The ONE Writing Trick That Will Instantly Make Your Story More Emotional

did you take it no I didn't yes you did no I didn't and then Wham they Collide they clash and suddenly everything's like intense hiding smashing slapping this scene just didn't pack as much of an emotional punch as it could have packed because the writer didn't focus on the emotional dynamics of the scene that up and down roller coaster ride why is it that some scenes in movies make us breathless with anticipation wondering what is going to happen next and other scenes just fall flat the scene could be as simple as two characters having a conversation with nothing else going on and depending on the way it's written and delivered it can either leave us on the edge of our seat with anticipation or bore us to sleep but what if I told you that there is an exact scientific formula for making your viewer or your reader care care deeply about your characters making them emotionally invested in what's happening what if I told you that there is one simple trick that if you know how to leverage this you can instantly make your writing more Dynamic more emotional and turn a lackluster scene into something spectacular and for those who know me no it is not internal conflict what is it this technique is actually something I've never talked about before something I've never heard anyone talk about before but I guarantee you have seen it a thousand times in your favorite books and movies you just didn't know the words to describe what this thing is I'm not kidding when I say this trick has literally saved my life as a writer it has helped me to see story in a whole new way and every great writer uses this so today in this video I'm going to show you how to use this technique as well and to do this we're going to break down two scenes from the same story side by side one that leverages this technique and one that fails to leverage this technique and I will show you what this difference looks like little women versus Little Women The Ultimate Showdown we're going to look at the same scene from two different versions and demystify the reason why one is emotionally Superior and the other Falls [Music] flat before get into this story case study Showdown I want to really quickly ask you to take a second to hit the Subscribe button below this video not only does it help quality content like this show up in your feed but it also helps my videos rise to the top which will help other writers like you make their author dreams come true so hit the Subscribe button and let's get into this okay I'm not going to beat around the bush here I'm just going to come right out and tell you what this simple trick is that will make your writing instantly more emotional I like to call it emotional Dynamic change in orchestral composing there is a term called Dynamic change which is a tool composers use to add depth and complexity to their music dynamic change refers to the variation in volume and intensity between notes or movements which allows a composer to convey a wide range of emotions and build up to climactic moments this change in volume can make a piece more expressive and impactful can make you feel a wide range of different emotions throughout one piece of [Music] music it's one of those things you don't even notice with well-composed music you're not supposed to notice it it's supposed to kind of blend into the background it becomes an emotional expressive journey to listen to this music because you don't even notice how the composer has woven this tapestry of different notes and tempos and expressions and all the Dynamics of the music it's created an atmosphere and you feel immersed in the mood and the atmosphere of this music when music doesn't have a lot of dynamic change you do notice it you notice it in a bad way because it come it becomes sort of monotonous to listen to even sometimes abrasive we need that roller coaster ride of emotions we need the EB and flow of mood and volume and intensity in order to feel something otherwise it becomes predictable this is true of music and it's true of writing there is a very similar Dynamic at play with writing and that's why I call it emotional Dynamics and no this doesn't just have to do with characters delivering lines of dialogue all in the same tone or the same volume obviously you don't want that if everyone is talking to each other in the same volume and emotional tone tone it's going to get pretty monotonous and boring and just not feel realistic don't let the sun go down on your anger forgive her and You Begin Again tomorrow but emotional Dynamic change goes beyond the delivery of dialogue this is about the storytelling itself the interplay of what the character wants and what they're afraid of to show you what this looks like in action we have to case study our two stories today Little Women and Little Women one was made by BBC Masterpiece in 2017 and one was made by Greta Gerwig in 2019 if you know me you know which one I prefer but we're not even going to go into that I'm not even going to tell you that straight off the bat because I want us to just be totally unbiased as we watch these two clips from the same scene from two different adaptations and compare and contrast them and look for emotional Dynamic change how much do we feel what the characters are feeling and how much of a roller coaster ride are we going on with them we're just going to look at one scene from each of these adaptations okay the scene where Amy Burns Joe's book every writer's worst nightmare Amy does the Fatal deed because she's upset that Joe didn't let her come to the theater with her so while Joe is out that night Amy gets revenge by stealing her sister's half-written novel and throwing it into the fire you can understand why Joe wants to murder her sister when she realizes what she did okay so let's go back to the very beginning and compare these two scenes side by side and look for emotional Dynamic change we're going to be tracking that throughout this whole study here and we're going to be using a very official scoring system with emojis