we all deal with every day and not all of our emotions are easy to deal with. There are all sorts of ways people use to deal with emotions, to cope with the fall-out and generally claw their way through no matter what.

What’s that got to do with writing? Really, you need to ask?

Lots. The way your characters deal with the emotions resulting from the tasks, tragedies and motives they’re given maximizes the vital conflict and resulting tension in your novel.

Think about everyday life. It’s not very often simple or direct. One friend takes out his or her anger on another not associated with the source of that anger. Some hapless soul becomes the target of that anger, someone who’s a convenient or easier target than the one who caused it. Complicated, huh? And just think it applies to pretty much all emotions. Think of guilt, love, fear, doubt and the whole host of other emotions that we try to tame every day.

The transference of these intense emotions can be at the root of your character. Once you’ve established how that character manages emotions you have free rein. You can use that tension, those reactions to reveal internal beliefs and the character’s view of the world in general. You can create drama. You can let your reader in on the interior reasons for that character’s determination to transfer those emotions to another (while the other characters in the story haven’t a clue), like blowing up at one person when angry with another or with life in general. That can throw open the door to irony, even humor when handled right. And you have the golden opportunity for escalating tension, one anger feeding another, as your story moves forward.

How about love? What if a character gives love, misplaced, is rejected and goes on a killing spree? I think we’ve all seen similar plots. What if a husband, after losing his job, comes home to find his wife embracing his best friend? Though it’s innocent enough it triggers a frustrated homicidal rage and the husband begins to plot a murder that will include his best friend and his wife.

If you, as the writer, keep your characters hopping, give one no time to recover from some traumatic event, it’s easy to see how without time to recover his balance a character might take out whatever keyed-up emotion inside on the next friend or family member who makes the smallest miss-step.

In real life emotions aren’t neatly contained, but spill over into every area of life. You can use that in story creation. If you know your characters well you’ll see the opportunities at every turn.

Writers Creating Frustration

What the heck do your character want and why should/shouldn’t they get it?

That’s the question.

If your characters want or need something and there’s something ‘out there’ that stops them from getting it, that leads to frustration and frustration leads to better stories.

Think I’m wrong? 

Think about this. Jack and Jill meet in high school, decide to go to the same college, later get married, have a couple of kids, get great jobs and carry on…

Interesting?  NO!

So you’re gonna have to work with it. What might characters want that they can’t get? Maybe one wants to uncover a murderer, another wants to save the planet, or at least his neighborhood, another wants money, lots of money, yet another is desperate to save a dying loved one who needs a transplant and can’t get one. Whatever it is it needs to be something the character wants/needs very VERY badly.

So what might stop the character from getting what he wants?

Could be another character. The other character has different goals, ones that conflict. Could simply be differing goals (like in the movie UP; big corporations want to build on land where ‘hero’s small house stands – he intends to stay and his frustration ultimately causes havoc) or other character could have evil motivation. Could be both are evil. Maybe neither. Characters regularly come into conflict when both feel they are ‘right’ and their goal ‘noble’ but those goals are opposites or simply methods of getting there are at odds. And of course it doesn’t have to stop with just two characters, there can be many viewpoints and influences.  

There are also external events for characters to contend with, things that happen out of their control and can be very frustration. Weather happens. Tornados, hurricanes, storms, floods, blizzards, earthquakes (if that last can be called weather). Terrible snows can cause avalanches, floods can float houses away and take out bridges, earthquakes, well, earthquakes…!

Also on the ‘external’ list are things like a cell phone that won’t get service, a car that breaks down (could do it of its own accord or perhaps someone sabotaged it). A plane has minor problems delaying its departure from the gate, changing everything and frustrating protagonist. If it’s historical a horse could come up lame, a buckboard could lose a wheel, a train could be derailed, the telegraph down, the ship sinking. 

Well, you get the idea. There are many frustrations your characters can enjoy. But one word of advice. If you supply something along these lines you need to hint of it before. For example, if there’s a hurricane coming and you intend a bridge to be taken out, it could simply give way before the powerful force of pounding water – but what if a contractor is responsible for shoddy construction? Then perhaps it’s necessary to give an idea of what shape the bridge is in before the hurricane. But do it subtly so the reader gets a hint, but doesn’t have it thrown in his or her face. The ideal is to catch your readers by surprise…but not too much surprise. By that I mean the event may be surprising, but when the reader digests it all, he thinks, “Oh, yes, I suspected there’d be a problem because_______.”

Tease your readers, keep your characters in character and let them fight for what they want.

Writers Drawing The Line For Their Characters

We, as people, have all kinds of values and codes we live by whether we’re fully aware of how we define them or not. There are things that just stick in our craws or rub us the wrong way. There are lines that can’t or won’t be crossed and places we don’t want to go. Beliefs we hold dear and of course reactions to those held by others.

