Questions tagged [emotions]
This tag should be used in question related to portray a given emotion in a writing, or dealing with certain feeling during the act of writing.
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How to represent jealousy in a cute way?
The main character (which is a girl) of the first romance I'm writing would feel jealous sometimes of her love interest, but I want it to be a cute trait or even a setup for funny scenes, not a very ...
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How can you write when you're upset?
I mean exactly this.
Writing needs focus, to some extent. Even if you may fall into a state were words flow naturally on the keyboard almost without effort, you still have to reach that condition.
...
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How to detach yourself from a character you're going to kill?
So, in a WW2-ish story featuring a co-ed military, I have a female soldier who is very kind and caring. I'm setting her up to be a mascot and somewhat of the postergirl. Trouble is, she dies further ...
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Outlining the climax made me lose interest in writing the actual story
I am a discovery writer. I wrote more than 50% of my first novel's first draft.
I got really confuse about some aspects of writing, so I took a break and analysed my plot. I've started developing my ...
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13
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What makes writing emotional?
Over the years, my English professors seem to have agreed on one thing: that I'm a superb technical writer, but terrible at eliciting emotional response in something like a story or an argumentative ...
Corey
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11
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How do you write about the human condition when you don't understand humanity?
I was talking with some writers, and they were mentioning how writing is fundamentally about "the human condition, our take on it, what we see in our world and experience. All stories, no matter ...
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6
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Making him into a bully (how to show mild violence)
Joe is the worst. Nobody likes him, not even the so-called friends he teams up with at school, filling other students with terror. He's sarcastic, nasty, and a bit of a racist, and especially anti-...
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How to write a vulnerable moment without it seeming cliche or mushy?
So, I have a kinda loudmouthed character who's always the first to fight and first to go on the offensive (This is a fantasy, so she fights a lot.) But, later in the story, she comes across someone ...
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6
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How important are the author's mood and feelings for writing a story?
How important are the author's mood and emotions while writing a story or describing a scene?
For example, while writing an erotic scene, is it important for the author to feel the same way as they ...
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Can disgust be a key component of horror?
The feeling of disgust is often used in horrors, exspecially visual medias (where is arguably easier to shock the audience with great effect).
Often horror stories revolve around one scary element (a ...
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How can I write a panicked scene without it feeling like it was written in haste?
I normally try to place myself in my character's shoes and I think to myself, "how would I react if I were in this situation?" Well one of my beta-readers commented on my work, and he said the chapter ...
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7
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How can show that my cold hearted character is coping with grief?
I have a little contradiction in my story that may well be fatal.
In my high sci-fi setting, one of my main characters is an android. Let's call him Bob. Bob is efficient, cold and straight-to-the-...
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9
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7
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Writing about extreme trauma
I've just written a chapter in which one of my protagonists witnesses her entire family massacred during an invasion of her home city. This is obviously an extremely traumatic and horrifying event and,...
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5
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How do I keep an essay about "feeling flat" from feeling flat?
I was invited to participate in an anthology of essays about a tv show. I chose an episode based on the Wikipedia summary (since it had been so long since I had watched it), but after I watched it, I ...
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3
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How to write a hospital death scene without sentimentalism?
The cliché scene where a man dies on the hospital bed and ECG goes "beep beep beep" is seen by everyone in movies. The problem is that someone told me that I go too sentimental in scenes ...
7
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7
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How to write characters who hate when you don't understand it?
I hadn't thought about it before, but today I came across a writing prompt that involved hate. My mind kept running up against walls. It's not a skill I have ever worked at fostering. I can't think of ...
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Writing a crying scene
Writing a crying scene makes me accidentally do repetitions like "the tears which were on her face broke down into a slithering stream..." and then putting the word tears again and again.
What ...
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3
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How to write character's emotional reactions in a screenplay?
Question : When writing my screenplay, I frequently find the urge to describe a character's emotion. However, I have read somewhere (I forget where) that this should be left to the actor to some ...
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For people of color, are there unique ways to describe emotional state through skin tone, besides 'going pale,' 'turning red,' 'looking green,' etc?
Are there some words or phrases to describe a person of color, specifically darker colors, when their skin tone changes with emotion? Like for a white person, they'd turn pale when scared or turn red ...
6
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2
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Developing a dialogue that unexpectedly leads to strong feelings between two strangers
A short story I'm writing involves a stage in which the male protagonist talks to a stranger with the intent of asking them to do a favor for his friend. I want them to start having strong feelings ...
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5
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How do I write an emotional scene?
The scene is about one of the protagonist who was until now, more a cold than a warm person. However she's not a sociopath, she just mostly hides her emotions and tends to push people she cares about ...
- 1,005
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4
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Describing paralyzing fear in the first person
I would appreciate some suggestions that would help me describe intense terrifying fear that my main character feels when the airplane he is on suddenly goes into a seemingly out of control dive that ...
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3
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How to show the same emotion multiple times?
I think everyone has heard the "show don't tell" rule. My question is how can I show same emotion multiple times without the description being the same. For example if my character is scared I can ...
