Readers like to be touched, moved, by story. They like to imagine themselves in worlds and situations that challenge them, that give them opportunity to do and be something other than what they do or are in their real lives.

Fiction, whether in book or film or games, allows people to not only step into other worlds, but to experience those worlds. To do what they can’t in the course of a normal day. To feel beyond their normal feelings.

Since readers want to immerse themselves in other worlds and other lives, what can writers do to make that experience authentic, to make the fictional world real for a few hours?

One technique the writer can make use of to create reality out of fiction is to induce emotion in readers, make them feel something of what the characters are experiencing. Writer and reader know the fictional events aren’t real, but the emotion can be. Readers can fear and feel joy and be excited and know grief. They can laugh and cry, shiver and rage. All from reading a story.

But how can a writer accomplish this? How does a writer make readers feel emotion?

1.  Write in scenes, showing rather than telling. That is, don’treport that a character is afraid or giddy or grieving. Show the results of character emotions through the character’s actions. Show what fear or giddiness or grief does to him. Character action and response is a good place to focus.

This is a major key for rousing reader emotions. No one gets emotional over a report. They do get emotional when they can step into someone’s shoes and experience his or her feelings as if those feelings were churning inside them.

Delores was afraid to open the door to the basement steps. She stood at the far side of the kitchen, debating what to do.

vs.

Delores’s hand trembled as she reached for the locked doorknob. Tom had warned her not to open the basement door when he wasn’t around, but he was due home soon, so what could happen? She bit her lip and tightened her fingers

around the cold knob. A shiver shook her. She inhaled only a shallow breath and then struggled for another.

And nearly shot through the ceiling when the microwave dinged, letting her know her tea was hot.

2.  Make a character sympathetic, so the reader identifies with her.

If the reader can identify with a character—with her dreams or habits or choices—he can also identify with her emotions—pains and joys and sorrows. (Readers can also identify with the shared human condition, so sometimes a particular situation will resonate with readers even before the character becomes involved.)

Make sure the reader knows/understands/identifies with the character before trying to connect emotionally. The reader won’t be affected by a character’s deep emotions on page one, simply because he has no ties to the character. By chapter three, if you’ve put the reader in the character’s place in the story, what touches the character can touch the reader. By the novel’s climax, the reader should so identify with the lead character that the character’s pain becomes the reader’s pain, his triumphs, the reader’s triumphs. The reader may have a physical response—laughter or tears or shivers—as if whatever happened to the character had actually happened to the reader.

You know how this plays out in your own life. A death reported on the nightly news means one thing when it’s a stranger and something totally different when it’s someone you know or a relative of someone you know.

Help your readers know your characters.

Make your character believable and sympathetic so the reader wants to be that character, wants to go through everything he goes through for the length of the story.

3.  Make a character unsympathetic, so the reader feels anger or repugnance toward him.

A character who is hated has already created an emotional response in your reader. I’m not talking caricature or stereotype here. I’m talking about creating a character who is soul ugly or evil or unfeeling, but one who belongs in one story and no other.

Your unsympathetic character might be no one of consequence in another book. But here, in this particular story, his actions/words are destructive to your protagonist or to someone close to him.

Cruel characters doing cruel things—cruel in the eyes of the protagonist or the reader—can affect the reader. If the character reacts to the cruelty, the reader can as well. Or, if the reader feels something because of what a cruel character does, you’ve already stirred his emotions.

If, however, your protagonist has no response to the cruel actions of another character, your readers may feel both bewildered and cheated. Show the reactions/response of characters to the actions of another character. Characters must do more than think about the evil of another character. They must have a response in terms of action and/or dialogue.

4.  Don’t hold back. If you want to reach the reader’s emotions, you need to write emotion-evoking scenes. Killing or injuring a character’s child, pet, or loved one can touch the reader, if the reader has sufficient investment in the character.

If Sarah gets a phone call, with someone saying her son has died, readers won’t feel grief, even if you show Sarah grieving, unless you’ve created a tie between Sarah and the readers, unless you’ve prepared for the death ahead of time, showing Sarah’s love for her son, perhaps her fear for his life or her dreams for him.

If he’s never been mentioned and we don’t know how much he means to Sarah, an announcement of his death will have no emotional impact on the reader.

If, however, Sarah had been worried for his safety or has been sitting at his hospital bedside, the reader is connected both to Sarah and her son, and his death can shake up the reader.

Don’t be afraid of killing off someone close to your main characters or of taking away something else dear to them. If they are crushed, the reader can be as well. This is fiction; you’re not really hurting someone if you write them into a car accident.

Death or injury aren’t the only ways to hurt your characters. Misunderstanding, betrayal, and forced choices that hurt their friends are all ways to agitate characters. And when characters are agitated, readers can be as well.

5.  Tease the reader with hints of what’s to come. You see this in romantic comedies, the backward and forward dance between a couple just falling in love. The tease, the delay, the anticipation makes the payoff dramatic and satisfying.

