Emotion

Photo by Luis Galvez on Unsplash

Everyone has read a book where the emotions aren’t all that great. Either there wasn’t any, and the characters were cold and impersonal, or there was too much and you get bogged down in it. There is a sweet spot, somewhere between the two that will be different for everyone. For some, it will be more to the lots of emotion side of the spectrum, and others will prefer to not feel much at all.

However, in order to write a compelling story, there needs to be some emotion. Emotion is one of the ways a writer can make their character relatable and real, so why waste or ignore it? Instead, use it, taking advantage of the natural way that humans can read emotion.

One of the mistakes I make as a writer is to make my characters emotions outrageous. Someone will go from deliriously happy to suicidal in a matter of seconds, which might work in some situations, but it doesn’t when there isn’t an especially good reason for it to. Emotions don’t really work like that.

Another mistake that I make is to tell the emotion, not show it. I’ll say something like ‘Joe was angry,’ instead of encouraging my reader to discover his emotion for themselves with descriptive language. For example, instead of saying ‘Joe was angry,’ I would say something like ‘Joe folded his arms, narrowing his eyes. What right did she have? he thought. She thinks she’s so much better than everyone else. Why did I have to be the one to confront her? He took a step back, now standing a little away from Maria and closer to Janice. His shoulders were tense, the tension in the air as obvious as the blue of Timothy’s eyes.’ In this situation, Joe is angry at Maria, for some reason that wasn’t specified. But it obviously made him angry. The anger also didn’t happen immediately. There is obviously some tension in the air, even before whatever Maria said, and Joe isn’t happy about having to speak to her about it. But I never actually mentioned the word ‘anger’ once. Humans are wired to pick up emotions through body language and reactions.

Men and women have the same emotions, but will respond to them differently. An angry man might punch whoever made them angry, succumbing to the emotion in a physical way. A woman who is angry might slander whoever made them angry, responding to the emotion through abusing the other person’s emotions.

Humans are emotional beings, and these emotions are often very powerful. Remember: they might not remember what you said or did, but they will remember how you made them feel.

Story!

So, most of this blog has been me just rambling on about what I do as both a reader and a writer. This is a break from that, and because I just really want to share this story with whoever intends to read my blog.

One More Dune

He was going to die. His water was gone, so was his food. Four days had passed since the crash, since the routine recon mission that would turn out to be his last. Since the mind-numbing terror, the jolt of horror, the raw fear that had come with the realization that they were both going to die in the vast nothing of the red sands of the desert. It was a miracle, really, that he had survived the crash.

The expanse of dunes, so smooth from the air, seemed endless now that he was among them. Each one had to be scaled, then navigated carefully down the other side. His mind was hazy, and his lips were cracked and dry. Too much sun would be the most likely cause of his death, as he had learned when he was a small child in Texas.

For the first few days after the crash, he had been headed for the small oasis he had seen out the cockpit just before the crash. The oasis had been nothing much, just a small pool and two tall palm trees. There was no water, no life contained in the pool, dried by a combination of heat and no rain. Bere Vement, Bear, his navigator, noticed it as well, had been about to mark it on the maps when they both heard the bullets tearing, ripping into the fuselage.  The critical enemy base they had been sent to locate had gotten a plane in the air, despite the fact that it was surrounded by large dunes and there was no clear runway.

One of the main reasons the base was so critical was its location. It sat defending the largest oasis in this expanse of the desert, which was crucial to the invasion that would decide the war. The army did not have enough trucks to transport both the men and the water so many soldiers would require through the entire desert, this entire wretched wasteland, to the battlefield on the other side. That was why this small base was so important, because it stood around the only oasis that was large enough to supply so many men with the water they would need.

Hearing a low thrumming, he froze. Was that a plane? The rotors of a helicopter, perhaps? 

The sound did not repeat itself, or if it did, he could not hear it over his own ragged breathing. The wind whispered to him, telling him of death, of those who had come before him, those who now lay buried under these very sands. Men, soldiers, who had died in plane crashes. Men like his navigator.

The memories came unbidden, as always. Bear, his best friend, reading the Bible while he scoffed. Bear, trying to convince his wife and kids that he would live through to the end of his tour, barely three weeks away. Bear, laughing at something his daughters did. Bear, reprimanding the other men for swearing. Bear, his head hanging, an ominous red flower spreading on his chest, the playful light in his eyes fading. Dead.

Plodding on, he shoved those thoughts away. He felt like one of the many head of oxen he had helped herd to the cities, to be sold. The non-regulation cowboy hat he wore added to that dream. It had been a gift from his parents when they heard where he was stationed, knowing that it would help save him from sunstroke. Typical Texan knowhow. Texas. Home.

