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This week: Capturing Moods Edited by: Fyn  
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Red is such an interesting color to correlate with emotion, because it's on both ends of the spectrum.
On one end you have happiness, falling in love, infatuation with someone, passion, all that. On the other end,
you've got obsession, jealousy, danger, fear, anger and frustration.~~Taylor Swift
There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its secret,
Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered together.~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I adore art... when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes,
and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.~~Giuseppe Verdi
All emotion is involuntary when genuine.~~Mark Twain
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.~~Robert Frost
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Emotions. Fleeting or dredged in and dug so deeply, furrows form from tears eroding the surface of the soul. From a distance, without benefit of sound, laughter looks much like someone crying, or the reverse. We are creatures of emotion. Emotion impels, compels us to react in certain ways. This is why the character of Spock was so fascinating, because a mindset of utter logic is foreign to us as a species.
When we think about describing various characters as to their emotional traits, we pick words like stoic or basket case, open book or granite. Yet emotions are never set in stone. They are fluid, ever-changing reactions. Even those who choose to mask their emotions, who try to give off one persona to the world and keep another hidden deep inside, experience joy, despair, grief and boredom. An emotional mindset can be static for days or weeks or it can be easily influenced by the world around it flitting from up to low to something in-between. Emotions can rise and fall like the horse on the merry-go-round, be sunk in the 'Bog of Eternal Stench' or bounce around like dancers on the floor in a nightclub.
Capturing the varied and illusive moments of emotion is what makes a character come alive. Consider the moments in the morning. Pre-coffee fog or a spritely dash to the shower? A mad rush for the coffee pot or a slow moving pile of sludge waiting for water to slough off sleep? Don't talk to me until I have ingested two cups of mud or a litany of excitement while running through a 'to-do' list? Sleepy-headed doze in the cornflakes or absent minded lack of keys, brushed hair or matching shoes? Practical 'alarm's gone off-awake mode-dressed-eat breakfast-off to work in efficient, organized detail' sort or 'hit the snooze button one more time - for the eighth time, think I'll call in sick' type? Overwhelmed or don't give a rip? Same old, same old boredom or anticipating something marvelous? From the moment we (or a character) wakes up in the morning (or late afternoon or 3 AM) we run through a gamut of emotions.
We catalog surroundings. Each has something of an emotional affect on us. The weather, for example. Is it a glorious spring morning or blustery with snow flying as it apparently has been for hours and we got six inches of the 1-2 predicted when we fell in bed last night? Are clouds, grey and bruised, pressing down like an unrelieved argument that wasn't finished last night? Is is gymnastic weather? (In other words, flipping cold!) Do we need to allot time to shovel out the car, unbury the edge of the snow plow framed edge of the driveway or try to find last years boots? Is the outside world a walking sauna and will we wilt the moment we walk out the door? It is raining so hard we may need a canoe to get to the car? Are working today or is it a day off and we've nowhere to go or do we have a million and three things to do? Each of these scenarios can produce a plethora of emotional reactions depending upon the character. Remember the reaction you had as a kid when you awoke to two feet of snow on a Wednesday morning? Doubt it is the same one you have now.
Flat tires are another good example. Does the character jump out of the car, pop the trunk, grab the jack, loosen the lug bolts, finish jacking up the car, remove the tire, pop on the other, et cetera? Does she even have a clue HOW to change a tire? Is the tire a donut spare or is there even a tire in the trunk? Does he need to remove six rooms worth of 'stuff' jammed into the trunk to get to the tire? Do they call AAA? Or call their hubby, boyfriend or dad? Does she call in to work and say she'll be late or blow off the day because roadside assistance estimates it will be three hours before they can get there? Are eyes rolled, does he wish for a beer, does she crank the music and get to business? Does she look down at the winter-white business suit, 3 inch heels and brand new manicure and slump? Or get out and act helpless? Panic? Reschedule? Or call for a tow truck and the car rental agency that 'picks you up?' How people/characters handle any situation is directly related to how they handle emotions. Everyone is different as are the characters we write about.
So. Flat tire. Side of a busy highway, deserted dirt road or wrong side of the tracks? The Stetson wearing, scuffed-boot shod character shows up in a beat-up Ford Ranger and offers to help. Is he a 'scruffy with mossy green eyes' kind of guy or does he show up smelling like someone on a three day binge? (If he can change a tire quickly, does it matter?) Is she clearly able to handle breaking loose lug bolts put on by an air compressor or did she stop because she likes a Mercedes? Why did he/she? Altruistic tendencies, ulterior motives? Mere plot device? How people react in any given situation is an emotion based reaction. And as such, do not always relate directly to the specific situation. If a recent ex had the scruffy, green eyed thing going on it could be either a positive or a negative reaction. If the 3 day binge looks exactly like dear old Uncle Charlie, it factors in.
Emotions. Every bit as much as action, emotions propel a character in what ever direction the character is headed, be it forwards, backwards or sideways. Even the flinty-eyed, stalwart cowboy cop has emotions and while he may not necessarily show them bleeding or raging on his sleeve, he has 'em and the reader needs to, at the very least, intuit them.
Women. We have our moments when we rage over nothing (yes, I know, it is SO not nothing (!) in our eyes) or get moody or simply curl up in a ball on the couch sending off vibes that scream 'approach at your own risk!' Characters rarely ever seem to experience these moments. Why is that? It can be so useful! Sometimes all it takes is a snoring partner, a yappy dog or sappy movie and emotions surge keeping the tissue folks in business.
Moms and Dads have other sets of stressors that go along with parenting. Children (yes, we all have perfect little angels, don't we?) are perfect detonators to emotional fuses. And, children are certainly not immune on the emotional scale either.
We all have our little tantrums. I'm not talking hitting or abusive situations but regular rotten moods, cases of the witchys or cranky old grumpies. Lack of sleep, deadlines that go whooshing by, overloaded work schedules, soccer-mom-itus, horrible traffic, snow days, sick kids, furnaces dying, bills, cranky neighbors, unexpected kittens and trees that crash in the night all are just a few of the gazillions of examples that color our emotions. Gift your characters with real emotions, pull your reader's empathies and sympathies in with them and make your characters breathe! |
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Patrece ~  says: Thank you for sharing your heart warming memories and tales. I have been feeling a little hum-bug this year, but reading your news letter invited me to relive some of my own memories and feel a little more cheerful about the rapidly approaching holiday. Then I remembered what I planned and reserved 2 months ago, for this coming Saturday and am feeling even more cheerful! I am taking both of my children, their significant others, and all of my grandchildren on the Santa Express! I got the best seats for us. It is a train ride on the Royal Gorge Train Route which follows along the river, and through the Royal Gorge here in Colorado. Along the way, the train will stop and Santa will board! We will all be dressed in our brand new Pajama's that I bought for all of us. Afterwards, everyone will be back at my house for dinner and decorating the Christmas tree! I can hardly wait to see the thrill and excitement on the faces of all of the kids, young and older  .
You are so right! Including some real life memories in our writing can be a key ingredient to making our works come to life! Thank you for this inspiring newsletter!
Monty  writes: A super News Letter Fyn. Merry Christmas.
And a Happy New Year!
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For Authors: January 13, 2016 Issue [#7421]
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