05/30/2012 Writing Wednesday!

Hello again and sorry for the late post. I had an interview/screening thing today, so I was a little distracted. I hope it all went well, I've sent my appreciation e-mail and now begin the process of waiting and fidgeting to see if I get called in for the next step in the process. Until then I suppose I should write something.

I wanted to look at something that some authors have a difficult time at, and that's conveying emotion. Understandably it is something rather difficult to do, since you're trying to do that with only text (unless you're writing a comic book or something, then you're cheating). Conveying emotion with only words is something that today's society has started revolving around, and more often than we'd like to admit things just don't come across the way we'd prefer. For some people it is incredibly difficult to tell what someone's actually thinking when they typed 'I had a bad day.' unless there's a caps-lock button involved.

The way you convey emotion is with a combination of dialogue and exposition that tells the reader exactly what's happening to the character.Hand gestures, description of heart-rate, what the person is physically and emotionally going through while saying it gives a great window into their personality. It helps build character background and also as a person as a whole. Simply saying something like 'he cried' while does give you an idea of what's happening to the person, is a little too surgical. Changing it to something that's a bit more built will give the reader something to be attached to, and they will feel with the character.

Being able to get an emotional response from the reader is something that, if you manage to accomplish it, means you've done something right. If they finish your work and shrug, wondering what they're going to do with their time next. If, once they're done, they close the book slowly and start contemplating everything that happened, then start excitedly wondering if there's more to go onto, you've done something right. 

Thanks for stopping by again and I apologize for this seeming a bit rushed. I wanted to make sure that I got the post up today after missing Monday. I love holidays, but they always seem to throw things into a strange mix that just confuses me all week. I look forward to seeing everyone on Friday. have a good rest of the week!