I want to make people cry

Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by huskies, Dec 20, 2016.

  1. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

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    Write about things people can identify with. Even if your talking about omniwhales on the multi-deminsional sub-planet of Quatzel, make those whales have stomach pain.

    Have a Godwhale struggle with their only child, who can't access the dimension of love. The whale watches it's disabled son, wanting to love him, treat him well and cherish him, but always feel doubt. Does he wish his son had just died? What is life without love? Will he, as a father, ever love his son as much as he should?

    Maybe the father never could access the dimension of love either, he only thought he could because loving a perfectly formed whale is easy. It wasn't until it was hard to love something that he realized that he never understood love at all. His love was selfish, and hollow; Love of convienence and self-actualization. Really giving love, really loving someone who will never be able to love you back... He just doesn't think it's fair.
     
  2. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    Well, I was just doing it as a hobby before. I better up my game.
     
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  3. watermark

    watermark Member

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    Oddly, a recent scene that made me cry was one I think wasn't supposed to be sad at all.

    It's part of the end war scene in the fantasy The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I'm gonna keep it vague so as not to spoil it for anyone. In that scene, how the spear wielding MC made the "final decision" was so noble that it moved me, because he had so much to lose and nothing to gain. Yet he chose the right path. It's a triumph of humanity over our baser instincts.

    I think it was moving because the author made that choice believable. He didn't just come out and say oh this MC is a nice guy so that's what he would do, as the readers would just go so what. Instead he devoted chapters and chapters (you could say the whole book) building up to this one single moment. All the little things about this character came together in that one scene. And it worked for me.
     
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  4. Arcadeus

    Arcadeus Senior Member

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    Instead of a person...

    Why not an animal the MC grew up with. Killing that would have more effect on the average person due to our twisted innocence towards animals.
     
  5. Arcadeus

    Arcadeus Senior Member

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    I almost cried when a certain character was in a certain jail, and a certain creature was becoming mindless due to said character.

    -Helplessness is a great tactic for sadness. Make something sad happen, but make the person powerless to stop it.
     
  6. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    I'd be careful trying to evoke any sort of emotion in the reader. Those things need to happen organically. Readers, despite the evidence to the contrary, are really sharp when it comes to things like this. They can tell when you're trying to rub their faces in emotional poo. Half the time I end up laughing when they try to make me feel sad, or fall asleep when they're trying to be disturbing. They'll see right through it if you set out to make somebody feel a certain away instead of creating an honest and genuine story.
     
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  7. Arcadeus

    Arcadeus Senior Member

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    If you want to make someone sad, you have to take them on a rollercoaster of emotions and then smack them in the back of the head with the sadness.
    Depending on your writing style this can come mechanically or fluid.
    For myself, it is mechanically. I will take each scene and write the emotion that is most strongly associated with it. It helps me arrange scenes in ways that will have the most effect/character change.
    I will graph the events, and measure possible reader attachment.

    That's not to say that because you write very mechanically you can't have fluid moments, and vice-versa. I have known a moment in a scene was happy/funny/sad/upsetting because it made me smile/laugh/cry/angry as I was writing it. There are definitely times when the situations tend to write themselves.
     
  8. newjerseyrunner

    newjerseyrunner Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    I find stories about animals far sadder than any about humans. Where the Red Fern Grows and Old Yeller immediately comes to mind for me.

    Also The Futurama episode Jurassic Bark. It's one of the more acclaimed and favorite episodes of the series, but I don't think I've ever actually seen it played on tv. I'm fairly certain that's done on purpose because people tune out to avoid watching the ending.
     
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  9. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Old Yeller. Probably my overall favourite book of all time. It's so simply written, yet carries so much within it. It's a classic coming-of-age story. Not the movie, BTW. The book. The movie missed a lot of what the book was about. And it completely changed the climax.

    In the movie, Travis has to kill his dog because the dog was bitten by a rabid wolf and got rabies. There was that scene, with the erstwhile cheery and loving Yeller locked in the shed, snarling at Travis, obviously rabid, and a weeping Travis taking a long time to steel himself to pull the trigger. In the book, Travis has to kill his dog because the dog had been bitten by a rabid wolf, and might get rabies. Travis had to walk up to the dog that he loved—the dog, at that time, was perfectly okay—put the gun to its head and unceremoniously pull the trigger. Which he did.

    I said in an earlier post on this thread that stoicism is much more likely to pull my emotional strings than weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. This books epitomises how stoicism can be nearly unbearable. I've had people laugh at me when I say how much I value Old Yeller, and accuse me of being sentimental. They have either not read the book themselves, or totally missed the point. The book is about NOT being sentimental. It's about doing what needs to be done to ensure survival, no matter how much it hurts.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
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