Expressing Emotions

[wanderwonder]

Having written a lot of unconvincing charachter interactions in my day, I discovered that the most difficult emotion for me to express in writing is love. I often shy so far away from tears of joy and clasping hands to bosoms that the incredible confession of love and admiration reads like a dialogue between robots.

So, my fellow Lit authors, I have two questions for you:

1) What is the most difficult emotion for you to convey in your stories?

3) Tears of joy, instantaneous love, shaky breaths—when do you slap on the sappy label?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Same here- love, adoration, souls meeting.

I mean, I can say it-- but I can't show it. I think.

I have a friend who can load on the purple prose and make a simple fuck into a galaxy-shattering event. And it makes her fuck stories into some of the most erotic I've ever read-- and I cannot do that. It's as if I don't have the vocabulary to get it across...

maybe I was dropped on my head as a baby?

 

[neonlyte]

I think I have significantly more trouble with male emotion than female emotion, my male 'voices' tend to sound slightly defensive. That may explain why most of my stories lean toward two strong characters, male and female. I'm posting an extract from a work in progress, mystery/romance - I'd be interested particularly in how female readers perceive the character.

For my part, I was having to learn that trust is absolute and unconditional and not the one sided tract I set out in my ‘rules’ that suited me and placed obligation only on Philip. He had the difficult task of sustaining me, and our unborn child, and listening to my nightly reports and speculations of where I thought this research was all leading. He kept me focussed, and he kept my nightmares at bay. I can lose myself in Philip; making love to him suspends reality and leaves no space for evil dreams. My only desire is to be one with him joined at the hip in ever more delirious bouts of ecstasy. I encourage him to break my inhibitions, to bend my body to his will, to explore with lips and tongue and fingers until I scream out with the pain of pleasure and collapse into a sleep that no dreams might penetrate. I sleep alongside him, I sleep covering him, and in the dead of night I will steal his soul while he sleeps exhausted, coaxing him with fingers and lips, until not knowing if he is asleep or awake his arousal fills me and nurses me back into sleep.

Sacre Coeur is his plea for rest. It is his unspoken request that we break with routine; a hint that I ought confront myself rather than perpetually seek shelter in his arms and in his body. I don’t like the idea. I behave badly, petulant and selfish. I accuse him of not loving me; I charge him with using me for his own self-gratification, of pouring his seed into my body without love, without feeling. I accuse him of anything and everything until, at last, he becomes angry and the pent-up frustration he’s stored away in an attempt to protect me breaches like a dam. His brief fury falls upon me clearing the mist from his eyes and finally piercing the image of ‘perfect’ he’s held from that first day. I need him to see me as I am, naked and exposed, desperate for the nightmares to be over that we might continue our lives untroubled. I want him to expose his fear, to understand that I’ll always always be at his side, that we, together, can surmount any obstacle. His tears wet my breast as I comfort him; I stroke his straw coloured hair, whispering all the while of my utter and complete love for him. We’ve turned a corner and I agree to go with him to Sacre Coeur.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I don't know if I can show two people crashbang in love like that.

You mean the story opens and there's John and Marsha and they're crazy in love with each other and how do you show that? And you're in third person looking from the outside? I don;t know if I would even try that. Love is doing.

Love is also hurting. People in love hurt a lot and are always healing each other. In fact, sometimes I think that's what love really is, a constant wound only the beloved can heal. You see them when they're apart they're all agitated and crazy. When they're together it's like they''re blissed out on morphine - in love. It's terrible.

 

[English Lady]

You know, it's funny but emotions I do't deal well in life (anger, depression, sadness, longing) and find difficult to express I seem to have no problem with in my fiction.

I'm going to sooooooooo sound big-headed now, but I can't think of an emotion I can't convey in my writing and I am sure someone will come along and point one out for me

Perrsonally, I have more trouble with the technical side of writing than the inspirational style, if I ever learn to spell and you know, use that weird grammar stuff I'll be on for world domination!

With my stories I tend to "day dream" them through first, so I feel the emotions before I write them down, it seems to make it easier for me, doing that.

 

[Liar]

1) What is the most difficult emotion for you to convey in your stories?

Horniness. That "god damn I wanna fuck something"-tug.

I can't ever write it whithout it turning into a Benny Hill skit.

 

[The_Fool]

I don't know if I can show two people crashbang in love like that.

You mean the story opens and there's John and Marsha and they're crazy in love with each other and how do you show that? And you're in third person looking from the outside? I don;t know if I would even try that. Love is doing.

Love is also hurting. People in love hurt a lot and are always healing each other. In fact, sometimes I think that's what love really is, a constant wound only the beloved can heal. You see them when they're apart they're all agitated and crazy. When they're together it's like they''re blissed out on morphine - in love. It's terrible.

I think there is a blurt in there. Making up in the aftermath of a big blowup.

 

[only_more_so]

Having written a lot of unconvincing charachter interactions in my day, I discovered that the most difficult emotion for me to express in writing is love. I often shy so far away from tears of joy and clasping hands to bosoms that the incredible confession of love and admiration reads like a dialogue between robots.

So, my fellow Lit authors, I have two questions for you:

1) What is the most difficult emotion for you to convey in your stories?

3) Tears of joy, instantaneous love, shaky breaths—when do you slap on the sappy label?

I never try to convey emotions, I convey actions and then let the reader supply the requisite emotions. I often know what I'm trying to convey, but I don't try too hard. I write what needs to be said to get the point across, and then leave it there.

 

[TE999]

I have no real problem conveying emotions in my stories...especially love.

To paraphrase a Fleetwood Mac lyric---I make love fun.

Laughing, happy, carefree, a so damn glad we found each other love.

And the same goes for the sex--lotsa fun there too.

I have been taken to task for the relative brevity of my sex scenes, however.

I'm working on that.

 

[Frank Noir]

Horniness. That "god damn I wanna fuck something"-tug.

I can't ever write it whithout it turning into a Benny Hill skit.

Woah. That's about the only emotion there is in my stories. Whoch of course doesn't prove that I'm any good at writing it...