Emotions II

This is lesson two about how to make emotions stand out.

Hi again.

In the previous lesson we looked at ‘Mansfield Park’ of Jane Austen. You looked at how you felt afterwards, you wrote down these feelings. You then picked up some words and sentences that made you feel that way and tried to explain it. This is what you are going to do today.

Suggestion 1

-Choose either a word or a sentence in your list. Using this word or sentence, try to create a poem,even a short story inspiring yourself from it. Or you can develop it into a paragraph. Post it and try to get feedback from friends on it about how they feel and comparing it with what you wanted them to feel.

Now that you have done this let’s look at a different setting of things. You are going to imagine you are alone in a room, and that it is truely empty but for you.

Suggestion 2

-Use the setting given to you above and describe how you would feel, what you would do. Really try to engulf the reader in your own feelings so that he feels within the story.

This one is really difficult to do. It really demands a lot of concentration, silence, thoughtfulness and discovery of one’s self. One thing that is important when you do your writing and want others involved :

DESCRIBE, DO NOT USE SIMPLE WORDS AND CUT OFF THE EMOTION BY JUMPING FROM ONE SENTENCE TO A DIFFERENT SENTENCE. MAKE THE WRITING SMOOTH.

Example

 Instead of using : ‘He was annoyed.’

Use : ‘ The manner he spoke/The heavy sigh coming from his lips told her he was annoyed.

Try not to use one word to describe it. You have to expand to englobe the reader. Writers who can make the reader be in the story using sentences like ‘He was annoyed’ or ‘She was happy’ and ‘Life was wonderful’ must be skilled for it is very difficult to achieve something like this. I myself wouldn’t be able to—but I’m not reference ! I have noticed, though, that writers sometimes use complex sentences which actually can make a book more interesting. Now that you have—hopefully—understood, let’s try something new.

Suggestion 3

-What do you think a little boy would feel if his red car was stolen away ? (It could also be a little girl whose doll has disappeared. Describe what he/she would feel and who he/she would suspect and why. Try to get into their skin. You could try to use ‘I’.

Try to get feedback on what you wrote. (We’ll talk about feedback and go into detail about it in another course.) What do you feel, what does the little boy/girl feel and what do the readers feel. (Sometimes the writer and character don’t feel the same way, but try to feel the same way as your character.)

Suggestion 4

-Using the same outline as the above, what does your character feel when he realizes that no one has stolen his belongings after all and he/she had misplaced it. What does he do ? Does he go apologize to whomever he accused ? Does he feel bad/happy ?

After  these four suggestion, you will probably be a little weary and perhaps annoyed with the course. Don’t worry, it will give off soon.  This is the end of Emotions. Next time, we’ll work on the setting, and how to make the reader imagine what you imagine.

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