So, how can we use all this in writing. 

Simple. 

Make your characters draw their lines in the sand. Think about the big issues in life and how your characters feel/react to them. How they can be integrated into your story and your characters to draw tension and create action.

For example. Where is the line drawn between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? Thinking of Snowden, just exactly who is a traitor or who is a whistle blower patriot? How do you decide when a character is out and out greedy or just very ambitious? At times how does your character determine the difference between murder and justice? Confronting a black-hearted, cold-blooded killer who’s just murdered one the hero loves is it murder to kill that person or is it justice? 

There are many lines to be drawn, many strongly held beliefs. An assassin kills without a second thought – but he/she won’t harm a child – no matter what.

Life is full of dichotomies; give some to your characters. Force the issues in their lives. Put them up against their own strongly held beliefs and moral codes.  Let the freedom fighter teeter dangerously close to becoming no more than a terrorist and find himself again. Is all great ambition no more than cloaked greed? Let your character sort that out.

And what about responsibility for our own actions? The hero or heroine’s actions? When is it a ‘child’ committing a crime (cold blooded murder by a twelve-year-old) and when should that ‘child’ be considered an adult? By his or her age? By his or her actions? By his or her understanding of right and wrong?

How about a criminal who performed a violent act that cost the lives of many? If he is a great person in prison, helping others find their way out of a life of crime and then proceeds to save the warden’s life during a prison break out does that make up for the past? Is he reformed ~ or not? Should he be granted his freedom? What about those he harmed so grievously in the past? Is one of them going to come after him with revenge in mind?

Yep, it’s worth thinking about. You can see it in many movie plots and novel threads and you see it every day around you. Just read the paper or listen to the news, or your friends chat.

Take those lines drawn, those beliefs and force your characters to make hard choices. Draw some lines and see where it leads.

Make Them Laugh, Make Them Cry

Writing is always a tricky business. It’s the writer’s job to hook the reader without the reader knowing he or she has been hooked. You want the reader to fall in, enjoy the adventure and not be aware of you, the writer, or even the fact they’ve been ‘away’ except for that golden afterglow of reading a truly great story.

So, with that goal in mind, among many other facets is the writer’s ability to give the reader reason to laugh and/or cry. Emotion is vital to keeping your reader involved in your story – right readers?

One might seem easier to accomplish than the other but they’re pretty much neck and neck in my book.

Let’s make them laugh.

Here’s the thing. People are not all exactly alike, but we share a lot of triggers. What a lot of people share, including agents and editors is a love of wit. And may I add wit isn’t precisely humor. Lots of people get a laugh out of slapstick, you know a fall on slippery ice or pie in the face. But that kind of humor doesn’t really involve the brain, wit does. And to key in to wit we need to realize surprise can cause laughter, absurdity too as well as understatement. All are elements, tactics you can use to add wit to the story you’re writing. And your characters are more likely sources for this than your plot.

Think about characters like the bone-steeped archaeologist with his many degrees who is socially inept.  Or what about the accountant so adept at guiding is clients but who can’t control his own impulsive online spending. Or a CEO who diplomatically keeps peace in his office, but has the war of the gardens going on at his semi-palatial home. 

There are many more – and lots more ways to put grins on readers faces.  Think about it. Read other books or scripts and think about what made you smile.

Want to make them cry?

Yep, you do. And here’s an even better point to be made. If you create an atmosphere where readers laugh and cry reading the same book, they’re sure to remember it. And if they remember it they’ll in all probability be looking for another book with your name on it as author.

So, how to make them cry ~

No, don’t just have the family dog die. It’s more than that. It’s that by which the reader is so wrapped up in the story that they feel for the characters. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Bambi and his mother just got killed by the hunters or whether it’s that homemaker who while making a special birthday cake for her kid just found it fell flat in the oven.

It’s emotional suspense, build up, anxiety in anticipation, process and a final really great payoff.

To accomplish all that it can’t happen quick. You can’t just toss in pathos.

As the writer you must take your time whether you write fast and blast it onto the page, then rewrite or whether you go slowly to begin with, what you write needs to build from a small, single seed.

When thinking about this consider your characters. Do you want to break a heart? Who among people are the most vulnerable? Children? Romantics? Dreamers?

How about this. You have a war veteran. He’s been working with a military dog – gone through hell with him. They’ve been best friends and watched each other’s’ backs. He retires from the service with his dog and they go camping. Somehow they’re separated. Circumstances force the soldier to go, believing his friend dead  – but he never stops thinking about the dog in the wilderness – will they find each other again?  Readers think the dog dead; but still they hope.

Readers can be swept up in stories that make them laugh and cry, not thinking about or even caring what it is about that story that sweeps them along.

It’s up to you as the writer to find those human links, the chords that resonate and to pluck them in a way that touches the heart.