Adding emotional depth to your writing is a skill you have to study, practice, and master if you want to engage your readers in your story. It’s not easy – you have to understand emotional complexity and be willing to dive deep into it. You have to be able to write strong emotional scenes that are neither flat nor melodramatic. In a new blog post, C.S. Lakin discusses the importance of making an emotional connection between your characters and your readers, and suggests music as a method for doing so.
“There is something wonderful, magical, and sublime about being made to feel deeply about something outside my normal life,” Lakin writes. “Stories that remind me of what being human is all about, what love is, what loyalty is, what hope is, what being victorious looks like lift me up, confirm my humanity, bring deeper meaning to my own life.”
As practice, Lakin suggests you start journaling about your day to day emotions. Write about times you felt strong emotion and what triggered it. Dig deep to find the emotions beneath the surface. What thoughts did you have before and during? How did you feel physically? If you can write about your own emotional state, you can put similar words together for your characters.
Lakin also says we shouldn’t try too hard to name emotions, in part because we often feel too many at once. Instead, focus on your descriptions to convey that complexity.
If you don’t consider yourself the emotional type, not all is lost. Lakin suggests using music to get in the mood. “Music sparks intense memories,” Lakin writes. “Memories spark emotion. Emotions lead to more thoughts and memories, and more emotion.” If you’re trying to convey strong emotion during a scene, find some music that invokes the same feelings.
Lakin keeps a playlist of soundtrack music to help her get in the mood to write specific scenes. “Music can free you up,” she says. “Bypass your resistance or writer’s block. If you need to write an exciting high-action scene and you put on music that is exciting and stimulating, it can get your creative juices flowing and drown out your inner editor.”
