“I think being able to capture emotion so perfectly that your reader feels everything you [the writer] felt while writing the story plays such a huge key to success. If you can make the reader’s heart race and breath catch, making them feel as though they’re falling in love right along with the characters … or if you can make them grieve and mourn the loss of another, as if the character was someone they knew, then your story will be hard to forget, and just might spread like wildfire.”
—MOLLY MCADAMS, NEW YORK TIMES
BEST-SELLING AUTHOR
Our lives are extraordinary.
Most of us just don’t know it.
Writing women’s fiction and romance celebrates the extraordinary moments that make up our lives. And the best moments are full of emotion.
The joy of a mom looking at her beloved child’s face. The first curl of passion and hope when lips first meet. The raw and aching grief of losing a family member. The shattering pain of a broken heart when you’re left by someone you love. The giggles from your best friend as you drink cocktails and talk about boys. The shaking, petrifying fear of illness. The stunning beauty of the ocean, mountain, or the large, twisted oak tree in your backyard.
Each is simple, yet these are what make up the fabric—the essence—of who we are and the lives we live. This is what we must tap into to make our stories roar to life. Use your experiences and create brushstrokes on the page; channel every type of emotion in your scenes and the words will suddenly pulse with a heartbeat.
If you are not brave enough to face it all, your story’s potential will never reach full bloom.
How do you make sure your book has this type of emotion?
I’ve found emotion is a consistent element in romance, and most authors cite emotion as the key element of a book’s success—and their entire career. Unfortunately, I’ve found emotion to be one of those tricky elements that books either have or don’t, and it’s a bit hard to teach. Sort of like voice.
But let’s try, shall we?
When I’m learning something, I go directly to the masters—the keepers on my bookshelves. We all have those dog-eared, worn paperbacks that you don’t lend out tucked away in a secret file. For some, those shelves are now in digital format, but you can still scroll through your Kindle and pick out the books you’d happily read all over again.
Take one of those books, and go directly to a scene that stands out in your memory. Reread it, analyzing why this scene intrigues you. Pick apart the emotions the author packed this scene with and how they affect you.
How is the scene structured to deliver an emotional punch that hooks a reader and makes her crave more?
Is it the vulnerability? The truthfulness of the interaction? Is it the explosion of built-up tension?
Whether it’s a declaration of love, a confession of a secret, or a strong alpha male showing a softer side, there is something in that scene that you can relate to—an elusive element the author gathered up and showed on the page.
Now, examine how the scene makes you feel. Does it touch you? Anger you? Frustrate you? Turn you on?
Do this exercise with a number of your favorite books, and you will begin to see a pattern. Each person identifies with unique emotions. We seek out books that take those emotions and deliver them in a solid, one-two punch, by first setting up the dynamics of the scene, then driving it home to the reader. And then we try to find more books that do the same.
I’ve noticed many things about my writing and reading habits by doing this exercise. First, I’ve always been a sucker for a damaged, proud, alpha male who struggles throughout the book before finally reaching a breaking point. That moment is a key emotional scene that I consistently seek in other books and write in my own books. Simply put, it just ... gets me. Every damn time. The vulnerability of truth hitting a man while he faces the one woman who won’t let him hide anymore.
In Susan Elizabeth Phillips novel Kiss an Angel, the prideful, arrogant, mighty Alex Markov is literally brought to his knees when he saves the life of a tiger and shows the heroine he really does love her. It’s such a stirring scene; every time I reread it I tear up. It’s full of emotion. Here’s a peek at how the scene unfolds (spoiler alert!):
“So what?” Sheba sneered. “This isn’t about Daisy. It’s about you. What’s it going to be, Alex? Your pride or the tiger? Are you going to lay it all out for love, or are you going to hold on to everything that’s important to you?”
There was a long silence. Tears had begun to stream down Daisy’s face, and she knew she had to get away. She pulled back from Brady, then froze as she heard his angry sputter.
“That son of a bitch.”
She whirled back and saw Alex still standing in front of Sheba with his head high. But his knees were beginning to bend. Those mighty Romanov knees. Those proud Markov knees. Slowly, he sank down into the sawdust, but at the same time, she knew she had never seen him look more arrogant, more unyielding.
“Beg me,” Sheba whispered.
“No!” The word was ripped from Daisy’s chest. She wouldn’t let Sheba do this to him, not even for Sinjun! What good would it do to save one magnificent tiger if she destroyed the other? She ran through the back door and into the arena, kicking up sawdust as she flew toward Alex. When she got there, she caught him by the arm and tried to drag him to his feet.
“Get up, Alex! Don’t do this! Don’t let her do this to you.”
He didn’t take his eyes off Sheba Quest. They burned. “It’s like you once said, Daisy. Nobody else can demean me. I can only demean myself.”
