Crying from your own work

[SmilingLez]

My micro fiction story, Friday's writing challenge, brought me to tears. The MC was picking out a dress for her mother to be buried in. Also, violently killing my main character in my flash fiction story Under the Sea, brought me to tears

 

[anthrodisiac]

Moving the reader isn't always a goal, and it doesn't have to be a goal in good writing.

But I am more than capable of doing so. I have done so, quite frequently. My characters have always been one of my stronger suits in my writing. I've made up for my inability to feel what other people feel by very deeply studying the human condition and interactions, interpersonal connection, crawling around inside these characters's minds and understanding them on a very deep level. Emotion is one of the most important aspects of my writing, making something evocative, no matter how small.

It's like any other discussion around writing: there's more than one way to do it. You can induce emotion and creative deeply evocative characters without having any idea what they look like (I'm also borderline aphantasic) or feel their feelings. I know what they ought to feel, what they are feeling, I just don't feel it alongside them. I have emotions, I can feel FOR them, but I can't put myself in someone else's shoes like most people can. Sympathy, not empathy.

 

[yano2mch]

I'm sitting here bawling my eyes out and needing a break after writing the most intensely emotional scene I've ever penned. In it, a character is confronting extreme trauma and abuse from their past. I was REALLY in the writing headspace, that perfect flow where the characters are almost writing you, rather than vice-versa. The zone every writer wishes they could summon at will.

Then, without even consciously planning it, a line popped out that stopped me dead. The classic line of pretty much every abuse victim: "It was my fault."

<snip>

Has this ever happened to any of you?

Yes. When you RP as a character long enough, that character takes a spot in your head and becomes their own individual. Then you find yourself just typing as that character themselves take over saying how the response would go. And... you have no control over it, it just happens, tears streaming down your face.

Bit of background, i used F-list for some years, probably since 2008. Anyways, a character i had being non-human was a Monstrous Spider Girl. Background being a type of mixed anthro species school setting or something. She gets involved with <Other character>, and ends up using her venom to enhance a scene. Next day she realizes she almost killed her friend and uses a proxy tool to find out how close she was to it, then almost fell apart crying.

Rarely do i get to play a character long enough where they are a separate entity in my head. Think it was like a month of 10 hour RPing sessions.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Bit of background, i used F-list for some years, probably since 2008. Anyways, a character i had being non-human was a Monstrous Spider Girl. Background being a type of mixed anthro species school setting or something

*perks up*

 

[Stanfield2025]

Moving the reader isn't always a goal, and it doesn't have to be a goal in good writing.

I mean, what's the point then?

 

[gtnlynn]

I do a lot of teaching and speaking on various topics. There have been a few times when someone has pointed out something I have said or written, telling me how it affected them. I am amazed that I wrote it. One person even asked for a copy and had a calligrapher make a work of art based on my words. I look at that art and I am moved every time I see it.

 

[NotWise]

I mean, what's the point then?

Here? A large part of the point is just arousal. You can also interest them, amuse them, educate them ...

 

[liliput1]

Yes. When you RP as a character long enough, that character takes a spot in your head and becomes their own individual. Then you find yourself just typing as that character themselves take over saying how the response would go. And... you have no control over it, it just happens, tears streaming down your face.

Bit of background, i used F-list for some years, probably since 2008. Anyways, a character i had being non-human was a Monstrous Spider Girl. Background being a type of mixed anthro species school setting or something. She gets involved with <Other character>, and ends up using her venom to enhance a scene. Next day she realizes she almost killed her friend and uses a proxy tool to find out how close she was to it, then almost fell apart crying.

Rarely do i get to play a character long enough where they are a separate entity in my head. Think it was like a month of 10 hour RPing sessions.

I suspect there's very little difference between fleshing out a fictional character in your head and the parasocial relationships people have developed forever but more broadly and frequently in the social media era. There's a cluster of neurons you've dedicated to imagining how a person would react to flowers, or a hug after bad news, or an inappropriate joke. That celebrity isn't any more real to you than the third supporting character in your story.