Hello guys. Me - I am very private with my emotions. But I have to admit movies above all interact with me on a deeper level. They even can sometimes make me cry. I have yet to find a book that makes me feel these sort of emotions. The one that really came close was "1984" which is really a masterpiece. Has anyone reading this ever cried while reading a fictional book or has he/she made anyone cry with his own story (if you have a few lines from it would be nice) ?
I cried a little the other night when I read The Giving Tree to my nieces. Also, Where the Red Fern Grows makes it pretty dusty in the onion cutting room.
Any book centered around the Holocaust usually has me blubbering at some point...but that's a sensitive topic for me anyway. And books with animals as a main character...White Fang, Frosty: A Raccoon to Remember, Black Beauty...I can't really even read those anymore because they give me nightmares - same with movies...not just the ones like Old Yellar and Marley & Me...I even felt bad for Cujo. So those I just avoid now, lol. My own work has never made anyone cry because I haven't shared them much. My memoir has choked me up in a few spots but that's because it's like forcing myself to relive certain moments. Hopefully someday it'll resonate with others and choke them up, too.
Yes, I have. Both although it takes a lot to make me cry either with films or books but, blowing my own trumpet here, things that I've written have made other people cry, or so they tell me. One of my test readers went through half a loo roll when she test-read the ending to one of my novels and another one told me that I was the only author to take her from laughing at my character one minute to crying and feeling his pain only five minutes later. I take these messages I get from my readers as huge compliments because at the end of the day, that's what I'm after, for my readers to feel a connection with my characters. I feel that connection every time I write (and every time I hear them squabbling in my head) so to be able to make my readers feel that connection too, is a massive thing for me.
I've self published two. First was a true story (about what hubs and I went through to adopt kids, actually, there's one single part in that book where even if I think about that day, I cry) Then I self published my first fiction which has been out since July 2013. I'm currently working on my second fiction book, I have very loosely started a third fiction book and I have plans for a second true life, if I can ever get my research underway! Incidentally, the bit that makes me cry = hubs and I spent two years going through the motions of being approved as adopters. We then met the children we were going to adopt which is followed by two intense weeks of getting to know the kids and their foster parents, days out, meetings, social workers, conversations and plenty of coffee not to mention moving the kids' stuff from one house to another. On the final day, the day you bring them home, the plan is ... at pre-arranged time, you turn up at the foster carers house, you don't speak, you simply pick up the kids, get in the car and go! It's that clinical. From the moment the foster mum opened the door, I started crying. She cried, the foster dad tried his best, but then he cried, then my hubs cried! (oh god, I'm actually crying now!) So we got them in the car and set off home. It should've been the happiest day of my life - instead, I spent the whole journey in tears. The kids, one at 6 years and the other at 22 month old, just sat quite happily in the back of the car with smiles on their faces!
Not all tears are from sadness! I am interested - how did your books do in terms of sales? Because self-publishing is my goal too. Can you say you make nice profit?
I can say I make a profit! I can't give up my day job but for me, I just have stories to tell and if someone out there likes them (and so far, half a ton of people have) then that's OK by me.
I don't have beta readers, so no I've never made anyone cry with my writing. If you feel like crying, though, read that Robert Munsch book, Love You Forever. It could make sand paper weep.
TRUTH! I got that for my parents before I left to move across the country for college...one of the only times I've ever seen my dad cry.
I made my teacher cry. She read one of my short stories... Otherwise if you like to be emotionally challenged watch Hachi. It's not a book though, but I cried like a little baby...
A number of books have made me cry. Fault in Our Stars made me cry at 3 separate sections, so bad that I actually asked my husband to stop what he's doing and come hold me lol. The tragedy that happened at the end of the Hunger Games trilogy made me cry. The ending to I think it was called 8 Thousand Ways to Die by Lawrence Block made me cry - perhaps that's the most unexpected actually. It wasn't a tragedy, no one died. All that happened was the MC says, as the final line to the novel, "I'm an alcoholic." And my eyes misted up. Up until that line I hadn't realised just how well established his alcoholism was in the book and how much it meant to me to see him recover. IMO, that's probably that bit more masterfully done precisely because it made me cry using rather unconventional and extremely subtle ways. It crept up on me, and that line somehow meant so much. Now bear in mind this was a crime novel so the active story wasn't even on his personal life lol. Anyway - as for my own stories - well, no one's ever read my current novel in full yet, not this version anyway. However, when I was 15 and studying my GCSEs, we had to write a piece of creative writing - the opening to a story based upon a painting the teacher gave us. I wrote an American mystery. My teacher took it in and then a little while later - I'll never forget this - he came to me all excited and said something on the lines of, "This is amazing, I couldn't stop reading. It's so good I had to show my wife!" I remember how excited he was too lol. So, I didn't make anyone cry. But hey, that teacher's reaction was nonetheless precious to me I was very proud of myself lol.