In mysteries and suspense, anticipation increases tension and therefore increases the emotional impact. Fear drawn out to just the right degree gives a satisfying snap when hell breaks loose.

6.  Recognize that word choice can greatly affect reader emotions. Some words are triggers in themselves and can be used to set off the reader.

Putting an especially nasty cuss word in the mouth of a character who doesn’t curse can jolt the reader. It’s a strong signal that something is very wrong.

Verbs or nouns that are socially loathed or that remind readers of hated people or abhorrent practices can be used to instantly rouse the reader. Of course, you can’t use this technique too often because the reader will feel manipulated and feel anger toward you, the writer, rather than with a character or the story on the page. You canmanipulate readers; you shouldn’t let them feel the manipulation.

Some words convey lightness or humor or passion. Other words have little emotional shading. Choose your words with their impact potential in mind.

Even common actions can be influenced by word choice. Do characters cross a room or lope or shuffle? Do they race across town or merely make their way through traffic? Do they demand or ask for something? Do they heave or lift or haul or pick up an object?

Know the power of word choice in eliciting emotions. Use words throughout a scene to express your exact meaning so a scene is cohesive and the emotion consistent. Don’t mix light and fluffy words into a dark, heavy scene unless you’re doing so for effect. That is, be aware of your word choices and what they can do to the scene and the overall tone of the story—increase tension because you choose the right word combinations or diffuse tension because you’ve used ill-matched words.

Note—Even though you want the words to create a tight scene, one with cohesion and consistency, this doesn’t mean that all characters in the scene will have the same agenda and speak to the same end. That is, you may have a character quite at odds with the other characters and what’s happening. Your antagonist may not care that he’s caused negative events in the protagonist’s life. He might not feel remorse or pain at what’s happened. And therefore he may talk at cross purposes with other characters. This, of course, creates a tension all its own and can set the reader on edge.

7.  Create a situation that’s important, vital, or life altering, if not life threatening. Make sure there’s something at stake for the character, make sure his actions reflect the importance of this something, and make sure he tries to do something to change this intolerable dilemma. Produce in the reader both the emotion from the situation and the hope that the character can triumph.

8.  Put your characters under time constraints to increase tension, to cause them to make decisions they might not ordinarily make, to set them—and the reader—on edge.

9.  Force your character into making a decision between a bad choice and a worse choice. This kind of situation pulls the reader in whether he knows the reason for those bad choices or not. The reader feels for the character, for him having to make bad decisions that both character and reader know will cause even more problems.

10.  Move the story. Don’t dwell so long on an event that the reader loses interest or the urgency wanes.

11.  Write realistic scenes with realistic problems, problems that are conceivable for the characters and world you’ve created. Events, characters,

and setting must be logical for your world. Don’t give your reader a reason to doubt the truth and possibilities of your story and story events. Don’t give them a push out of your fictional world.

12.  Surprise the reader by turning the story in an unexpected direction. Keep the reader off balance, unsuspecting, so he can be blindsided and thus feel more unsettling emotions.

13.  Write conflict into every scene. Conflict can be character to character, character to himself, character to events, and character to setting. An agitated character can pass that agitation to the reader.

14.  Adjust the pace for the emotion you want to create. Use short sentences and paragraphs to speed the pace, to encourage suspense and fear. (Readers read faster and feel the story is moving at a faster pace when there’s more white space on a page.) Use longer phrases and paragraphs to slow the momentum, to ease off the forward rush, to create a sense of relaxation or calm.

15.  Choose words with deliberation. Use harsh or sharp words for the harsher emotions, soft-sounding and soft-meaning words for gentle emotions. (Or, cross up your words and emotions to create confusion. But remember that you want the reader confused in the same way the characters are confused, not unable to follow what you’re saying.)

16.  Reduce the use of unnecessary and unrelated detail to keep the focus on one emotion. Characters involved in chases don’t notice the flowers or the store fronts decorated for Christmas. Lovers in their first sex scene don’t notice every object in the room; they’re far more interested in one another.

Stay in the moment and only turn the reader’s attention to what’s important for this moment and this scene and the characters involved.

There are, of course, exceptions to this piece of advice. Yet, when you’re trying to build emotion, don’t dilute it or distract the reader with unrelated details. Use your details in other scenes, when it’s appropriate to introduce them.

Do use detail that will heighten emotion.

17.  Use setting to influence the reader and deepen his emotional response. Paint your rooms, put sounds in your outdoor spaces, add smells to your attic. Imagine how these elements would influence your readers—dark rooms, dark colors, enclosed spaces, echoing spaces, wide-open fields, silence, the living room of a house where someone was murdered, the living room of the house owned by the lead character’s enemy, a courtroom, a boardroom, back stage during a concert, back stage three hours after the concert-goers have all gone home.

