(The sound of a pen scratching.) LOGO. Hellooo
everybody! The hardbacks and paperbacks for The Savior’s Sister are officially available for presale! Right now!
A lot of you have been asking how you can pre-order physical copies, and now
you can do just that! All the links are in the
description below! Pre-order it, I support you! On a similar
note, everyone who pre-orders any version of
The Savior's Sister, whether it's ebook, paperback, or hardback, is welcome to enter my presale giveaway. I am handing out over thirty-five (35) prizes! One of those prizes is a signed hardback of Divinity Falling by
Nour Zikra. If you're not familiar with Nour, she is a fellow fantasy writer and
YouTuber. You should DEFINITELY check her out! I
have her information linked below. Not only is she super
talented, but she's literally one of the nicest people I've ever met in my entire
life! And that's a fact! Someone is walking
away with her debut novel Divinity Falling at the end of this video, so stay
tuned! First, I am tackling one of your most
popular requests, and that is how to evoke emotion through your writing.
Evoking emotion is one of the most important things an author can do,
because it keeps your audience reading. If they don't feel anything,
they're gonna get bored, and if they're bored, they're gonna put the book down.
Not only have you guys been requesting this topic, it was also requested by one
of my patrons over on Patreon, Matt Hollon. Matt is an amazing guy, he
is also one of my beta readers for TSS, and just one of my favorite people
overall. He wanted to learn more about how to write emotional scenes without
laying it on too thick. I've covered this in the past, but
I have a TON more to say on the topic. So much so,
that I have way too much information to fit into one video.
So we're gonna make a few! Today I'm breaking down my first ten (10) tips for
evoking emotion through your writing. We'll cover the rest of ‘em another
time. And if you want to hear more of my writing tips, or if you just want to
enjoy my beautiful face, subscribe to my channel and ring that
bell! Because I said so, damn it. Tip Number One (1): Show, don't tell. Bet you
saw this coming! There are definitely places where
telling in fiction is perfectly acceptable, but when it comes to the
emotional shit, it ain't gonna work. If you simply tell
the reader, “she was mad,” that's gonna do nothing for ‘em. A much
better option is to show the character's anger.
If you state, “the moment was sad,” the reader is going to feel nothing.
But if you convey the sadness through tone, pacing, and dialogue,
it's going to have a much more evocative effect. Most of the points on this list
are essentially different ways to show the emotion as opposed to telling the
emotion, because showing has a much more
transportive effect on the reader. Number Two (2): Use the five senses. One of
the easiest tricks to show as opposed to tell is to rely on your five senses.
The reason the five senses work is because one (1), most of us have ‘em, so
they're super relatable, and two (2), our senses are deeply tied to
emotion. Look at the sense of touch. If your character is touching something
soft and silky, this can create feelings of comfort,
tranquility, or sexiness. If your character is touching
something sharp and jagged, this can create feelings of fear or
worry. The taste of salt can be panic inducing,
if you are licking sweat off of your lips during a gruelling battle. But the
same exact taste could be super arousing if you're licking the rippling abs of a
man you're about to bone. Consider the five senses as a shortcut
to tugging at your reader's heartstrings... or horny strings. Number Three (3): Nix filter
words. Filter words are words that filter the
reader's experience through the main character. Feel, heard,
saw, realized, wondered, thought - all of these
are filter words. Like all words, there is a time and place
for them, but nine times out of ten, filter words are gonna distance
readers from the emotion of the story. They remind the reader that they're
reading as opposed to experiencing the story firsthand, and you don't want
that. You want them to feel as though they are living the story through the
character. Eliminating filter words is easy once
you learn how to recognize them. For example, the sentence, “She heard the
crash of thunder in the distance,” can be rewritten as, “Thunder crashed in
the distance.” Simple, effective. Number Four (4): Speak
through the character. I recently read a book that followed a
woman who had been kidnapped and shackled to a bed.
In the exact moment she realized she was being held against her will,
she looked out the window and paused to muse about the weather and how it would
be a perfect day for gardening. I was instantly sucked out of the scene
and all emotion from the moment completely disappeared. What the author
did was fail to speak through the character. Sure,
the character was the one who was supposed to be talking in theory,
but it was very clear that we were getting the author's thoughts in that
moment. Why? Because no one who's discovered
they've been kidnapped is gonna muse about gardening.
They're gonna be afraid, or shocked, or confused. There are a ton of emotions
they could be experiencing. Serene wonder over tomato plants is not
one of ‘em. Never lose sight of the fact that this
is not only your story, it's the character’s story. And if you convey how
they'd realistically feel in that moment, it'll be a lot easier for the reader to
emotionally connect to them. Number Five (5): Keep it moving. The longer
you stay in the same moment, the less impactful it'll be.
That's not to say that you should keep all scenes short and sweet,
give ‘em the attention they deserve, just don't stay there forever. Think of
it this way: we all know a person who cries over
everything. If they get a bad grade, they cry. If they watch a movie, they cry.