I've even cried whilst writing my own stuff (and I posted a thread about it here). From what I can remember I also made my mum cry once, but as part of my writing career, but because of an email I sent her last year that I sent to her and my dad, brother and sister about me leaving university to start my writing career. She's quite an emotional person and so got very emotional about the whole thing (I hadn't been too happy at uni and I had to make some huge changes in my life, but while it wasn't really anything too big and things certainly worked out really well in the end, she kind of misinterpreted me and felt sorry for me and whatnot). In hindsight this is quite funny to me personally (to the extent that your mother crying can ever be funny), as all four I sent the email to reacted in very different ways (and, honestly, quite stereotypical ones): Mother: Crying, feeling very sad for and supportive of me, causing it to bring me down rather than help me get past it. Father: Replied only with asking for the two of us to meet as quickly as possible to discuss what opportunities I had for the future, with the implication that he thought I wasn't being the tough son he wanted me to be and that he wanted me to redecide and actually finish university. Sister: "Hey, cool, I'm sympathetic to you if you've had a hard time, let's hang out and talk about all the usual stuff we talk about, or we could talk about this and what your plans are now if you tell me you want to, else I'll pretend it never happened." Brother: "Good for you, bro, I'll always be there if you need me, man." and that was it Sorry about the slightly digressed nature of this post.
My current WIP which is a Military romance fiction has made one of my Beta Readers cry. His exact opening comment was "So touching that I, a Cold-Hearted Grown Man, cried" Which I took at face value, then worked with his critique to improve upon the work. The body of work involves a fictional military group that is involved in a mission that goes horribly wrong, are kept as POW's for a week, and during that time, the only survivor is traumatized to the point where she develops DID, or an alternate personality, to handle the trauma. The remainder of the story deals with the alternate personality, which becomes the primary, and how she experiences life and romance with her personal hero and the road to her own redemption.
I made three of my beta readers cry. Oddly (or perhaps not?), they all cried at different points in the story (and these were even at different points that I personally found emotional to write). So while it was gratifying to be able to elicit such emotions from people, you can only write what is meaningful to you and hope it also touches someone else in the same way.
Men who don't cry store their tears in their brains which eventually become waterlogged! Apologies but I just had to reply with that. Said with love x
I rarely cry and I find it offensive that others insist on imposing their own emotional states upon me by insisting that I should. I never write to make readers cry, although of course I have no idea if some reader of my books was inspired to do so by something I wrote.
i was asked to read one of my poems at a gatthering to commemorate the hiroshima/nagasaki bombings, in santa rosa, california some years ago... it made me cry as i read it and many in the audience came up to me afterwards to tell me it had the same effect on them and to thank me for it... here it is: Motherly Love: Exercises in Futility Each motherless child, every childless mother... I clutch you all to my ample breast when war's winds blow wild and you have no other soft place for your head to rest. Each poor butchered bone, every eyeless socket... I wash you all with my endless tears, would happily loan what you need from my pocket, but it's been empty for years. Each blackened tree limb, every dying river... I do what I can to restore your life but I can't stop him.. "man," that Indian-giver, from putting you all to his knife. Each love that ends, every heart that's broken.. I gather up in these mother's arms as my own heart rends wishing words, just spoken, could save you from his cruel charms. Each of you dies holding hands or alone... I'm beaten down, my soul rage fills when I hear your cries, know no love of my own can match man's need for thrills... so he kills... and he kills... and he kills... ...i'm often told that many of the works on my website have left readers in tears, as well... and those admissions come from both men and women... which is when i know i'm doing something right...
The poem The Harper by Thomas Campbell always brought a tear to my eye. As for my own writing - no I don't think so, hopefully I've made them think or scared them a bit, but chiefly I'd like to think I made them laugh or brought a smile to their face at least. If you want a good cry #the film The Day They Gave Babies Away should do the trick.
Don't let the title put you off. It is a poignant film about an orphaned family - the eldest child sets about finding good homes in the neighbourhood for his siblings, so they won't have to go into care. I saw this film at the cinema, even the usherette was crying and she said she had seen the film twice daily for almost a week.
