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Writing with Emotion
As you know, I'm an emotional writer online with few exceptions. But at work, I bleach the emotion from my writing. My emails, my justifications and memos have no emotion. It's gone. Formal. Perfect. Clear. Business like. And it's succinct. My emails at work are barely more than three sentences.
I think fiction written without emotion is a waste of time. It is my problem with Neil Gaiman's writing and Erin Morgenstern's THE NIGHT CIRCUS and Susannah York's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. I understand the absence of emotion in academic journal writing or legal memos or business writing or non-fiction - which is why I find non-fiction so difficult to read.
But writers who focus on technique or plot over the emotional resonance of story, who lack a true feel for poetry. Who can't find the emotional pulse. Who tend to use the third person distant pov - distancing the reader as well in the process - so that we feel as if we are reading the story from a distance of 5,000 miles, never close enough to truly care if the characters live or die. I might as well be reading a dry journal article.
When I read a story...I want to feel the characters. I don't want to watch them objectively from a distance - with a sort of analytical air. That's for numbers not characters.
It annoys me when people put technique before passion. Slang is about passion. It's an emotional release. People don't smush words for speed, but to convey emotion. Feeling. I play with grammatical rules for emotional effect. As did James Joyce.
He wanted the reader to literally sink inside of Leopold Bloom to walk with his feet not in his mocassins. And the amazing thing is..you do. Just as in John Green's magical The Fault in Our Stars...you find yourself walking with Hazel Grace and August Waters feet. To fall inside someone else is magic. To be able to communicate emotion, pain, love, remorse, guilt - to make the reader feel these things - that is what lies at the root of fiction and why I prefer it to non-fiction.
Work is non-fiction. Work is bleached of emotion. Work is dry and numerical. Prices.
Bleaching rage and anger and sarcasm from my prose. Bleaching the poetry from it. The best writers care little for the technique the pristine plot, and the clever plot-twist. The best writers pull you so deep inside their work, that you laugh and cry buckets. You want to write fanfic about their characters. Their stories live inside your head not as meta, but as raw emotion. The best stories are those that we feel in our gut, in our heart, in our blood...not in our heads.
[PS: Please Don't hurt me if you vehmentally disagree. Mileage varies and all that. And this is in regards to a book I'm reading - it is NOT directed towards anyone on my flist. ;-) ]
I think fiction written without emotion is a waste of time. It is my problem with Neil Gaiman's writing and Erin Morgenstern's THE NIGHT CIRCUS and Susannah York's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. I understand the absence of emotion in academic journal writing or legal memos or business writing or non-fiction - which is why I find non-fiction so difficult to read.
But writers who focus on technique or plot over the emotional resonance of story, who lack a true feel for poetry. Who can't find the emotional pulse. Who tend to use the third person distant pov - distancing the reader as well in the process - so that we feel as if we are reading the story from a distance of 5,000 miles, never close enough to truly care if the characters live or die. I might as well be reading a dry journal article.
When I read a story...I want to feel the characters. I don't want to watch them objectively from a distance - with a sort of analytical air. That's for numbers not characters.
It annoys me when people put technique before passion. Slang is about passion. It's an emotional release. People don't smush words for speed, but to convey emotion. Feeling. I play with grammatical rules for emotional effect. As did James Joyce.
He wanted the reader to literally sink inside of Leopold Bloom to walk with his feet not in his mocassins. And the amazing thing is..you do. Just as in John Green's magical The Fault in Our Stars...you find yourself walking with Hazel Grace and August Waters feet. To fall inside someone else is magic. To be able to communicate emotion, pain, love, remorse, guilt - to make the reader feel these things - that is what lies at the root of fiction and why I prefer it to non-fiction.
Work is non-fiction. Work is bleached of emotion. Work is dry and numerical. Prices.
Bleaching rage and anger and sarcasm from my prose. Bleaching the poetry from it. The best writers care little for the technique the pristine plot, and the clever plot-twist. The best writers pull you so deep inside their work, that you laugh and cry buckets. You want to write fanfic about their characters. Their stories live inside your head not as meta, but as raw emotion. The best stories are those that we feel in our gut, in our heart, in our blood...not in our heads.
[PS: Please Don't hurt me if you vehmentally disagree. Mileage varies and all that. And this is in regards to a book I'm reading - it is NOT directed towards anyone on my flist. ;-) ]
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On the other hand, I love history books. Though the best history books most certainly engage my emotions.
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Focus more on the world than the characters, and often the characters feel like cypher.
Reading both reminded me a lot of reading some of the writers of the early 1900s, like Edith Wharton. Good prose stylists...but I always felt as if..I was watching them write? Or too aware of their prose. That may be it - aware of the words on the page, of the writing. As opposed to falling inside the story, and forgetting that I'm reading it. If that makes sense?
I struggle with books that make me too aware of the process of reading them. This is beautifully written, a perfect phrased sentence. But.
I'm seeing the sentence. Not feeling it.
Historical fiction and histories can be written in such a way in which you become enraptured by the story...and are not aware of the words.
I've been studying this lately, and have noticed that best-selling writers, books that appeal to a broad readership...are more simply written. You are less aware of the words. The book is more about the story and less about the technique of writing it.