A number of years ago, I attended a writing workshop focused on injecting more emotion into the opening scene of a story. The leader of this workshop, DiAnn Mills, used an effective tool for teaching this writing skill—she tapped into the personal emotions of every writer in the class and encouraged them to pass those emotions on to their fictitious characters. For me, the workshop resulted in a more powerful opening scene, and landed me my first contract.
I can’t expect a reader to form an intimate relationship with a character if I cannot do so myself. Therefore, to that end, I must immerse myself in the character’s past and present situations to determine what circumstances, choices, and environments have attributed to this character’s emotions.
In order for us to establish a friendship, and then see that friendship deepen into a bond, a sharing of experiences, backgrounds, or affinities generally takes place. Best friends can almost read each others thoughts and finish each others sentences. They feel the same pain, joy, fear, worry, and giddiness along with their friend. They think alike, and can accurately predict how their friend will respond or react in any given situation, because they know each other so well. I like to call it “sharing a brain.”
If I want to maintain that closeness with my besties, I must nurture the relationship. Because true friendship isn’t about what my friend can do for me or what I can gain through the association. Being a friend means giving unselfishly—of myself, my time, my emotions— and sharing tears as well as laughter. That is the way friends establish a bond.
Likewise, portraying a realistic character means drawing out the deepest needs, emotions, and desires of that fictional person. If the story creates a circumstance that causes pain, I must care so deeply about my character that I shed tears while I describe her tears. My heart must flutter when my character identifies those feelings of love within her heart. My stomach must tighten into a knot when my character is faced with danger. If I can’t feel anguish for my character, my readers won’t either. That is the depth to which I must know my characters in order to bring them to life on the page.
A narrator standing off-stage, reciting how events are happening, and describing the setting will not convey the same intensity as one who is participating. But if I allow my character to tell the story, she will do so with emotion and connection, because those events are happening TO her, AROUND her, WITH her. She is walking through the midst of the action, not merely observing it from the sidelines.
I have often remembered that workshop I took several years ago. Beyond injecting emotion into my opening scene, I learned I must develop more than a passing acquaintance with my characters. I must spend time getting to know them, who they are, how they think, why they respond the way they do. I must “share a brain” with them and feel what they feel, and then allow them the freedom to be themselves and tell their own story.