Play with setting so you put your characters in the best locale for each scene. Need to ramp up unease? Move the scene to a deserted office at night. Need something lighter than the bedside of a comatose patient? Take the scene to the hospital’s cafeteria. Or chapel. Or business office.

18.  Use sense details to mire readers in the reality of the scene. What can the character hear and smell? What does a change in sound mean? What does the absence of sound mean for the character and the reader? When a character reaches into a dark hole and feels something brittle, does the reader break out in goose bumps? What if the character felt something soft and silky, something like springy curls? Does the reader’s pulse jump?

Play with all five senses to keep your readers involved, maybe off balance, but always interested in what’s coming next.

*******

Use each of these methods, not just one, to raise an emotional response in your reader. Touch the reader often, noting that each scene doesn’t have to register higher on the emotional meter than the scene before. (Though emotions do rise through the climax, the rate of the climb isn’t consistent and emotional impact can be variable; both character and readers need variations in intensity. Downs are as important as ups.)

Don’t hesitate to mix emotions. A heroine in a suspense thriller can’t be frightened all the time. Use humor or lust or exasperation or anger or joy to change the type of tension for her and for the reader. Take the reader up and down and then up again. Readers like ups and downs, not a flat line of no

emotion, of zero affect. Keep the reader engaged by making her feel. Stir up your readers.

Tap into emotions to give your readers a read that satisfies on all levels.http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/01/30/creating-emotion-in-the-reader/

Character Reaction—Make Your Characters RespondOctober 20, 2011 by Fiction Editor Beth Hill last modified October 20, 2011

I’ve written a lot about characters at The Editor’s Blog, but I’d like to take a deeper look into character reaction, the response of a character to the actions or words of another character or to a story event.

A character’s reactions can reveal facets of his personality that cannot be revealed by action or dialogue initiated by that character. The actions and words of others that draw a response from a character tell what bothers that character. They indicate issues that are important to the character, issues including those hot-button topics that are guaranteed to set off a character each time they’re visited in the story.

Reactions reveal issues that mean something for a character.

If a character goes after the man who’s gone after his dog, readers know that the dog means something special to that character or that he is possessive/selfish, unwilling to let others touch or hurt what belongs to him.

When a character responds to the actions or words or intentions of another character, the reader notices. She focuses on that response and on what causes it and thinkssomething’s going on here.

Writers direct readers into key revelations by showing character response.

Conversely, when there is no response, the writer has shown that words or actions or event have little meaning for a character.

If one character confesses a deep and long-held secret to another and the second character has no response—no reaction in action or thought or dialogue—then the writer is saying that such a confession holds no meaning for that second character.

A character does not need to reveal his response overtly to other characters, of course. But if he has no response—if the reader can’t see a response of any kind—then there isn’t one. Characters can keep their emotions hidden from other characters but not from readers. A response hidden from the reader is the same as no response.

While the lack of a response might actually reveal a facet of a character’s personality, that personality should also be revealed by what he does respond to.

How Characters React

Characters respond to events and other characters through what they say or don’t say, what they do and don’t do, what they think, and what they feel.

DialogueA character may respond with dialogue, lashing out with angry or passionate words. Or, his words might be torn reluctantly from a character.

Kelly, hand held low on her belly, said, “He’s not yours, Paul.”

Paul, hands tightening, stepped away from her. “Kel—” He clamped his lips together, took another step back. “Damn you.”

Dialogue as a response can be deliberate, allowing one character to steer other characters in the direction he wants them to go, leaving him in charge. Or, the words of his dialogue can be involuntary, pulled from him against his will as a response to what he’s seen or heard from others.

When you consider a response for your characters, think about using dialogue, keeping in mind how it can raise the level of conflict in a scene. Consider using a response that’s out of character for your character. When a character no longer holds back, when he reveals a true response through dialogue, he’s showing who he is and what’s important to him.

Dialogue as a response can thus be quite powerful.

Know that reactions through dialogue can be short and to the point or long and drawn out. Use the method that fits the scene and reveals your character’s mind and heart.

Characters can also hold back a response, but readers should see what it costs the character to refrain from speaking.

A teen boy may promise his sister he won’t tell that she snuck out, may instead end up taking the blame when she scratches the family car coming home at three in the morning. His silence in response to his parents’ interrogation can reveal his love for his sister.

Or it may reveal his desperation to protect her secrets because she’s protecting his even darker secrets.

What a character doesn’t say can be just as powerful as the words he speaks. Yet the reader must know what he’s not saying or must be aware that he’s holding something back. Otherwise silence is only silence.

ActionCharacters reveal themselves through action as well as dialogue. So a character can fling his phone across the room when he doesn’t like what he’s just heard. Or he can put his fist through a wall. He can kiss the forehead of his sleeping son, tears held back, at the news the infant doesn’t have leukemia.

