Day 174

Emotional Responses

…

Have you found yourself writing a passage where you have either burst out laughing or shed a tear?

Sometimes, when we are writing certain emotional scenes, that depth of feeling required might actually be a response to something that may have happened to you.

I never thought I could write comedy, because I didn’t believe I had that sort of humour in me. And yet, not so long ago, I was writing a scene where the lines were not meant to be comedic, but just the way the words were going on paper caused me to smile. It was actually something that made me want to write more, if possible, to feed off that first line.

It didn’t quite come as I expected, but over a few days working and reworking, the whole scene came off better than I’d expected, and I was hoping the reader got it.

The same goes for more serious stuff, and I did eventually lean on some of my own feelings on the subject.

But when I was writing it, it was sad, yes, but it didn’t evoke an emotional response.

When I came back to it a few days later, for some odd reason, it did. I actually found tears in my eyes, and I realised that it did hark back to an event where, at the time, it hadn’t affected me, but with more of the story, it did.

Now, writing about my family history and finding out a lot of things I didn’t know about my parents and grandparents, those emotions sometimes run so high, it’s not possible to write. I wonder, when someone finally gets around to reading it, they might have the same feelings.