27: Novel Thoughts, Part 3 – Emotions
What you feel is relatively simple until it becomes anything but. For the most part, emotions are well-defined, but when it comes to the complicated blend of them, how someone feels or reacts is the backbone of a story.
I think it is fair to say that a character’s motives are driven by their emotions. Sure, you can have a character that does not experience emotions or suppresses them. These types of characters are motivated by an experience or belief, and there is nothing stronger than a belief based on religion or logic. That last part might not sound right to some people, but there are too many literary examples that emphasize the point.
Emotions are important to a story, but more often than not, they are overly detailed and repeated for emphasis or not represented properly in writing. How much pain can someone consistently lament or repress until a situation, choice, or experience takes them out of it? How long should it take for the actions of a character to be understood by the reader? The answer to both questions is: At the writer’s discretion.
As a reader, sometimes the way authors present the emotional state of a character frustrates me, but as an author, I understand that what was frustrating to me when reading is infact a tool used to provoke the reader to develop an emotional response.
I cannot say for certain if the majority of authors realize it or not when they do this; if a protagonist with a backstory that contains something that the protagonist has to overcome or resolve before the story reaches its conclusion, and the author reminds the reader of it more than a handful of times, it causes the reader to feel something. It does not matter if the emotion is good, bad, or somewhere in between; what the reader feels is an emotional investment or divestment in the story, and this measured risk an author takes that can determine if a story is successful.
My Train of Thought
Emotions are obviously important, and I do not think that I will ever deny them to the characters I create. The stories I write fall into the fantasy and science fiction genres, and the majority of what is written here, especially in ones of an origin story nature, fall under the framework of A Hero's Journey.
Any journey is essentially a learning experience that brings irreversible change, and that type of change always carries an emotional price attached to it. To me, this is where emotions can be expressed through actions such as choices or behavior, rather than repeating the feeling to reinforce it.
To demonstrate that I am not all talk, I am providing an example. This sample is from another one of my reimagined stories based on a pulp novel that was fueled by emotions that would consume most people. Bonus points if you know who the title of the series is without looking it up.
Example:
The throwing knife, fondly referred to as Ike, easily sank into the hamstring of a man wearing a navy blazer with white pants and a matching shirt. As soon as the man’s leg started to crumple, Richard Henry Benson aimed his gun and headshotted the other man in the room.
The low-caliber rubber bullet did not kill the bodyguard, but it did knock him out. Benson fired his gun, Mike, once more to disarm the man raging on the floor with Ike stuck in his leg. Injured as he was, the nameless leader of the drug smuggling ring growled, “You’re a dead man. No one attacks me or my business without becoming extremely intimate with death.”
Richard walked up to the man and plucked Ike free, “Death is an ex-girlfriend of mine; our love affair was quietly legendary, that was until I met my wife. We had ten years of blissful domesticity before you took her and my child away from me.” Benson swiftly stabbed the man in his other leg before he could think to kick at him. “Your people made me question what I thought was real, and when I found out the truth, not a single husband would blame me if I sent you to my ex in a way that would make anyone think twice before harming someone else, but I learned that if I have to live with what others have done to me, then so do you.” Benson wiped the blood off of Ike using the man’s blazer before fading into the shadows as the sound of police sirens filled the air.
No, it is not a complete scene; it needs polish, but it does convey emotions through actions. Anyone reading can always decide for themselves whether a character is right or wrong, but in real life, people do not always have the time to reflect or express feelings; we act and hope that it is the best thing we can do. Until next time, I am Nolan… Ex Tenebris.
