Portraying emotion in writing

Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by Xoey, Nov 23, 2014.

  1. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    So in your post here, in addition to using mostly correct grammar, spelling, and paragraph structure, I see figurative language, an analogy, and an attempt at colloquialism. Just because you don't CALL it technique doesn't mean it's not technique.
     
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  2. Mr Orange

    Mr Orange Member

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    I don't care about grammar, paragraph structure, figurative language, analogies. That stuff is the petty micro-circuitry of writing that naturally coheres when your work has a spine to it, a unifying vision. Why are you so intent on dissecting writing, making it all about the mind? Writing is not about rounding off a person's rough edges, and ever, ever so neatly locking them in a box with a definition glued to the side.
     
  3. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Why are you so intent on your definition of writing being universal?

    If you want to write like that, go for it. I tend to find overly emotional writing self-indulgent and annoying to read, but... you're not asking me to read your stuff, so we're fine!

    If others want to write in different ways, for different reasons... okay! Why not!
     
  4. Mr Orange

    Mr Orange Member

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    Surely all good writing is universal. The objective of any piece of prose is to open up a wormhole into the perspective of a character. Provide an interface. A touchstone of reciprocity. We are, after all, human beings writing to be read by human beings.

    You're conflating the terms emotional and universal. I thought you were good with definitions?
     
  5. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Am I good at definitions? Thank you!

    But in this case, I don't think I'm even close to conflating emotional and universal. Why do you think I'm doing that?

    I don't think I agree about the objective of any piece of prose. That can be your goal, if you like, but it's not mine.
     
  6. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Fair enough. I do think you've picked me up wrongly, but never mind.

    I definitely believe you write a book because you have something to say—and the more personal your vision/nebulous anchor/passion is, the more artistic and memorable your work will be. However, unless you're only writing for yourself, you've got to put it into a form where your readers will 'get' what you're trying to say, don't you? Otherwise nobody else will pick up on the vision you've so carefully created. Most of the writers on this forum are interested in putting their work out for others to read, and to have their readers understand what they try to say with their writing. That's their goal.

    If you're writing just for yourself, for your eyes only ...do whatever you want! It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks of you, or what you're doing. That kind of anarchic writing can be enlightening, cathartic, fun, soul-destroying ...inarticulate, no spelling rules, no structure ...whatever you end up with or use to get there. BUT if you want other people to read your stuff, you need to develop some way to engage them. And that's technique.

    I am certainly not advocating technique replacing content, ideas and passion. Technique gives content, ideas and passion a form for others to appreciate. If that's not your goal, then fair enough.

    I wasn't comparing writing to rolling down a hill either, by the way. I was riffing off the idea of reinventing the wheel every time you do something—specifically applied to literary techniques. Sometimes you can reach your own goal using methods other people have also used. METHODS, not vision!

    But anyway.... interesting discussion.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2014
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  7. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    Stop... feeding... the troll.

    Or the artist. Whichever. :D
     
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  8. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    Let's not dissolve into name calling.
    I gave the op some advice. Not the most brilliant but I'm not sure of her skill level or what's required to help her improve. If I was to give a more general advice it would be - be honest. Emotion is only achieved when you can come to a place where you're totally raw. When you strip away pretensions, political correctness, politeness. When you're not telling people what they want to hear or what they think they want to hear. You're being real. But advice like this is a double edged sword. I remember on one site a woman wrote a story about a woman getting beat and her emotions were overwrought, overthought and annoying. Now this could be how someone would react but it was cringeworthy to read.
    Techniques have to be discussed because most people think writing should just flow. It only just flows correctly because you've trained yourself over the years to ingrain techniques that work. And they're so ingrained you don't think of them as techniques, they're just responses.
     
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  9. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Or it can work in the opposite direction, with the author vomiting the words for the first draft and then going back and polishing and refining and making them more effective.

    But somewhere or another, the reader should be considered, unless the author doesn't care about having any readers.
     
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  10. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I agree with this mostly. You need to challenge readers every once in a while. But things must be coherent and readable. I couldn't get through Wil Self's Umbrella because there is no separation of paragraphs. It drove me up the wall.
     
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  11. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    I didn't call you a troll. Funny you should think I was referring to you...
     
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  12. Mr Orange

    Mr Orange Member

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    It is important to know when to stop reading, when to stop discussing. You have to know how you want to write, yeah, and you learn this by reading and identifying what you DON'T want to write. But many a good writer has be ruined by over-reading and creative discussion. The opinions of other people spread you sideways, stop you from holding your line. The warm and fuzzy and incestuously breeding ideas of your fellow creatives won't help when it's just you vs. the page.
     
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  13. plothog

    plothog Contributor Contributor

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    Wow I've never heard anyone claim that over-reading can ruin you as a writer before. Most people will tell you that if you want to write well you should read as much as possible. A handful will claim it doesn't really help that much.
    But that it will ruin you? That's a new one on me.

    I find that the opinions of other people are helpful. In fact if the only opinion that I ever thought about was my own, I wouldn't have much diversity in the characters I could create. I'd only be able to write from the point of view of characters which were myself in disguise.
    A lot of what fiction writing is about is putting yourself in the shoes of other people and thinking about how they'd react to a situation.
    Heck even an essayist with a specific agenda needs to consider what the obvious counter arguments to his position are, if only to try and think of ways to negate those counter arguments before they're even made.

    I can't help but wonder, if you think that discussing writing is so toxic, what an earth are you doing on a writing forum?
     
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  14. Mr Orange

    Mr Orange Member

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    Apologising for my abrasive behaviour earlier. I seem to have ruffled the fluffy proclivities of several of you. Things have been going badly for me lately and to give this some sense of perspective you must understand that things are always going badly for me but lately things have been going worse than normal. O.K.

    What I think emotion in writing is is fighting the deadness that pervades most prose. When you put a line down, actualise it, it dies. You lose a piece of it when you translate from your head through your hands to the screen up here. The words never work. Words are blunt instruments that will never have the cut to graduate the nuances within nuances that constitute an emotion. Language is a system, a human organising principle. It as static imposition upon the on-going chaos of the natural world. It is the duty of a writer to try and outrun this deadness.
     
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  15. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    But...you seem to be taking techniques from texting, in your posts. If you're going to ignore all outside influences, wouldn't that be a good one to ignore?
     
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  16. Mr Orange

    Mr Orange Member

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    It's laziness.
     

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