Emotions and themes

[cherrylips_au]

I guess this has been asked before but do you consider emotion and theme for your work an important part of the plot?

Or do you work on that after finishing the story?

Or not even consider what theme and emotions you want the reader to experience?

How do you define the emotions you wish the reader to experience?

 

[Guest]

I guess this has been asked before but do you consider emotion and theme for your work an important part of the plot?

Or do you work on that after finishing the story?

Or not even consider what theme and emotions you want the reader to experience?

How do you define the emotions you wish the reader to experience?

I think emotion drives the plot of the story for me. The last few stories I've written I've projected myself into my character and acted out story in my mind as I write it. I cannot help but put my emotion into what write. Does it make for better writing? I don't know, but there is more depth and realism and that's what I'm striving to write.

As for how emotion is defined in writing I believe word choice and usuage plays high in defining emotion in literary work.


|neonurotic|



My Stories

 

[PoliteSuccubus]

Emotion drives a story for me.

Without conflict there is no story, without climax there is no release, with no emotion there is no reason for the characters to do anything or the readers to care.

Theme is something, to me, totally diff and I wondered why you grouped them together. There are very few truly themeless stories. Novels, yes, maybe a few, but not stories. Theme is the frame which we build to hang the emotions upon. And plot is the map we use to deilver it. However, I've found, a few of my stories have been lacking in plot. lol.

 

[Wicked-N-Erotic]

I don't really think about it as I'm writting. Already knowing the ending in my head, my only goal so to speak, is to set up the twists that I tend to put into most of my stories and for the reader to be surprised and not have seen it coming. Emotions, I just really don't think about it, they are essential but seem to flow naturally for me. Theme is also something that just takes care of itself as I start writing.

 

[Chicklet]

the very reason i start most of my stories is an emotional inspiration

not for the reader, though. for the character.

for instance, the last story i wrote this weekend is about a girl who is asked by an exboyfriend to join him and his fiance in the bedroom. she agrees, but ends up really, really hurt. the theme for the story was her hurt, and the whole story was building up to her unhappiness and a sad ending. i woke up in the night with the image of someone crying in bed, and so i wrote the story for that character.

i hope that my readers feel sympathy and empathy for my characters when they read such stories.

Chicklet

 

[karmadog]

Personally, I don't start with a theme. I tend to realize after I'm done, or rather during the editing process, what the story was a really about. Then I'll adjust certain things, change some wording, edit things out that don't advance the theme, add things that I feel do advance the theme.

Emotions? I figure if I take care of what the characters are feeling, the readers will go along for the ride, but I will try to tweak my tone (primarily through word choice and sentence structure) to emphasize what a character is feeling.

 

[Whispersecret]

I'm with karmadog on this one. My theme becomes apparent afterward. Then I go back and strengthen it.

 

[TheEarl]

I rarely consider theme. It's not somethign that really enters my work. Emotion however is a different matter. We are writing what is effectively a branch of romance stories and without emotion, the characters are dead to the reader.

Even my worst story (One Cup Of Coffee for the morbidly interested. I bet you stop to look at car crashes too ) is liked by at least one person (not generalised, there is one person who really likes that story and has said so), simply because she understood the emotions of the male character. The female character doesn't have much to say and you don't learn much about her. But if you understand what my male character is thinking, then you know why he does things. And that brings the story alive, no matter how amateurish the writing.

The Earl