How to write an emotionally-compelling scene

 

 

Every good story evokes some emotions in the reader. A sad and tragic tale makes the reader cry while a happy and cheerful one makes the reader joyous and fulfilled. Authors are indeed super humans with their pens. How a trail of ink could trace the letters and words that could move a cold human heart. It takes effort to weave a tale that has interwoven strands of tragedy, happiness and comedy.

Everyone loves to have a good and hearty laugh. Some people also look for tragic tales to have a good cry. Some absolutely adore a good piece of drama (I personally love drama but not in real-life). The essence of a good book lies in how much they were able to touch the reader’s emotions, how much the characters resonated with the readers. After all, all books are the results of the inspiration authors had while looking at people in real-life. Also, readers like to humorously quote that authors love killing off their characters and have a cup of tea with the devil right after words. I shall debunk that by saying no. We feel devastated and ruined even before we manage to put together the entire scene.

It is a challenging task to write in depth about a powerful scene in your story. You may fumble with your words and find it difficult to accurately describe the scenery of the place where the scene is taking place.

In this guide, we will explore the tips and tricks needed to infuse your story with emotion:

 

• ·  Know Your Characters : your characters carry the entire plot so it is very important to make sure you have given them a proper purpose in the story. Readers will always be drawn towards your story by your characters so you must put in the effort to make them memorable. The more you know about them, the better you can convey their emotions in a genuine way.

• ·  Show, Don't Tell : don’t just narrate the entire story. Make use of dialogues, locations and timings for those scenes. Let the body language and the actions of the characters speak for themselves. Let the reader feel the emotions by being shown and not told.

• ·  Use Vivid Descriptions : describing scenery is one of the best parts of a story, for me at least. It is challenging too because we have heard so many books being like ‘the golden rays of the sun bathed the city in orange light’ and ‘the moon glistened like an orb in the velvety darkness of the sky’. But no matter how much you may have read these lines in different variations, they still have a subtle ring of artistry and beauty in them. It adds more life to the story when you tickle the senses of your readers.

• ·Create Tensions and conflict : Build tension in the scene to heighten emotions. This can be achieved through conflicts, unresolved issues, or impending events. Build up the tension like a dam so that when you break it, all those emotions hit the reader like the raging water!

•  Pacing : don’t rush the story. Take the example of your real life situations. Readers are straight-forward but they still won’t like it if you present your work in a too straight-forward manner. We all like a little spice and a little bit of time to prolong the story. Set the stage for the emotional scene by building anticipation. Allow the emotional impact to grow gradually, so when it finally hits, it has a more significant effect.

• ·Conflict and Resolution : Introduce conflicts that resonate with readers on an emotional level. Whether it's internal or external conflict, the resolution should be satisfying and emotionally resonant.

• ·Use Personal experiences  : Draw from your own experiences and emotions to infuse authenticity into the scene. If you've felt a similar emotion, you can convey it more convincingly. Try to use wording that evokes the readers’ emotions so that they can empathize with the characters.

The entire setting, mood, dialogue and characters connect with the reader at certain plot points. 

The Hunger Games trilogy is a good example of a well-written dystopian book that explores the mindset of people living under oppression and war. The author doesn’t hold back and is bold with her character deaths. She gives the protagonist more to love and simultaneously tries to tear it all down. The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, is scared for the life of her family and her District. It is all a very vivid and bloody description of the character’s deteriorating mental health upon losing someone close to her while at the same time, delivering little shots of moral and truth: like wildflowers growing upon weeds.

 

It’s always books like these that leave a lasting impression on readers. Some books are great and all but are entirely forgettable. If a book manages to hook the reader through their emotions and take them through the entire story, the reader ends up crying out of joy and sadness at the emotional rollercoaster they just went through. A Silent Voice is a movie that portrays the themes of bullying, suicide and disabilities. While films cannot replicate the emotions of a book entirely, this movie, however, will never fail to touch your heart. It talks about a bullied deaf girl meeting with her former bully at the same high-school. The realistic way with which it is shown how the bully has profound and unexpressed regret for bullying her is immaculate and makes you truly feel for the poor guy.

There are a ton of other things that help you with storytelling but for starters, you can begin with these. Writing an emotional scene takes time, energy and can even suck away at your own emotions too. To write something painful, you need to first experience that by yourself before the words come to mind (I don’t mean stabbing yourself to know how it feels like to stabbed). You need to keep reading other works and explore those authors’ writing styles.