Another memory came into his mind, also unbidden. His girl, Belle, who waited for him even now. They had planned to be married when he returned. One more dream that would be shattered. She had cried as he said goodbye, hadn’t wanted him to go. In his chest, his heart had rebelled, wanting to stay behind, but he forced himself to release her, to turn away and board the plane.

He stripped off his leather pilot’s jacket, looking once more at the wings pinned to the collar, at the Stars and Stripes stitched onto his shoulder. The pride he had felt earning them came rushing back, but now it was tainted with sadness, with grief. Bear had been beside him. His hands shook as though his body was rebelling against the leadership of his mind, like the crew against the captain, but he forced it to obey, exerting his will. The jacket lay behind him, another piece of his life for the wind to bury. Like his plane, his best friend.

It seemed like the day had lasted for a year, his body broken down as though he had run a marathon. The heat of the sand rose up past his face in waves, far too many of them for a single day. He fell with the darkness, barely feeling the hot sand through his fatigue. That night he discovered how the dead slept. Dreamless. Motionless. A watcher would not have known that he was still breathing, was still alive. The only clue to his life came when the sun rose, forcing him to rise with it, though he could have slept for the rest of the day, another man secreted away by the wind.

Half an hour later, he found himself wishing for the warmth of his jacket, which now lay far behind him. It was long buried by now, and to turn back and search would be to undo all the mileage he had worked so hard to cover yesterday. A waste of time and precious energy. No, better to push on.

Soon though, he forgot what was felt like to be cold. His throat and mouth were parched, and he blinked constantly, trying to retain valuable moisture. The sun beat down, burning every inch of his exposed skin, oppressing him like a hand pushing down on his whole body. The sand seared his ankles above the tops of his heavy boots, and he rolled up his socks, not that there was much left of them. They were more repairs than sock, and should have been retired long ago, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw them away, no matter how the other soldiers ridiculed him. Belle had knitted them for him, had sent them to him in a care package.

He stumbled down the dune he had just spent the last twenty minutes climbing and unexpectedly found the sun blotted out. The sand under his feet was cool, the dune in front of him being too large to allow it to get any exposure to the heat of the day. This dune was larger than any he had scaled so far, steeper than anything he had ever seen. It looked so smooth, so intricately balanced that if he so much as touched it, the entire precarious mountain would come tumbling down around him.

 Knowing that he had to fortify himself for the climb, he reached for his canteen. Then he remembered. Remembered the dry oasis, the dismay when he realized his compass, his hope, was gone. Using the sun he plotted his course as best he could, but there was no way for him to tell if he was off course, if he was even heading in the right direction. 

With a sigh, he began to scale the cliff-like dune. The sand was soft, and it shifted constantly under his boots, causing him to stagger like he was drunk. He knew what that felt like. Very well, in fact.

 It felt like there was a monster in the sand, a monster made of sand, that was trying to pull him under, devour him, or, at the very least, halt his progress. Roaring with every step he took, he forced his heavy feet up, one past the other, conquering the dune one step at a time. Whenever he made two steps’ progress, he invariably slid back one. Two steps forward, one step back. Over and over.

Now the wind’s voice changed, softened, became kinder. It sounded almost friendly; like it was encouraging him on; like it wanted him to succeed. His foggy mind gave it Belle’s voice, sweet and melodious. She had the perfect voice, every word sounded encouraging, even criticism. Every word that came out of her mouth was music, each sentence poetry.

She stood at the top of the dune, and, desperately, like a starved beggar, he reached for her. The movement unbalanced him, and he fell to his knees. Unwilling to give in, he began to crawl, blistering his hands on the scorching sand. Every movement was agony, every bit of progress earned with pain. The world had shrunk, had narrowed. All that existed was him, his pain, and the dune. And Belle.

He looked to the summit of the dune, and saw his parents and younger sister had joined her, standing with their arms spread, inviting him in. They gave him a sad smile, then turned away as if to leave.

With a hoarse cry, he begged them to stay, to help him, anything. There was no reaction from those he loved, except a few steps away that put the dune between him and his family.

The dune. His sworn enemy, the bane of his existence. It had become everything that kept him away from his country, his home, his family, his love. He knew he had to defeat it, conquer it, no matter how it tried to hold him back, to keep him away.

Suddenly, he was there. The battle was over, won. His family smiled at him again, only now their smiles hinted at pride. Then they were gone, replaced by a deep blue, the sky. Strangely, it rolled and dipped like the ocean, then faded. The sand was soft and warm. Then there was nothing.

He didn’t feel himself rolling down the other side of the dune, was unaware of the post, the fence that halted him. But there, deep inside the enemy base, a small light flashed, alerting the man who worked nearby to his presence. Alerting the man who triggered the alarm that would save his life.