I'm in the middle of a project now, and it's...well, big, but I'll post about it later once I'm closer to needing betas. In any case, I'm going through a scene where I'm dragging my metaphorical feet because I'm having too many emotions. One of my supporting characters is a prisoner of one of his nation's enemies, and he's having a PTSD episode right in front of the man that captured him. I'm confident about the story in a writing sense, but the scene is just really heavy, because the character is beginning to realize that he isn't cured, and his revelation comes with humiliation in front of someone he very much does not trust -- but is also a person that can help him. It's just...I feel so intensely about this scene that it makes me nervous. Not even about getting the scene right, but just in general. Just watching this guy have his whole self-view upended is so enjoyably distressing that it makes me nervous and I'm not writing as much as I should. I'm pressing on as best I can, but still. Does this happen to anyone else?
I think if you don't feel your story, your readers won't, as well. Feel passionately about your work, and you won't be able to help your words not carrying that feeling. The other way is surely more difficult: Making words transfer passion when you're not excited about them.
Sometimes the heaviest scene is the best way to show something. You should have a lot of emotions about it, it means you're going to do it some justice. If you didn't care then it would show in your writing
I’ve never felt that intensely about my stories. With my attempts at a novel I’ve always grown bored or become irritated by my characters/story before it’s really begun. I sometimes really do wonder why I ever wanted to be a writer. The older I get the more I dislike the whole process. I mean, be honest. It’s a bit shit, isn’t it?
Completely agree. Although Stephen King provides something of a counter-argument when he describes how hard it was writing 'Carrie', how unfamiliar he was with the material, how unconfident he felt about it from start to finish - yet publishers and more importantly the public loved it - enough to make 2 film versions (that I'm aware of). However, I often wonder if this feeling heightened passion for and belief in what one is writing are a problem when an author does well with one publication, and gets commissioned to write another on the strength of that, but the inspiration is just not there. Sometimes I've been mesmerised about one book (or film) so think I need to read every book written by this author, only to find the subsequently volumes are let-downs. This led me to (simplistically) theorise that 'each person only has one good book/ story in them'. Again this is rebutted by the likes of Stephen King, Catherine Cookson, Enid Blyton etc. But I do think it holds for some people. Me, for example. Only one story and one set of characters (of my own creation) I'm excited by, besotted with. No others have entered my head.
To add, author's passion can cross over into theme. The best stories resonate with us far longer than it took us to read the book. They're timeless and we're a different person after having read them. They teach. If an author creates not only characters the reader emphasis with and an engrossing plot but a resonating theme in which he believes in, his story will have every chance of getting read.
Well, the problem comes in when you feel so strongly, it's just too much to want to go on. It's an emotional part that I know readers will really enjoy and I'm confident in my ability to write it, but....the feels, y'all. It's so intense it's almost like being there in person. Just watching the guy be humiliated in front of an enemy -- an enemy who happens to be very understanding. Honestly, the whole brotherhood of war thing really appeals to me as a concept. It means that even when people are on opposite sides, they still have enough things in common to relate to one another.
I can't say I've felt so intensely about my stories that I struggled to keep writing, but I do understand the feeling of being emotionally connected in your own creations in some manner. In fact, I find that the most emotionally difficult scenes are the easiest for me to write, because it resonates so strongly that I'm eager to work on it. Slow scenes are where it becomes a struggle for me.
