Well Twilight made me cry but that was because of the writing --- I kid I kid... For some reason Codex Alera made me cry a number of times. It's cheesy and awful fantasy and I loved it to pieces.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows got me in the pre-tears a few times I think, but I don't think I actually did cry. To be honest, music is what usually hits me hard enough to make me cry, and it's notably absent from books... As such, films and possibly video games will get me there more often if a really powerful scene with powerful music comes, like when Simba finds Mufasa's body in the gorge. Then again, most of the stuff I've read haven't really been tear-jerkers; Jurassic Park isn't much cause for tears. But yeah, I think of all the stories, the Lion King hit hardest. You cold bastards Disney. It seems to me that the best way to get there is to build a massive emotional connection between the reader and a character, and then hit the character with immense pain (or immense happiness) and it'll reverberate around the reader too. The Lion King was such a hard hitter because we loved that damn cat.
Ugh. The Lion King. Who does that to their own brother. It made me hate Mufasa all the more. AND what kind of parents did those two cats have that caused such hatred between them? Yeah, I do deliberate these things in my head over characters that never existed in the real world.
I still find that scene in The Lion King really hard to watch at age 22 music helps a lot for me too to make me sad (I am a rare actual crier).
Then... that day may never come, judging by my lack of crying at... anything, even things that I thought were really depressing and I felt I should've gotten tears at. I do think I would if I read a character disturbingly similar to me, but so far that hasn't quite happened. For example, Welcome to the N.H.K. made me feel very uncomfortable, and also disturbed, because I've come so dangerously close to being Sato at times. However, that show isn't a tear jerker, more because there is never a time when the show is happy per say. If there is never a high, there is never a fall. You need one of those immensely in order to get that. So, I never cried in that. However, I have gotten close to characters, so perhaps one day I will be able to.
Books that have had that effect on me have always been impactful because the authors know how to use rhetorical devices -- sentence structure, parallel construction, punctuation, phonetic sounds of word choices, passive/active voice, etc -- to set up a tone. Whenever an author just writes it all out, like "Mary felt this, Mary felt that, then the tears spilled down her face" it just seems sappy. Telling the characters' emotion will not bring me to tears, ever. Setting up a melancholy tone with the way you write may. One of the most moving books I can think of at the moment is Alice Sebold's "Lucky," but ironically, it wasn't the rape-related scenes that made me cry (the attack, her courtroom scene etc) - it was actually the scene in which her best friend and roommate moved out, and the MC sees her for the last time, after they'd been drifting apart for a while and were now splitting forever. Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck is another great one for creating sad tones via rhetorical devices. I won't go on for too much, since I think I've mentioned this before in a different thread. Cogito, I wholly agree with you about LOTR, but for me, the movies were actually much more impactful than the books. That's just me, however. *dodges flying spears*
Not surprised there with the movie. Again, I must emphasize how much easier it is with movies and other forms of visual medium. Heck, there are practically genres of movies that are meant to manufacture tears. With that in mind, Mallory, that really scares me. Don't worry, just because my expression skills have a way to go. But, what I find strange is that I didn't get sad reading Grapes of Wrath, I only got angry. Angry that this happened to people, and that this part of American history frequently gets covered up. I've had a similar reaction to many books. Going on with the character thing, I think the key is finding a character that... for a lack of a better word resonates with us. Whether that's because they are quite similar to you or you just feel sorry for them for some reason, they can under your skin. To me, I would need the former. The closet to that would perhaps be Lisbeth Salander, more for her social insecurities than anything else.
I agree with you about books such as Grapes of Wrath making you angry - for me, it's always the ones involving government-created tyranny, like "Diary of Anne Frank" or "Hiroshima" or "Farewell to Manzanar." I know how it is. And yeah, the rhetorical device know-how is pretty crucial. I know the phrase "show not tell" is obnoxiously cliche, but it is true. The book "Elements of Style" can help out a lot with that. (I was fortunate enough to have a PHENOMENAL teacher for AP English in 11th grade, and she really hammered this stuff in, lol. Her class was harder than my 4000-level writing classes in college. And she used "Elements of Style" and "Grapes of Wrath")
I've read Elements of Style... and probably need to re-read it. Specifically, the last sections. Expression is... probably my weakest area. I wrote a whole poem about how hard it is. Unfortunately, I haven't had an English teacher like that yet, but I hope to get one like that in college. But yeah, I have a long way to go in expression, but it does appear I'm at least making progress.
I challenge every person here to read Hyperion by Dan Simmons and not have an emotional reaction to Sol Weintraum's story. It had me - a cold, emotionally detached person - to tear up. And believe me, it takes some going to get me to have an emotional reaction to anything. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had tears in my eyes in the last four years. Though three of those have come in the last few weeks - I seem to be recovering at last.
The book "The Giver" was one that was very sad for me, I did not "cry", but it was very sad. ***SPOILERS*** Spoiler The reason why this book was sad to me was because you spent so much time learning about this character. His adventure was quite memorable, and then at the very end, trying to escape from the colony, it was lead on that Jonas died. I've heard rumors that in another story by Lois Lowry he didn't die, and that there is a possibility that he is a different named character in another story. But, for the most part, it was told as if he died. Quite sad for me at least.
This was so much my experience when I read "The Last Battle" from the Chronicles of Narnia. I actually got angry about it because I was so upset about the ending.
I cry all the time but that's just in general, not just reading. Sometimes even a beautiful sentence or something I can relate to makes me teary. There's nothing hard and fast you can say to make someone have an emotional reaction but the more immersed people become with the story, the more they're likely to tear up when something happens
For a book to make me cry I've got to be invested in the characters. Most recently, I read Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon. The author explained how she came to bring the emotional climax to fruition with something she called the "rule of three" and that she had to make the reader believe in a real threat to both the MC's from the villain by introducing him as a threat, validating that threat later in the story and then bringing it home with the ultimate conflict. The sacrifice made by the MC on behalf of his love was so great that it made me feel physically ill. In a way, it was almost past the point of tears. I've cried before, usually from circumstances in a book that pull on my heartstrings as a mother. This went beyond that. I've never felt sick to my stomach from it. On a lighter note, I ALWAYS cry watching Dumbo. When he goes to his his momma in jail and she holds him with tears in his eyes...I'm getting misty just thinking about it. Also, the childrens book, Love You Forever makes me cry, too, as well as a few poems.
When something makes me cry it's usually because it strikes a nerve. I can't read about someone's struggle with chronic illness/cancer/chronic pain etc without tearing up. I am very affected by my emotions. I'm also highly empathetic. So if someone really delves into how a character is feeling or really illustrates their struggle clearly it usually makes me at least feel something or tear up.
Regular books don't make me cry, I simply just can't get really attached to the characters. As long as it doesn't end badly(not as in someone dying, but actually just a crappy ending), what happens to the characters doesn't make much of a difference to me. Although I will admit that I was crossing my fingers for Paul when he had that final battle with Annie in Misery, but that's about it. To be honest, the only things like books or movies or TV that have ever gotten me choked up(I still haven't cried, but that's only because I try my hardest not to to stay a MANLY MAN), were visual novels and anime. Nothing else has done it for me. Sorry, America.