If they see a baby, they cry. It's their prerogative to express their emotions
however they like, but the fact is since they're constantly crying,
we become numb to it. We are so used to that reaction
that it stops having an impact on us. It's the same in fiction. If your main
character is in the same exact scene featuring the same exact emotion for
chapters upon chapters, the reader's gonna get over it. They can
only sit on the edge of their seat or mourn the character for so
long, and the emotion is gonna stop feeling real and start feeling
melodramatic. Number Six (6): Vary the emotion. Just like my
previous example with the person who always cries, if your character is always
scared or always sad, it's gonna lose impact.
Your reader is going to become numb to the emotion, it's gonna feel overdone and
melodramatic, but most importantly it's gonna feel unrealistic. Human beings
are complex! We experience a wide range of emotions every day,
and the odds are your character should do the same. The easiest way to achieve
this is to constantly put your character in new situations or expose them to
different stimuli that will affect them in different ways emotionally. This will make the reader feel a variety of emotions alongside the
character, and it will eliminate - or at least
decrease - the presence of melodrama. Number Seven (7):
Dialogue. A lot of people here use dialogue to convey emotion,
and then have their character explicitly state how they feel.
This may work sometimes, but how often do you get into an argument with a person
where they evenly state, “I am angry for the following reasons.”
I fucking wish, right? Emotion is often verbalized through tone of voice, the
flow of our sentences, word choice, and sentence length. If
someone is extremely excited, they may ramble on and on with hardly
any pauses. If they're angry, they may swear or yell.
If they're nervous, their speaking may be fragmented or disjointed. These
are all clear signs of how a character is feeling, which will create a visceral
reaction in your reader. Number Eight (8): Body language. Body language
is one of the easiest ways to convey emotion.
It's also one of the easiest writing tools to forget. If a character is
feeling skeptical, they can raise an eyebrow. If they're feeling petulant, they
can pout. If they're sad, they can stare at the
floor. If they're nervous, they can fiddle with their clothing. If
they're angry, they can ball their hands into fists.
All of these actions create a very distinct visual,
and these visuals are a lot more impactful than simply stating,
“He was sad.” “He was nervous.” “He was angry.” Pay attention to how your character's
emotions manifest in their body, and it will take your writing to the next level!
Number Nine (9): Pacing. Pacing can have a huge effect on the emotion of a scene,
provided you use it correctly. A faster pace - which typically constitutes
shorter sentences - creates a sense of urgency,
whereas a slower pace - which is usually made up of longer sentences -
creates a feeling of slowness. This means if you're writing a fight scene, you'll
probably rely heavily on shorter sentences,
whereas if you're writing a thoughtful conversation between two characters,
you might be using longer sentences. Please don't automatically assume
that a slower pace equates to boring. There are plenty of situations where a
slower pace is preferred. A perfect example is a kiss scene. You
want the pace to be slow, because the character,
and thus the reader, is savoring every sensation.
Know the emotion you want to convey in a scene and pace it accordingly.
And last for now, Number Ten (10): Word choice. Word choice will absolutely make or
break the emotional tone of your story, because words themselves carry a shit
ton of emotion. I've talked in the past about powerful
verbs and this is where the idea comes from. Certain verbs pack more of an
emotional punch than others. For example, a character could wave their
arms, or they could thrash, or they could flail. These verbs are
essentially synonyms, yet they each carry their own visual and emotion.
Waving your arms could mean a lot of things - maybe you're dancing, or waving
hello. On the flip side, thrash implies fear,
danger, or panic. There's an undertone of
violence. Make sure you're using the words that best convey the emotion
for that moment. Otherwise, readers are going to be pulled out of the story
because the words aren't meshing with the tone.
So that's all I got for you today! I'll hit you with the rest of my tips for
evoking emotion some other time. Right now, we got prizes to hand out! One
lucky winner of my TSS presale giveaway is walking away with a signed hardback
of Divinity Falling by Nour Zikra, and the winner is...
this person! A huge thank you for pre-ordering TSS and supporting my
presale! It means the world to me! And a huge thank you to
Nour for participating in my giveaway and donating a copy of her book!
She is ABSOLUTELY amazing! If you'd like the chance to win
one of over thirty-five (35) prizes, it's not too late to enter. Pre-order TSS right now and
enter my giveaway! You can get it in ebook! You can get it
in paperback! You can get it in hardback! And it's available
all over the place. I have the links listed below. Thank you to Matt for
requesting today's topic! If you'd like a chance to have a video dedicated to
you, or if you want access to tons of other rewards,
check me out on Patreon! We've got our own exclusive writing group, you get
early access to videos, there's a monthly live-stream, there's signed merch. It's
awesome! Check it out! Don't forget to subscribe to my channel!
I post new videos on Wednesdays, and if you want to be alerted as SOON as I
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Tweet me @JennaMoreci! Bye! (Male Voice) You've read Tobias’s story.
Now, it's time for Leila’s. The Savior’s Sister,
coming soon...