to keep track so that we can see real time which scene best leverages this technique of taking us on an emotional roller coaster ride which scene makes us feel the widest range of emotions so let's jump into the computer and watch them okay so our scene opens here with Joe hiding her book because she kind of already knows that she has to keep it safe right Jo where are you I can't find my other glove General March sister Mayhem was there invited you're going somewhere with Lori I know it yes we are now stop bothering okay so right away we have Joe who is being like immediately shutting Amy down like stop bothering yes we're going to the theater you're not coming like that's kind of the unspoken thing here already before it's even spoken so we have Joe is already on the defense and Amy is already starting to whine you have the ticket yes hurry up you're going to the theater with Lori me please can I come please can I I'm sorry dear but you wen't you can't go Amy so don't be a baby and whine about it Joe is being defensive you can't come so don't be a baby about it Amy's already whining she's already being a baby about it and she's begging Meg to take her but she doesn't really seem to be having the much of an expectation that that's actually going to follow through I've been shut up here and I never get to go anywhere Beth is her piano and I'm so lonely I can teach you cords I don't want cords Beth I want to go to theat I think you'd hate to poke yourself in where you're not wanted okay so again abrasiveness right we have Amy who's like I don't want that I want to go to the theater and then we have Joe's like no again like this is like the third push back from her you can't go we already have to deal with dull Mr Brooke I like him he's kind but I can pay for myself you will not come I'm sorry my sweet Joe's right no next time stop petting her please please no you'll be sorry for that Joe Mar you will you okay so this is kind of like the crescendo moment of the scene but as we've built up Amy's mood really has not changed from the very beginning of the scene she was whiny and upset at at the beginning she's still whiny and upset now she gets so upset that she throws something I don't know a shoe something at Joe as she's leaving and they both kind of turn around and Meg's like Amy like with this little surprise laugh she doesn't see that Amy is hurt nobody see that sees that Amy is hurt and is Amy really hurt or is she just being whiny I don't know okay so we have Joe and make go to the play they have a good time meanwhile Amy is digging around looking for revenge and Joe's book and finally finds it and earns it psychotically one page at a time so evil okay so now we have the return moment we have Amy who's like sitting being passive aggressive and broody and silent M you're a million times better than she was although she was a terrific so J's going to look for the book she can't find it oh no something happened Beth what's your favorite what happened purple Mr Brooke has blue eyes and an old soul which is much Bor okay so now Joe comes into the room she already knows something's up she's suspecting Amy she's thinking only one person in this room could have taken this book but I mean look at her face I can't tell if she's upset or if she's afraid money let's her has anyone taken my novel has anyone taken my novel okay little passive aggression aggression there and of course we have Amy being passive aggressive and swishing her book pages bitterly Amy you've got it okay no I haven't that's a lie no it isn't I haven't got it I don't know where it is and I don't sorry that kids me every time okay so it went from like being passive aggressive and pretty chill pretty mellow to Joe flying at her claws out attacking her screaming and Amy screaming back burn sh upy I burnt your book I told you I'd make you pay yeah okay so that escalated really quickly not really much of a buildup honestly not a lot of emot Dynamic change happening we just had did you take it no I didn't yes you did no I didn't no that's a lie and then Wham they Collide they clash and suddenly everything's like intense fighting smashing slapping when I first saw this I was honestly surprised by how sudden it is because there just felt like there needed to be more of an emotional buildup here more of a roller coaster ride more intimacy to feel not just what Joe was feeling but also what Amy was feeling in this scene so in conclusion I feel like this scene just didn't pack as much of an emotional punch as it could have packed because the writer didn't focus on the emotional dynamics of the scene that up and down roller coaster ride and a lot of writers fail to do this and one of the reasons why is because they don't leverage another really important tool that goes hand inand with d damc change and that is expectation versus reality we go through life constantly experiencing this conflict of expectation versus reality we all have different motives goals fears and misbeliefs driving us every day we go about our lives with certain expectations and when we don't get what we expect we often are forced to face obstacles that we either have to overcome or we end up the victim of which creates conflict and this can be as simple as expectation I'm going to get into my car and drive to the grocery store and buy waffles reality I break down on the side of the road now it sucks to break down on the side of the road no matter what you were going to do but what if we made the expectation a little bit more meaningful than going to get waffles what if I was on my way to a job interview that I had worked months maybe years of my life to line up and secure and this was the most amazing opportunity of all time and you knew how much it mattered to me and how deeply I cared about securing this job now when I break down on the side of the road suddenly it is way more meaningful it matters more why because you can see why it matters more to me suddenly you the viewer care a whole lot more about my character than if I was just going to get waffles and this is a little bit of an inconvenience