Like dialogue, a character’s actions in response to the words or actions of others can be deliberate or involuntary. And the choice of a deliberate action over an involuntary one, or vice versa, will direct the story in a particular direction.

A character whose responses are deliberate is in control, at least to some extent. He seeks to influence other characters by his response. On the other hand, a character who responds because he can’t help himself is a character controlled by others or by his feelings or by a stand he has taken or by his integrity.

An involuntary response reveals the depths of a character, his psyche or his passions. His core being.

When a character can’t help but respond, especially against his will, the reader knows that he’s seeing the true character. He knows at least a part of what moves that character, what drives him. What the character is apart from the trappings that he presents to the people of his world.

A reaction that’s withheld is also key to a character.

If a woman doesn’t reach out to her lover when he confesses his love for her, if she steps away instead or shakes her head at his confession, she can be revealing that she doesn’t love him or that she doesn’t believe him or that she feels unlovable and doesn’t deserve to hear such words from him.

Again, keep in mind that a lack of response speaks not only to other characters but to the reader. When the reader knows there’s a reason for an absence of response, that reveals something about the character that other characters might not be privy to. But a simple lack of response without context or insight simply shows that what has been said or what has happened means nothing to the character.

And if words or actions mean nothing for the character, especially for antagonist or protagonist, what purpose do they serve in your story?

You could be using an event or dialogue to reveal the motivations of a secondary character or to establish tone, but be sure they do something, these events and the words of dialogue you write. They shouldn’t be purposeless. They should affect characters and compel them to react.

ThoughtsA character’s thoughts in response to the actions or words of others are obviously a key to that character’s personality and to those issues most important to him.

When you let readers see into a character’s mind, you permit him access to that character that no one else has. Character thoughts instantly reveal the essence of the man—his motivation, his dreams, his disappointments.

Let readers see a character’s thoughts when you want to present a clear insight into that character. Characters can  lie to themselves, but for the most part, a character’s thoughts are an honest reflection of what he’s thinking. If you need a true character reaction untainted by what others think about or feel for a character, present the character’s thoughts as reaction.

Because character thought is so revealing, unless you want to keep him exposed, limit the amount of time spent in a character’s head.

Readers don’t want to know everything about a character in a single moment; leave them something to discover as the story progresses. Even in first-person narration, don’t spill the character’s thoughts in a steady stream from first page to last. Take time for story events and dialogue. Get out of the limited confines of a character’s thoughts and broaden the story to include what happens in a character’s outer world.

EmotionsLike thoughts, character emotions can instantly reveal a character’s personality and what he finds important. Yet emotions can be faked or manipulated by a character to direct the response of others.

That is, emotions can be deliberately released or deliberately held back. But even the manipulation of emotion can reveal character.

A man who allows an emotion to show when he’s with his girlfriend but who withholds emotion when he’s with his wife tells us something about the man.

A man who doesn’t control his emotions but lets them fly as he feels them reveals that man.

A man who always holds back his emotions tells us something about the manner of man he  is. Keep in mind that at least the reader must have some understanding of what’s being held back in order for this technique to work. An emotion that’s held back can be a reaction. But if the reader doesn’t know what’s held back, if the reader sees no emotion, then that translates to a lack of reaction.

___________________________

Character action and reaction propel the forward motion of a story. Response and reaction and the response to that reaction are what take readers from opening page to resolution. If characters didn’t react to what other characters were doing or saying or feeling, then there’d be no cohesion, no story threads drawing disparate story elements together.

Consider other characters’ reactions when you write a first character’s actions. What will Janelle do when Walter forgets to stop by the bank to make a payment on their credit line, a lapse that costs them $225 that they don’t have?

What is Janelle’s response when Walter tells her he forgot to stop by the bank because he’d been fired earlier in the day and now they have no money coming in to pay their debts?

What kind of response would Janelle show if Walter confessed he robbed the bank on the way home, taking money out instead of paying the bank back?

The reaction you give a character will direct the story. Each time a character responds, you take characters and readers deeper into your fiction.

Character reaction will also affect the tone of a scene, the conflict between characters, and the tension in the reader.

Reactions must make sense for the moment, for the character, for the genre, and for the depth of response necessary for the scene.

Work and rework the connection between action and reaction in your stories so that conflict rises and story events come together to drive characters to the inevitable end you have planned for them.

Give character reaction the proper emphasis for each scene. Vary the level of response—one character shouldn’t always react with the same degree of emotion, and scenes would feel flat without a variety of intensities.

Don’t neglect reaction and its importance for both revelation of character and forward movement of plot.

Give your characters the reactions the story demands, responses that fit their personalities and the adventure you’ve crafted for them.

http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/10/20/character-reaction-make-your-characters-respond/

Character Emotion Makes the PlotBy Martha Alderson, M.A.

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Some writers excel at pithy banter. Others create dramatic action. The writers I most admire are the ones who in their own natural style convey a character's emotional personality in scene through active, non-verbal communication with just the right frequency and intensity.