He turned his face upward, and his mouth tightened with scorn. Although he was on his knees, he had never looked more glorious. He was every inch the czar. The king of the center ring. “I’m begging you, Sheba,” he said flatly. “Don’t let anything happen to that tiger.”
Daisy’s hand convulsed around his arm, and she dropped to her knees beside him.
Another way to create emotion on the page is to develop heroes or heroines who screw up big time, make me mad, and then have to fix it. This is human, after all—to err. And watching the characters eventually emerge with a renewed understanding and forgiveness is beautiful to experience. Here’s a peek at Searching for Always (spoiler alert!). My hero has broken up with the heroine, given up his rescue dog, and needs to make things right. I use emotion but stay true to my character, who will never be the mushy hearts-and-flowers type.
Stone Petty stood in the waiting room. There were two other clients there, staring at him curiously. In full uniform, looking badass and sexy as hell, he held Pinky.
Clad in her pink sweater and bling collar, the dog looked as if she had found nirvana. The look of complete love and trust filled her eyes and her body, and emanated in waves of endless energy.
Pinky had forgiven him.
Her fingers flew to her mouth and pressed against her lips. “Wh-What are you doing?” she asked.
“I got her back.” Those inky eyes were fierce, seething with raw emotion in a twist of lust, need, and determination. His muscles seemed locked and loaded, as if ready to explode in a rush and take her with him for the ride. The heat in her belly uncurled and spread through her veins like wildfire until she could only tremble, helpless under his gaze and the promise she so wanted to believe in.
“I fucked up. I won’t again.”
The room was eerily silent. “How … how do I know?”
“You don’t. Look, I’m not a poet, and I suck at these big endings and declarations like in a sappy romance novel, but I love you. I love you, body and mind and soul, and I love this rat fink dog more than I can ever say in just words. So I’ll show you every damn day instead. I want to be in this with you. I know we’re gonna fight, and you’ll piss me off, and I’ll piss you off, but I think we were meant to be together from the moment I first laid eyes on you and decided I didn’t like you.”
Another favorite way of mine to evoke emotion is the lightbulb moment. This occurs when a character realizes she doesn’t have to take the blame for something pivotal. Again, I can relate to the feelings of guilt, the sickness of not believing I’m enough, or the frustration of not being able to change the past. All of these basic conflicts and character developments in romance novels revolve around emotion.
This is done brilliantly in Kristan Higgins’s The Best Man. There’s a scene where the hero, Levi, tells the heroine the truth about the car crash that killed her mother. He has discovered details that can help her deal with an issue that’s affected her entire life. In this way, he gives her a priceless gift, and afterward their relationship deepens to a whole new level. The power of the exchange is so delicately balanced, and brutally deep. Higgins is a master at depicting emotion.
In Searching for Disaster, my heroine needs to come to terms with her past drug addiction and allow herself to be loved. There’s a powerful scene between her and her father, who is a recovering alcoholic. The exchange allows my heroine to see her life in a whole new way. Here’s a peek:
“I’m afraid,” she whispered. “Afraid I’m not good enough for him. Afraid I’ll hurt him. Afraid I’ll be weak one day and use again and destroy everything.”
“I’m afraid, too. But trying to protect people by being afraid is wrong and against everything they’re trying to teach us. We’re addicts, Izzy. But we’re people, too. We screw up and cause pain, but we also fight through the bad stuff. We love fiercely and try hard and do everything we can to be the best of what we are. God forgives you. We forgive you. You told me you forgive yourself, but if that were really true, you’d let Liam love you.”
Once you get an idea of your emotional triggers—and the strong scenes that depict them—you’ll be in a better position to know when you fail to deliver them in your writing. Go back and reread your pages to see what fell flat. It’s most likely an avoidance of triggers, or trying to finish, rather than lingering on the emotional qualities of the characters within the scene. Dive deeper. If you’re worried about being overdramatic, don’t. This is not the time to hold back. You can polish and tweak in later drafts, but writing the messy, honest, disturbing stuff in your characters is the key to the treasure.
A reader may have a hard time explaining why a book falls flat, but it’s probably a lack of emotion. Your writing can be perfect, your plot flawless, your setting stunning, but if there’s no emotion on the page, if you can’t make the reader feel something, they won’t care very much about your story. And then no one will buy your book.
Journal time. Pick an emotional memory and write it down. Don’t pause to think too much, structure, or edit. Write it down exactly as it happened and everything you felt. It doesn’t matter if your prose isn’t pretty, you can use concrete words like mad, sad, cry—anything that keeps the pen or keyboard moving. When you’ve finished, read it aloud and note what made that moment stand out, and how it ties into emotion. The more comfortable you are exploring your own emotional triggers, the easier it will be to write those moments into your book.