Today’s guest is Harrison Demchick, an award-winning, twice-optioned screenwriter, and author of the literary horror novel The Listeners. Harrison came up in the world of small press publishing, working along the way on more than three dozen published novels and memoirs. An expert in manuscripts as diverse as young adult, science-fiction, fantasy, mystery, literary fiction, women’s fiction, memoir, and everything in-between, Harrison is known for quite possibly the most detailed and informative editorial letters in the industry.
Of his post today, Harrison says: “My job, as an editor, is to help writers. Most of the time, I’m only able to do that on a one-on-one basis with clients. The advantage of a guest blog like this is that I can reach a lot of writers, and maybe provide them some advice that will help them through their next draft. I love the art and craft of writing. I understand how and why it works. It’s why I do what I do, and I’m not doing my job unless I can convey that clearly to writers everywhere, whether they be current or future clients or simply readers of a terrific blog.”
Harrison is currently accepting new clients in fiction and memoir at the Writer’s Ally, and you can also connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.
[pullquote]“Harrison’s honesty and knowledge blew me away and opened my eyes to so many possibilities. He put me on a path that has made me feel so much more confident as a writer, and thanks to him, I am proud to release my first book, Renhala. Thank you, Harrison, for without your guidance, I’d still be biting my fingernails, sitting in front of the computer in a puddle of anxiety.” – Amy Joy Lutchen, author of Renhala[/pullquote]What the Incredible Hulk Can Teach Us about Emotion in Fiction
Like Tony Stark, I am a huge fan of the way Bruce Banner loses control and turns into an enormous green rage monster.
There’s a lot to love about it, whether from the standpoint of the Hulk as an enduring comic book character or in terms of the special effects wizardry that led to some of the very best scenes in the Joss Whedon-written/directed Avengers. But what I love especially is what the Hulk can teach us about the importance of reaction when it comes to establishing conflict and tension in a manuscript.
When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Hulk in 1962, they were establishing not only a fascinating action-fueled take on the Jekyll/Hyde dichotomy, but also a paean to that classic rule of writing: Show, don’t tell. As much as the Hulk may say it, the Hulk’s very existence on page or screen shows that he is very, very angry.
But suppose we didn’t see the Hulk. Suppose we stuck with plain old ordinary Bruce Banner. And suppose that, in the next scene, Banner were to say, “Boy, I was really angry back there.” As readers and viewers, we wouldn’t really buy it, would we? In good writing, we as readers are meant to experience the same emotional highs and lows as the characters of whom we read, but if Banner’s anger is only told—if we never see him turn into the Hulk, or even struggle not to—then that anger doesn’t feel real.
Readers take their emotional cues from your characters, and it’s crucial to remember this as you build the scenes that comprise your manuscript. If your protagonist’s mother dies, but your characters don’t appear to react to it, then you can’t expect readers to feel a sense of loss. If your protagonist discovers she’s passed the bar, but shows no joy, then you can’t expect this plot point to carry with it any sense of triumph. When your characters don’t react to the things that happen to them, what you signal to the reader is that these things aren’t important. If they’re not significant to the character, why should they be significant to us?
And this has a dramatic impact upon conflict and tension. Conflict emerges from obstacles standing in the way of your protagonist attaining what she wants and needs. Failure to react to those obstacles emotionally, or otherwise for that matter, indicates the absence of want or need on the part of the character—or at the very least that these wants and needs aren’t worth getting worked up about. No effort to succeed means no conflict. No fear of failure means no tension.
But let’s be realistic: You can’t have every character transforming into an enormous green rage monster every time something goes wrong. Most characters don’t wear their emotions on their quickly torn sleeves the way Bruce Banner does, and if they did, the resulting story would be pretty exhausting. Too much reaction dulls the impact when something genuinely serious transpires.
Yet you do need to show how your characters feel. I recently edited a fantasy novel in which the protagonist and his army were fighting a war against supernatural entities. Following each of the first three battles, the narration would describe how angry the protagonist had been, whether due to the loss of life or the incompetence of the battle plan. And each time, it was unconvincing, because during those battles, there was no indication at all, shown or told, of the protagonist’s anger. A delayed reaction might as well be no reaction at all.
So what do you do? You determine the reaction that best fits your individual character. Bruce Banner Hulks out. But maybe your character gets very quiet when angry. Maybe she overreacts to something else entirely. Maybe she watches Survivor or intentionally overcooks her burgers. Maybe the reaction is small and maybe it’s big, but whatever it is, it’s right there in the moment, clear and shown so that readers can feel it. And with that, readers remain with your character, part of the emotional experience and resulting conflict and tension.
In other words, all characters need a monster in them. It may not be an enormous green rage monster, but it is, like the Hulk, an uncontrolled emotional response. These responses are crucial in making our characters human. And as cues, they make the reader part of your character’s life the way they could never be otherwise. Then we get conflict, and tension, and a genuinely engaging character with a genuinely engaging story.
What are some ways—big or small—that you show your characters’ emotions?
