Story

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Storytelling is as old as humanity. Even before the stories were written down, there were oral traditions and legends. Each culture developed its own stories to encompass all areas of life. Stories have shaped our beliefs, our ideas and our religion. If there ever was a way to change the world, it can be found in story.

Many people enjoy story, but don’t understand the affect it can, and will, have on them. A well-told story that triggers the emotions will stay far longer with the listener than a well-researched and supported speech that triggers the listener’s intelligence. It seems as though we as humanity are wired to sympathise and celebrate with each other. That is why a good story can manipulate our emotions, why actors can make us cry, even though we know that the drama on our screen is not real. It’s why we cry when those around us cry, why we celebrate when they do and why we feel their pain and failures.

For us to consider a story a good story, it has to manipulate our emotions, to get us involved. An author becomes a true wordsmith when they master the art of manipulation.

Yes, you read that right. Writing, when it is done well, is manipulation. You are taking, or rather are given, control of your reader’s emotions. That’s a real responsibility, and it’s what readers expect. I, as a reader, will not finish a tale that doesn’t twist my emotions, utilizing the control that I’ve given up.

A proper book has to control what the reader feels. The good news for writers is that the readers are smart people. Most read novels to escape, and will want to feel the emotions. They will be watching for cues. This doesn’t mean that a writer can get lazy and say things like, “he was angry,” because that isn’t making the reader feel the emotion, the anger. It’s just telling them how the character feels. Writers need to use all the signals a reader would look for in a face-to-face conversation. Simply put, body language. Facial expressions.  Instead of just telling the reader that your character is angry, describe how he stopped slouching, how the smile on his face disappeared, how his hands clenched into fists, how the muscles in his jaw tighten. It takes more work, but the reader will pick up on the emotion of the scene pretty quickly and will feel more involved than if you had just told them what to feel. No one can feel a certain emotion on cue (except your characters, of course).

There are ways to get better at this, thankfully. It’s not some genetic similarity that great writers have and no one else does.

As with everything, you improve with practice. Writing anger when you yourself are angry will probably help to calm you down and make your writing more real, because that emotion will bleed into the scene. Sometimes you can listen to music that makes you feel sad, or whatever, while you are writing a sad scene, because the emotion you are feeling will shine through.

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It will also help to watch the people around you, to see if you can guess what they are feeling from their stance and body language. You’ll start to notice trends that will make your writing easer, trends that you used to notice unconsciously. Another thing you could start to pay more attention to is how you act when you are feeling a certain emotion.

When I worked at a fast food restaurant, I made it a game with myself to guess what a person was feeling based on the tone and inflection of their voice (on the drive through headsets, I mean). As I did this more, I like to think I got better and better, and that ‘research’ has helped me to write more convincing emotions.

So. Storytelling is extremely powerful, as long as the writer understands how to draw the reader in, how to manipulate their emotions. A writer truly becomes a wordsmith when they master this fundamental aspect of their craft.