I have written extensively about how moviegoers and readers identify with stories through the characters' emotions. When we connect with the characters on an emotional level, the interaction become deep and meaningful. Well-written scenes that include characters' emotions allow the audience to viscerally take part in the story and bond with the characters.

In my work as a plot consultant, I developed the Scene Tracker Kit to help writers track their scenes one-by-one. To reinforce the significance of emotion in creating compelling scenes, two of the seven essential elements on the Scene Tracker template revolve around emotion.

1) Character Emotional Development: The character's emotional development as she moves toward transformation at the overall story level.

2) Emotional change: The character's more fleeting emotional reactions at the scene level.

Rather than get stuck in the character's head "telling" what the character feels, show the character's authentic feelings in action. Emotion has a strong physical component and is primarily felt in the body. "Show" emotions through the character's relationships and reactions to conflict.

Character Emotional Development versus Emotional Change

A) Character Emotional Development

The #1 Essential Element of scene on the Scene Tracker is Character Emotional Development.

Every story sends a character on an outer journey (dramatic action plot line) that ends up causing the character to undergo an inner transformation (character emotional development plot line). This ultimate character transformation is shown step-by-step through their Character Emotional Development. Emotional development is cumulative, based on all of the scenes over time, and is long-term and transformative.

* The protagonist is introduced in the Beginning (1/4) of the story with an emotional flaw.* Each action taken by the character reflects her emotional development. In the Middle (1/2), as the stakes rise, the protagonist shows who really is in how she reacts emotionally under more and more pressure.* Emotional development implies new emotional behavior and growth emerging overtime toward long-term mastery or transformation which is shown at the Climax at the End (1/4).

Plotting out the protagonist's emotional development over the entire story and tracking character's reactions to the dramatic action scene-by-scene on aScene Tracker ensures a smooth and believable emotional transformation in the character. The character's transformation takes place in scene step-by-step and spans the entire story.

If conflict, tension and suspense drive the reader to turn the page or send the viewer to the edge of her seat, the character emotional development inspires and connects her to the story. Readers read stories and viewers go to the movies to learn about a character's emotional development. Therefore, character becomes a primary layer in the overall story.

The Character Emotional Development operates under the assumption that when a character is transformed by the dramatic action over time the story means something or, in other words, is thematically significant.

Character Emotional Development symbolizes the character's emotional transformation at the overall story level.

An example of Character Emotional Development at the Overall Story Level

In the first three chapters, which represent the Beginning (1/4) almost exactly to the page, Nobel Laureate William Golding's Lord of the Flies introduces 12-year-old protagonist and leader Ralph. We learn that the never-before-tested leader of the boys is sensible and self-confident and out to have fun.

Civilized life disintegrates in the Middle (1/2). Now thoroughly immersed on the island and the exotic world of life without parents or girls, Ralph is challenged by outer and inner antagonists: domestic order breaking down, the group of boys as they lose control, fear, Jack, the beasties, hardship, and primitive life. At the Crisis, the savagery in himself and the other boys strip Ralph of his innocence, a place to which he can never again return.In the End (1/4), Ralph is able to alter his behavior due to a matured mastery over his emotional state. Now that he understands life and himself in ways he never could have without having experienced the dramatic action on the island, Ralph is changed forever.

Step-by-step, the character's emotional developmental is introduced in the Beginning, deepened in the Middle, and permanently changed in the End. The emotional growth the character undergoes throughout the entire story is represented scene-by-scene in abbreviated notes under the 1st column of theScene Tracker template.

B) Emotional Change

Just as the dramatic action affects the overall character emotional transformation, the dramatic action also affects the character's temporary emotional state, too. Based on her authentic personality, the character's mood fluctuates depending on what is said and done within a scene.

A character jumps from one emotion to another within a particular scene, depending on the drama, while still retaining her personality consistency from one scene to the next until she undergoes the ultimate transformation at the End (1/4).

The dramatic action that takes place in each particular scene causes an emotional effect(s) on the character. The emotional reaction(s) the character experiences or emotional change(s) the character undergoes within a specific scene is often fleeting and temporary and fluctuates in intensity.

In the 6th column of the Scene Tracker template, abbreviate the character's change in emotional intensity within the scene at the scene level only.

Two Ways to Show Emotional Change

1) Following each turning point or setback scene (cause), the character experiences an emotional reaction (effect) or shows an emotional response as an action (which is also an effect and causes another action).

In real life, most of us are capable of handling ourselves when things are going well or working in our favor. Throw in some sort of disaster, conflict, roadblock and we find out who we truly are. This same principle applies in stories. Moviegoers and readers benefit when dramatic action causes an emotional effect in the character both superficially and at a deep developmental level. How characters respond emotionally when things turn messy, challenging and stressful, when all is lost demonstrates where the character is in her emotional development.