Good post, Harrison. I’ve had to change the way I display emotions since I began writing YA and middle-grade. Even between a 12 year-old and 16 year-old, the way they display emotions is vastly different. With my middle-grade characters, anger is often displayed outwardly, what we might call a tantrum, or just yelling. An older teenager is high-drama. “Unfair” is a favorite expression of anger. For the more subtle emotions, like a crush, the classic inability to speak or speaking what the POV character percieves as a long train of utter nonsense are good clues.
I’ve often joked that male writers can’t write emotions because we don’t have any. It’s a bit of a cop-out, but I do think that we are not as in-tune to them as the ladies. It’s hard work for me, but well worth taking the time to do it right.
Thanks, Ron! You’re quite right that age matters. Everything does, really–environment, upbringing, how many absurdly inconvenient things have happened that morning, etc.
My only caution would be assuming that women are intrinsically more in touch with their emotions than men. You don’t want to find yourself writing characters of either gender as stereotypes, focusing on what *a man* or *a woman* would do. It always comes down to the individual character, and what that specific individual would do.
Nicely put. Right at the center of a character’s job description is “to feel,” and that emotion gives him dramatic power as much as it gives Bruce literal power.
We hear a lot about the “scene-sequel” structure these days. But like you said, it isn’t enough to save that “sequel” moment for the regretful Banner and nervous friends if the “scene” of the Hulk knocking things around hasn’t done it justice. The basics matter.
Besides, the better the emotion (and the actions with it) is, the more we *can* do with what comes after it and how it twists up the story. I used the Hulk movies myself once to pin down all the different motives for an antagonist into two basic modes: http:www.KenHughesAuthor.com//everything-i-know-about-evil-i-learned-from-thunderbolt-ross.
But I suppose it really comes down to “You wouldn’t like me when I’m not angry.”
“You wouldn’t like me when I’m not angry.” Why didn’t I think of that? You nailed it, Ken!
Harrison,
I have a 16-yr-old protagonist who has a low flashpoint when she isn’t getting what she wants. But I remember being that age and not having the sophistication to really say what I felt, so I seethed a lot and felt things in my body. Heat, prickles, restlessness and so on. I find myself going there with this character, letting her interior monologue reflect her confusion and frustration. Sort of an inner hulk. But she also has physical ‘tells’ that those who know her can see. She flushes. Her eyes do funny things. You’re saying show, don’t tell, right? I had a boyfriend once who used to tell me his emotions, but I could never see or feel them. Needless to say, we didn’t last long. If he were a book, I never would have finished reading him. Thanks for your post!
Susan, I’m happy to help! And it sounds like you’re handling things just right with that protagonist of yours. The reaction doesn’t need to be *big*, but it needs to be present and it needs to be personal. I’d love to see how you describe the prickles–I know exactly what you mean, but I don’t know if I’ve seen it in writing before.
As an aspiring author, this post is a great help in how to handle “show, don’t tell.” Although we hear it often, sometimes it is much more difficult to implement it on the page. Thank you for clarifying a problem to many.
Happy to do it, Rebecca! Every writer has “show, don’t tell” hammered into their brains pretty quickly, but what makes it tricky is that it means a lot of different things and can be applied a lot of different ways. You can show a scene beautifully, and depict the conflict and stakes clearly, but if the emotions involved aren’t shown as well, neither scene nor story will resonate.
What sort of story are you working on?
Haha, this is so great! I just wrote a post myself about how much I love Bruce Banner (http://fromsarahwithjoy.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-i-love-bruce-banner.html). Marvel has some great things to teach us :)
Sarah
Sarah, Marvel has been teaching me my entire life!
I loved how this so beautifully explained putting life into your characters. In the little bit of writing that I’ve done, I’ve learned the characters often have a life of their own and I’m left out in the cold. It’s my pen, my paper–why aren’t they doing what I say?
My husband was an avid comic reader when he was young. He believes that comics have a lot to teach us.
You can certainly make characters do what you say–but if that’s the only reason they do it, it’s not going to make a lot of sense!
Thanks for reading, Connie!
Something I am playing with in some of my current WIPs is using another character’s POV to describe a second character’s reaction.
For example, one character watching another character react to bad news about something, or recounting how angry someone had been, how it affected them. Or the physical reaction of another, which affects the character currently in POV.
I am finding it challenging (read: fun) to mix that in, but also worried I am not providing enough first-hand depth to the character experiencing the emotion. I know it allows me to provide relationship building plot points between characters, giving them depth as they go, but sometimes I get a sense it feels detached.
So using one characters inner monologue to provide a Show-don’t tell moment of emotion in another character, is this a common technique? Is it something I should avoid, or not over-use? Lots of hmmms over here today.
Thanks for the food-thought fodder!
Caroline, there are no issues with that I can see. Using another character’s perspective intrinsically requires you to pay more attention to physical reaction, and as long as that reaction is there, it should work fine. There are all kinds of ways to depict the emotional experience of a character even when outside their head.