Monday, April 6, 2026

Writing - Emotional Range

 So we've written about the details in stories, we've included information about any details that might have changed to make it interesting, and now we've got to try to make it more interesting for the reader. There are many ways of doing this, but for today just want to consider emotions that you may well include to engage the reader. 



Certain emotions are easier to write about than others, for example, anger, which people can apply their imagination to, still quite readily. With those two emotions, one could imagine a fast pace, plenty of action, lots of descriptive opportunities, and draw on personal experience. Those emotions that are not quite as easy to deal with, or what may be described as softer emotions, or darker emotions. For example, sadness, the pain of loss, and failure are intensely personal, and as everyone knows, people react differently in these situations; they have a longer time scale and quite often involve a process that the human body needs to go through to assimilate such emotions.

 

I want to simplify things and just consider happiness and fun, annoyance, sadness, and frustration.

 


In the first case of happiness, it being Easter weekend, one can imagine any situation where people are visiting friends and relatives and delivering presents, Easter eggs obviously, undescribed phone games, welcoming attitudes, delightful surprises, imagining lots of smiles and perhaps quite a lot of noise and laughter. Where the story goes from there is obviously up to you, the writer, and you're free to make that decision

 

On the other hand, the sadness of a frustrating story may be something totally different, and if you can imagine how people would react to the Iran war or the mention of Donald Trump, the loss of a loved one, all of those scenarios trigger a different range of emotions. You may well have anger, you may well have sadness, you may have frustration, a deep sense of loss, a very much darker place to be.

 


Whatever the story type you choose, this is when you can draw on your own experience. That is not to say that if you have never experienced personal loss, you should avoid the subject. However, you may well have to do some basically search to fully understand all aspects of that particular scenario. It depends upon the audience you are aiming for as to which of these emotional roller coasters you decide to work with.

Whatever you decide to do, be sure of the ground you are choosing and consider all aspects of human reactions, from physical to psychological, before you embark on this journey. 


God Bless 


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Writing - Emotional Range

 So we've written about the details in stories, we've included information about any details that might have changed to make it inte...