Storytelling involves more than lining up the action pieces, arranging them in a logical order and then drawing conclusions. Yes, dramatic action pulls moviegoers to the edge of their seats. And yes, conflict, tension, suspense and curiosity hook moviegoers. Yet, no matter how exciting the action, the character's emotional reactions and emotional development provide fascination. Any presentation with a strong human element increases the chances of audience identification.

In a compelling story line, the characters grow and change step-by-step because of the dramatic action. This growth is not meant to be only on a physical level. Often, in their zeal of showing off high-tech special effects, moviemakers and writers forget the power of character emotional development. The challenges a character faces must effect the character emotionally, and the deeper and more honestly the better.

An effective way to keep track of these incremental steps is with the use of a Scene Tracker. A scene tracker asks you to fulfill seven essential elements in every single scene. Emotional Change is the one essential element that deals with the ever-changing and even contradictory character emotion at the scene level only.

Example:

In the Beginning (1/4) of Lord of the Flies, after surviving a crash on an island with Piggy (cause), Ralph strips off his clothes and runs and jumps (effect). When Ralph learns Piggy's secret (cause), his reaction (effect) shows his emotional development at the beginning of the story. He shrieks with laughter and taunts Piggy so openly and innocently, Piggy grins himself.

Ralph shows his free spirit by these two actions he takes in reaction to what happens externally in the scene. He does not think about his freedom or talk about it. He takes action. Plot and track his emotional change from one action to the next and building in intensity in each scene on the Scene Tracker.

2) Temporary emotional change within each scene is shown through facial expressions, body language, gestures, posture, vocal cues, tone, inflection, pitch, quality, rate, and touch that are genuine and appropriately motivated. Each movement conveys an emotional message that is authentic to each individual character.

Telling how a character feels through internal monologue and the use of clich'd actions is easy. More difficult, though much more effective, is the showing of character emotion though character action that is fresh and innovative and reflects the authenticity of the character herself.

There can be no doubt in the reader's mind as to what the character is feeling. The fresher and truer the character's unique personality is shown through her non-verbal communication, the more unique the

character becomes. The clearer the character conveys her individual emotion, the more closely the audience identifies to her.

Example:

"'You. Hide here. Wait for me."[Ralph] found his voice tended either to disappear or to come out too loud."

Ralph's dialogue is delivered as clipped orders, using vocal cues, tone, inflection, pitch and rate.

Seven lines later, Ralph's "mouth was tight and pale. He put back his hair very slowly. 'Well. So long.'"

Each of these changes in emotional make-up is plotted and can be critically tracked scene-by-scene on the Scene Tracker to produce a pattern of exactly right emotional behavior unique to the protagonist.

The more viscerally the audience experiences every expression and gesture and attitude from the character's point of view, the better the development of the character personality and the deeper the connection of the audience to the character.

Walt Disney made his stories real by translating the feelings of imaginary characters into personal actions authentic to the character's personality traits. Readers and audiences are adept at interpreting posture, body motions, facial expressions, eye movements, mouth gestures, and arm and leg movements in relationship to the dramatic action and, based on those interpretations, making judgments about the character's emotional development overall.

Try tracking scenes both for the characters' step-by-step movement toward and away from their ultimate overall story transformation and for their more fleeting, temporary emotional reactions within each scene.

In each rewrite, attempt to hone and deepen the emotional non-verbal behavior for every character until each emotional gesture is high-powered and uniquely different.

Do not worry if tracking the emotional components within your story is difficult for you. Most writers have strengths and weaknesses in their writing. For instance, many writers are particularly adept at creating quirky, likable protagonists who feel emotions strongly. However, more often than not, these same writers have difficulty creating dramatic action and coming up with lots of conflict and, thus, fail at portraying the ultimate character transformation.

Other writers are just the opposite. These writers can create all sorts of amazing action scenes, but break down when it comes to developing characters who feel emotions and react and respond emotionally and who are ultimately transformed emotionally as caused by the dramatic action.

Whatever your strengths and weaknesses, be aware of them. When you are feeling brave and energetic (if, at this point you were tracking yourself in the "Change" column on the Scene Tracker template, you would receive a "+" for the positive emotion you were experiencing) spend time in the area that is the most challenging for you as a writer. When your energy is low (here you would receive a "-"), stay in your area of strength.

Read a screenplay or novel for the overall character emotional development transformation and the moment-by-moment emotional reactions within each scene. Determine what moves you and why. Try using similar techniques in your own writing as you plot and track each emotional component of your characters scene-by-scene on the Scene Tracker template.

https://www.writersstore.com/character-emotion-makes-the-plot/

Connecting with Audiences Through Character EmotionsBy Martha Alderson, M.A.

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Moviegoers and readers identify with stories through the characters. The most powerful way to reach an audience is through the characters' emotions. For only when we connect with the characters on an emotional level, does the interaction become deep and meaningful. Well-written scenes that include characters' emotions allow the audience to viscerally take part in the story and bond with the characters.

