Some of my best writing comes out when I’m emotional. When I was in college, one of my old professors said some of my best work came out when I was emotional. Whatever I was feeling, if I allowed it, would end up on the page. She said I was never afraid to let my emotions pour out onto the page and that is a sign of a great writer.
We feel everything so the reader doesn’t have to. The
y can empathize with us, but they don’t have to feel everything. Their body doesn’t ache afterwards; their head doesn’t hurt by putting their head inside the head of someone who was suicidal or someone who might have gone through mutilation. Whether it was self-inflicted or not, we have to feel everything.
Our job as writers is to paint pictures for those reading. Pretend the pages or the computer screen is our blank canvas and start painting. If you believe what you wrote, others will believe it as well. People not only read for an escape, but they read to feel something again. They read to feel happy, to feel sad, to feel angry, to let their own insecurities go, to know that they aren’t alone.
Do your writing justice and feel everything. Every emotion, every heartache, every up and every down, feel it, and your writing will be better for it, and people will love your writing even more because they know what they’re feeling is normal, and that they aren’t alone.
I challenge you to write what you feel. The next time tragedy strikes, take a long, deep breath, know everything will work out and even if you’re shaking and feel like you’re losing out on a huge fight, write. Let everything out.
Till next time!
Ciao!
~ Heather
About Heather Riccio
I’m really glad to hear what your professor said on this subject because I initially began to write as a form of catharsis. Many of the emotions in my first novel, ‘Chasing the Wind’, which is just out on Amazon, are my emotions imagined a bit further. I try to use every emotion I feel now rather than wasting the anger or frustration – it makes me almost grateful for them which seems a bit strange. Great advice, thank you.
[Reply]
I completely agree with your professor, Heather! When I started to write my first book it was two weeks after a health crisis struck close to home. At the time I was a huge stress ball and sitting at the computer calmed me. I’m pretty sure that book would never have been given a contract offer if it hadn’t been a reflection of my raw emotions.
[Reply]
Heather Riccio Reply:
August 16th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
It’s definitely hard to write when encounters strike close to home, but I think that’s when the best writing comes out. To me, it’s scary to confront those emotions and so much easier to bury them. I usually make sure I’m alone when writing in case I need to cry and let it out. I don’t want to have to explain myself, but I feel so much better after I’m done. My emotions are poured out onto the page and it sounds like yours poured out onto the page as well.
[Reply]
I couldn’t agree more!
[Reply]
And then there are those times when you’re not emotional, but your character is… and you have to put yourself in their heads and become that way in order to tell the story. The most difficult book I ever wrote was Close to Home, 4th in my Cutthroat Business mystery series – the dark moment of the five book arc. None of the things that happened to the heroine in that book – out of wedlock pregnancy, miscarriage, misunderstandings, murder – have ever happened to me, but I was wrung as dry as a sponge after writing that book. My reward, of course, is when people tell me it made them cry. I figure I must have channeled something right, to make experiences I’ve never experienced resonnate that well with someone else.
[Reply]
Heather Riccio Reply:
August 16th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
You made them feel everything, which is the best reward of all. You allowed yourself to get so deep into the character that it resonated with people afterwards. Bravo, Jenna!
[Reply]