because now I'm not going to have any waffles if you want your characters to feel like real people they also have to face this constant encounter with expectation versus reality and that's your job as the writer to set up this conflict to show us intimately this conflict that's one of the ways that in my opinion Greta's Little Women fails to pack an emotional punch in this scene because Amy is whining and moaning before Joe even shuts down her request to come along to the theater we can see that Amy doesn't really expect Joe to take her seriously and nobody's expecting to change their plans to include Amy because we don't see this expectation versus reality at play we don't really feel Amy's Soul crushing disappointment when Joe denies her which makes it harder for us to sympathize with her reasons for being resentful and burning the book and it's harder to even feel sympathy for Amy in this scene because it's just such a terrible out ofline thing to do can we feel sympathy for a character who does something like this I think it's possible Maybe not sympathy but empathy at least empathy like at least we should be able to see where this is coming from we should be able to feel her pain that being said let's look at another version of Little Women the BBC version and compare and contrast the scene we just watched we're going to keep track of the emotional progress and the emotional Dynamic change and we're going to see how these two scenes measure up to each other okay so we have a very similar setup here with the sisters getting ready for for going out to the theater and Amy ambushes them you're going out I can smell Oda cologne right along the landing and Hannah's been polishing the opera glasses yes she has because we're going to the theater to see the seven princesses of the Diamond Lake yes Lori invited the two of us to go with him and Mr Brooke then I'm coming too so right away we have emotional dynamics that play we have Amy comes in she's like what's going on Joe tells her you can tell she's not going to invite Amy along she's not going to be welcome but but Amy immediately has this reaction of like I'm coming too and like has this like giddy face expression like she actually thinks there is hope that she's going to be invited along and she's excited about it no you aren't because you haven't been asked oh Joe couldn't we buy her a ticket it was my turn to have the rag money this month and I haven't spent it yet thank you okay so right away you can see like all the emotional dynamics that play Jo was like no no no no no no no that's not happening this can't happen and meanwhile Meg is like oh can't we buy her ticket can't we let her come she's trying to be indulgent she's the sweetest person in the whole family and of course Amy is really excited because she thinks again there's hope there's hope I can come so she's excited and get her a ticket she can't sit alone and neither you nor I can sit alone so that means Lori or Mr Brooke would have to you're supposed to be the one with a ladylike manners Meg okay so now we see Amy's Soul crushing disappointment the look on her face is like I hate you already we've seen the ups and downs here Joe will not budge but she's almost taking it from like this logical standpoint of like she can't sit alone this isn't going to work nothing about this is practical and you know calls out Meg like you're supposed to be the one with the lady like manners which just just adds insult to injury here and we can see on make's face that she's like I I want to do something but I can't helpless I hate you Josephine March you'll pay for this just you wait the subtlety of Amy's reaction there it's not this huge reaction where she's screaming and throwing things you can see the pain on her face but she's more subdued okay so meanwhile Joe is at the theater having a good time for herself and Amy is going to sneak into the Garrett grab the book and burn it even this whole scene I like how this is intercut they spend a little bit more time going back and forth and showing you the Dynamics that play here we have Joe and Meg having a great time at the theater and their laughter and joy contrasted with Amy's misery and her revenge here as she burns the book it's so painful to watch it's so painful just the film making alone in this version is so good so good okay so now we have the scene where they come back girls did you enjoy the play if you're lucky after dinner Megan and I will reprise the entire ballet of the swans Joe bought these for you in the foyer chocolate go to caramel again expectation versus reality earlier we had the expectation that Amy had the expectation she was going to go with them to the play and that was shut down reality was that she wasn't allowed she was her feelings were hurt over it now we have this expectation of Joe's so Joe comes home she is in a good mood now she's sorry for what she said and how she acted earlier she even brought Amy a gift to apologize why because I was a cross and I'm sorry thank you so her expectation here we can see is that I'm going to say I'm sorry I'm going to give Amy this gift we're going to take Amy to the same play next week and everything will be okay but obviously that's not what's going to happen why not I'm Rapp him Amy it's a kind of treat that tastes much better when it's shared I imagine all treats taste better when shared I'll take you to the play next week Amy so even just the subtlety of emotions here I love um how she's like you know passive aggressively like I imagine all treats taste better when shared pointed at Joe Joe rolls her eyes and Amy's like looking at her like still this simmering anger underneath the surface I'll take you to the play next week Amy we're going to take you next week see that's all better young ladies has been meddling with my cook and range I leave the house for 1 hour in pursuit of additional onions and I come back to my kitchen to find the stove cold smok and choked with a load of scrawly papers and then that's the the moment Joe realizes and so now Amy has like this little smug self-satisfied look on her