In real life, we meet and interact daily with other people. Unlike in stories, many of these interactions are fairly superficial. Though some audience members rather enjoy a more distanced, intellectual challenge, most want to engage with characters in books and movies on an emotional level, too. Therefore, as a plot consultant, I developed the Scene Tracker Kit to help writers track scene-by-scene their characters' emotions. To reinforce the significance of emotion in creating compelling scenes, two of the seven essential elements on the Scene Tracker template involve emotion.

1) Character Emotional Development: The characters' emotional development as it leads to their ultimate transformation at the overall story level.

2) Emotional change: The character's more fleeting emotional reactions at the scene level.

Often writers get stuck by staying in the character's head and "telling" what the character thinks. An emotion, on the other hand, has a strong physical component and is primarily felt in the body. The writer is able to "show" emotions through how the character relates or reacts to conflict.

Definition of Emotion

Emotion literally means "disturbance." The word comes from the Latin emovere, meaning "to disturb." Characters who reside more in the mind and their thoughts than in their body and their emotions put distance between the story and the audience. Thoughts can lie. Dialogue can lie, too. However, emotions are universal, relatable and humanizing. Emotions always tell the truth.

Most of us in real life are capable of handling ourselves when things are going well or working in our favor. Throw in some sort of disaster, conflict, roadblock and we find out who we truly are. This same principle applies in stories. Moviegoers and readers alike want to participate in dramatic stories to learn how characters respond emotionally when things turn messy, challenging, and stressful, when all is lost.

Storytelling involves more than lining up the action pieces, arranging them in a logical order and then drawing conclusions. Yes, dramatic action pulls moviegoers to the edge of their seats. And yes, conflict, tension, suspense and curiosity hook moviegoers. Yet, no matter how exciting the action, the character's emotional reactions and emotional development provide fascination. Any presentation with a strong human element increases the chances of audience identification.

In a compelling story line, the characters grow and change step-by-step because of the dramatic action. This growth is not meant to be merely on a physical level. Often, in their zeal of showing off high-tech

special effects, moviemakers and writers forget the power of character emotional development. The challenges a character faces must effect the character emotionally, and the deeper the better. An effective way to keep track of these incremental steps is with the use of a Scene Tracker. A scene tracker asks you to fulfill seven essential elements in every single scene. For our purposes here, we will focus on the two essential elements that have to do with emotion.

Character Emotional Development versus Emotional Change

1) Character Emotional Development

The #1 Essential Element on the Scene Tracker is Character Emotional Development. Every story sends a character on an outer journey (dramatic action plot line) that ends up causing the character to undergo an inner transformation (character emotional development plot line). This ultimate character transformation is shown step-by-step through their Character Emotional Development. Emotional development is cumulative, based on all of the scenes over time, and is long-term and transformative.

Emotional development implies permanent growth or long-term change or transformation in the character in reaction to the dramatic action scene-by-scene throughout the overall story. The transformation the character undergoes takes place step-by-step from the beginning and spans the entire story.

If conflict, tension and suspense drive the reader to turn the page or send the viewer to the edge of her seat, the character emotional development inspires and connects her to the story. Readers read stories and viewers go to the movies to learn about a character's emotional development. Therefore, character becomes a primary layer in the overall story.

The Character Emotional Development operates under the assumption that when a character is transformed by the dramatic action over time the story means something or, in other words, is thematically significant.

Character Emotional Development symbolizes the character's emotional transformation at the overall story level.

2) Emotional Change

Just as the dramatic action affects the overall character emotional development, the action also affects your character's emotional state at the scene level. In other words, the character's mood changes within a scene in reaction to what is said or done in that specific scene. Characters can jump from one emotion to another within a particular scene, depending on the drama, but the character's emotion must remain consistent from one scene to the next scene.

The dramatic action that takes place in each particular scene causes an emotional effect(s) on the character. The emotional reaction(s) the character experiences or emotional change(s) the character undergoes within a specific scene is often fleeting and temporary. Emotional Change symbolizes the character's emotional reactions within the scene at the scene level only.

Three Ways to Use Emotion

1) Within each scene as a response to the dramatic action in that particular scene itself

Example:

Using Rick Bragg's memoir "Ava's Man" as an example, Charlie, the grandfather of our protagonist, starts a scene angry that Jerry hurt his friend, Hootie, "just for the sport of it." The more he thinks about "how this man had come to his house, bringing the threat of violence to where his wife and children lived," the angrier and more determined Charlie becomes.

Anger consumes Charlie. When Jerry says he is coming inside the house, Charlie becomes furious (an emotional change in intensity within that particular scene itself).

