Writing with Emotion
Mar. 14th, 2012 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAs 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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no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 12:23 pm (UTC)Very true. And it has a lot to do, at least for me with my mood and what is going with me at the time.
What may seem like sentimental treacle to one person, may be moving and beautiful to another.
What may seem brilliant and thought-provoking and emotionally resonate...may seem pretentious and self-indulgent to another.
A perfect example is the film Tree of Life. Some
people are moved by this film, it plays with their minds, and they find it beautiful. Others
find it unwatchable sentimental treacle and pretentious in a very off-putting way.
Another? Moulin Rouge - some love it to pieces,
others consider it akin to being stuck with
a marachi band in a small elevator.
It fascinates me why one person will love something and another hate it. I'm still trying to figure out why my flist thinks Breaking Bad is the BEST!SHOW!EVER! and I found it unwatchable and dreadfully dull and insanely violent after the first season. Is it what we do for a living? Is it our backgrounds? I worked in criminal law for a bit, and defended people who were put away for much lesser violations than the characters in Breaking Bad, who happened to be black not white. And have had close relatives die brutally of cancer. Also know that area of the US fairly intimately.
I don't know.
Same deal with the flick The Departed - film critics love it to death, and I thought...this is boring, obvious, and cliche. Yet it won the Oscar. (shrugs)