face when she's like approaching Joe like okay here it is here's the confrontation yeah I burnt your book this is mine this is my writing what's happened to the rest of you in a nutshell it's all turned to certain black ash silently freaking out Amy is still still kind of smug and bitter Amy did you burn my book Joe is still like kind of in this state of disbelief where she's like is this really happening but she's like getting angry obviously the bomb's going to explode I said I'd make you pay for being so hateful and a ha you wicked wicked girl I will never ride again and I'll never forgive you as long as I live J stop why should I it's too late to stop [Music] her so we have a similar outcome here but way more of a crescendo building up to this moment where Joe flies at Amy and grabs her hair and tells her that she'll never ride again but you feel so much more of the intensity of the emotion of these two characters and the whole buildup leading to this moment also even the side characters in this scene like so well done oh my God Emily Watson is just amazing as marmy I can just feel everything she's feeling Amy how could you did you see what she did did you see what she did yes and don't look to me for comfor I don't blame her she's like God help me God help me with these girls so even though it ends in this high-intensity moment of both of them shouting at each other Amy is like sort of freaking out at the end cuz she's like she almost can't believe what just happened but she also knows that what she did was wrong deep down and shifting tone like this makes the high-intensity moments really stand out because this intense emotion is contrasted by the rest of the dialogue and everything that came before it okay so now that we've compared these two scenes Side by by side we can take the Emoji data we collected and compare the results and as you can see it's pretty easy to see at a glance which scene had better emotional Dynamic change in the BBC version we have a way broader range of emotions at play which stimulates the viewer's brain more because we have more curiosity at play brain Studies have shown that Curiosity triggers the pleasure and rewards centers in our brain similar to the effect of using an addictive drug that means curiosity literally addicts someone to a story if it's leveraged properly and one of the ways you can leverage this is through unpredictable outcomes which are the result of expectation versus reality emotional Dynamic change see how it all ties together if you're a writer you want to take your reader or your viewer on an emotional roller coaster ride like this you want them to feel things a lot of things happiness heartache anger Triumph love suspense determination and so much more BBC's version of Little Women does all this for me I've watched it at least a dozen times and every time I do it never fails to make me cry laugh and fall more in love with simple beauty of everyday life this is not to say that BBC's Little Women is Flawless but to me it is far superior to Greta gerwig's adaptation for the simple fact that the writing quality makes me feel more for the characters by seeing a more intimate view of their internal conflict and by taking us on an emotional roller coaster ride and leveraging this incredibly powerful tool of emotional Dynamic change to help us feel like we're going on a journey with these characters all that to say go watch BBC's version of Little Women what are you waiting for also have a box of tissues on hand because it will make you cry and not just the sad parts let's recap real quick everything we learned today emotional Dynamic change is crucial for ensuring your story doesn't doesn't feel monotonous or overly dramatic the contrast in emotional tones makes high-intensity moments stand out the expectation versus reality principle helps create compelling conflict and makes the audience care more deeply about the characters curiosity stimulated by unpredictable outcomes and emotional Dynamic change can literally addict readers or viewers to your story so if you want to make your stories more engaging aim to take your audience on an emotional roller coaster ride with unexpected twists and turns but that's just what I think I want to know what you think now so comment below this video and join the discussion tell me what version of these two versions of Little Women do you prefer or another adaptation entirely there are like dozens out there I know there's so many adaptations of this story with good reason because it is such an amazing Timeless classic you can learn so much from studying your favorite stories so join the discussion below I would love to hear your thoughts on all of this smash that like but button if you liked this video and be sure to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already because I post writing videos every single Wednesday and I would love to have you here in the community also be sure to check out my patreon because that's where we go beyond videos and take storytelling to the next level the patreon community is not only the best way to support what I'm doing here on YouTube but it's also the only way to get one-on-one advice from me and connect more deeply with the make your story matter Community as well as tuning into live trainings every month diving deep into topics on writing publishing and much more so if you want in on all that exclusive bonus content go to patreon.com abens and I hope to see you over there until next week my friend Rock [Music] [Applause] on [Music] oh

Channel: Abbie Emmons

Views: 208,977

Keywords: how to make your writing more emotional, writing emotional dialogue, emotional writing, how to make a scene more emotional, how to addict readers to your story, how to write a novel, how to write good dialogue, how to write a screenplay, little women greta gerwig, little women bbc, little women analysis, little women video essay, florence pugh, bbc masterpiece little women, greta gerwig, writing good dialogue

Id: sx__8eeH6U8

Length: 27min 5sec (1625 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024