2) Following each turning point or setback scene ("cause"), the character experiences an emotional reaction ("effect") or shows an emotional response (which is also an "effect")

Example:

Based on the possibility of an attack ("cause") in the previous scene, the next scene begins when Charlie shows his emotional response ("effect"):"Then Charlie did one of the bravest things I have ever heard of, a thing his children swear to. He opened the door and stepped outside to meet his enemy empty-handed, and just started walking."

3) Overall emotional developmental transformation

Not all characters undergo a transformation, but by the nature of what a protagonist embodies, that character must go through an emotional development transformation.

Example:

Charlie is not transformed based on the overall dramatic action in the story. However, the narrator, his grandson and the protagonist, does transform based on what he learns about his grandfather's life. The above scene that shows Charlie's commitment to his family and his bravery profoundly affects the narrator and leads him yet one step closer to his ultimate transformation.

In Folly, a stand-alone mystery by Laurie R. King, the protagonist is introduced as fragile, doubtful, exhausted, and fearful upon her arrival at the island where the story takes place.

Feeling fragile and fearful and on the edge introduces the state of the protagonist's emotional development at the beginning of the story and would be noted in the "Character Emotional Development" column on the Scene Tracker. Feeling fragile and fearful and on the edge is her state of being in her overall lifetime emotional development due to what has come before (her backstory). The ultimate transformation she undergoes in the overall story based on all she experiences through the dramatic action changes her from fragile and fearful and on the edge to strong and brave and able to fight for herself. (This is her ultimate "Character Emotional Development" for the story overall.)

The daughter and granddaughter are with the protagonist as the boat takes her to her ultimate destination. The protagonist is anxious about how her daughter and granddaughter will react to the setting where she is dropped off. The daughter is judgmental of her mother and already believes her to be crazy. The protagonist knows that her goal of rebuilding a burned-out house on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere will only strengthen her daughter's belief about her mother's lack of sanity. As the boat takes them nearer and nearer to the island, the more nervous the protagonist grows. (Each incremental rising shift in her emotional state at the scene level is her emotional "Change" within the scene itself.)

In a recent plot consultation, a writer relayed a project that was filled with dramatic action and, thus, made for an exciting story. I found myself anxious to hear what happened next, and what happened after that. The writer masterfully provided more and more compelling action, and did so seamlessly through consistent dramatic action cause and effect. In other words, one scene's dramatic action led to the next

dramatic action, causing the Dramatic Action plot line to rise quickly and effectively.Still, amid all the intrigue and mystery, suspense and fear, the characters became more and more like cardboard action figures who allowed the dramatic action to happen to them rather than characters who were emotionally affected and emotionally responding to what was happening to them. The more exciting the action, the more the characters were ignored. The less I found out about how the characters, especially the protagonist, were being affected by the dramatic action, the less I cared about the story. Without the help of the character to draw me closer, I found myself separating further and further from the story.

The dramatic action in a story helps reveal who the character is. Dramatic action revolves around goals - the character's overall story goals and the character's goal within each particular scene. How and what the character goes after reveal their character. How they respond emotionally to successes and failures reveal their character even more.

Characters are invested in the success of their goals so when setbacks occur the reader must "see" the effects of those on the characters in their emotional reactions and responses. Dramatic action without something equal or comparable happening within the character's emotional state causes scenes to fall flat and the overall story to lose its heart.

Movies often rely on star power alone without taking the time to develop the characters in the story. Even so, the audience may feel an emotional attachment to the star. Ultimately, however, unless they emotionally identify with the main character as a character, the audience will ultimately detach from the film.

Try tracking your scenes both for the characters' step-by-step movement toward and away from their ultimate overall story transformation and for their more fleeting, temporary emotional reactions within each scene.

One writer, after having tracked her scenes on both the levels, found that her piece was "a rather dour story about a dour character." In other words, she neglected to develop her protagonist in such a way as to be emotionally affected, both short-term and long-term, by the tension within each scene. As long as this writer works on integrating a variety of emotions to show more of the protagonist's strengths and hopefulness and show more sides to her as she moves toward her ultimate transformation, this writer will ultimately flesh out the character.

Do not worry if tracking the emotional components within your story is difficult for you. Most writers have strengths and weaknesses in their writing. For instance, many writers are particularly adept at creating quirky, likable protagonists who feel emotions strongly. However, more often than not, these same writers have difficulty creating dramatic action and coming up with lots of conflict and, thus, fail at portraying the ultimate character transformation.

Other writers are just the opposite. These writers can create all sorts of amazing action scenes, but break down when it comes to developing characters who feel emotions and react and respond emotionally and who are ultimately transformed emotionally as caused by the dramatic action.

Whatever your strengths and weaknesses, be aware of them. When you are feeling brave and energetic (if, at this point you were tracking yourself in the "Change" column on the Scene Tracker template, you would receive a + for the positive emotion you were experiencing) spend time in the area that is the most challenging for you as a writer. When your energy is low (here you would receive a -), stay in your area of strength.

https://www.writersstore.com/connecting-with-audiences-through-character-emotions/