- 405
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3
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How do you show an introverted, socially awkward character is kind?
I have a character for whom three of their most prominent traits are meant to be their kindness/high degree of empathy, social awkwardness/obliviousness to social cues, and overall introversion. I am ...
- 4,627
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2
answers
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Using rhythm to evoke emotion
When writing there is one area I am not great at leveraging. That's rhythm or meter. I don't hear meter naturally like some people do so I have to really break down the meter in order to work on it. ...
- 4,451
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3
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How to write a character who is falling in love, but doesn't know?
So I have been trying to write a character that is oblivious to romantic advances because they mistake them for normal, platonic reactions. I know how they act in my mind, but I can't convey it enough ...
4
votes
6
answers
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How to NOT get sad when writing
I am writing historical fiction novel.
Some parts are very sad.
I am identifying with my characters to develop and write about them.
How to move past the sadness and write about ill-fated ...
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4
votes
2
answers
141
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Dealing with quick shifts in emotion
I have a character that, by design, quickly jumps between emotions. To put it into human terms, I have pictured scenes where he will, literally, within the span of a sentence, go from hysterically ...
- 337
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3
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Is it possible to write an emotional narrative in a game with player-made character?
I'm in the process of drafting a story for a single player game where the player controls their own made character.
I'm planning for the game to have an emotional narrative but I cannot wrap my head ...
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What is one way to write about feeling someone's sadness? [closed]
For example:
I sensed as if he became sad from the way he spoke after telling him
that I would go with her.
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4
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Where is the line between a tough love character and a pure asshole?
So, I have a character who was going to just be an unlikable character at the start of the novel, but now I want to make her more caring towards certain people, like the innocent character. Thing is, ...
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5
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How do I make the downfall of a character moving without being cliche?
So, the character is an anti hero, he loses all his morals, and becomes the very thing he fights against.
How can I make the downfall of this character more emotionally moving/impactful without ...
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3
votes
4
answers
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How can I portray a resentful character without making them overtly angry?
I am writing a fiction story about a elite unit, SFD (Strike Force Delta), during the Third World War. The war is basically extremely variable, it lasts from 2025 to 2030. I like to call it the '...
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3
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What is the best way to simulate grief?
I am new to the art of writing and have been wondering if there is a way to introduce the grief of loss(character dies) in my story, inturn while making the reader feel the grief. Is there a good ...
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2
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How to show that a character cares for another, but is also clumsy?
This is about a father who returns after a particularly long journey. Typically, he's not available very often anyway, but he deeply cares about his daughter. He also fails at behaving like a father ...
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4
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How to make a grieving father less vengeful and see reason?
I have a character who, maddened by the suicide of his son, chooses to destroy the company the young man worked for, holding them responsible.
He is a successful businessman who told his two children ...
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3
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6
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How to create feeling with setting
I have a passion for setting. I've heard you should write about what you're passionate about. Now when I say passion I mean I like to visualize the fantastic place the author is describing to form a ...
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How to "show" a "Yes" head confirmation
How can I "show" that my character is saying "yes" as a respond from a question?
The only thing that comes to my mind is
Mike moves his head, confirming that he is okay.
I think this is not good ...
- 139
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4
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Lovesick Character Distracting Readers
How do you show that a character is suffering from lovesickness in a story plot, but not distract the reader from the actual main plot of the story?
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3
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How do you write a character with goes from A to Z and back to A realistically?
How do you write a character with goes from A to Z and back to A realistically? Let's say the characters is extremely in love, then wants to murder the person she was in love with and then go back to ...
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2
votes
2
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Show vs Tell: Complex and nuanced emotions
The one writing guideline that has altered my writing the most is the Show vs Tell guideline. I was probably far into the "tell" territory before, but sometimes I feel like this guideline is ...
- 4,033
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How could I write a tragic, depressed character without making them completely unbearable/hateable?
In the middle of my epic, the deutertagonist's love interest gets brutally killed off and she is forced to watch. For the third quarter of the story, she is trying to deal with the pain and trauma.
...
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2
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Having trouble keeping my emotionless character emotionless
I wrote the first chapter for one of my stories in which I have a character who went through a bunch of training for a secret government organization and ended up an emotionless killing machine. Only ...
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Writing from a depressed character's point of view
I've got characters on an adventure together, nothing groundbreaking. But one of them (let's say "Alice") loses a body part in one of their fights, and winds up in a dark mental place as a ...
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1
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What are the best techniques to show a character panicking as it is seen by the POV character?
So the problem I am having is that the protagonist of the novel I am writing is having a confrontation with another character, who starts panicking. Instead of saying "panic dripped from his face", I ...
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Screenwriting Techniques: Emotional Projection
NECESSARY INFORMATION
Recently I saw someone on the internet say that Revenge Of The Sith was so powerful because of an effect called "Emotional Projection." This means that when you see the movie, ...
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How to develop my reluctant character?
I am writing a novel which is about a naive, good-for-nothing boy who is also suffering from low self-esteem. One day, due to some events, he gets some special powers and is unwillingly forced into a ...
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3
answers
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How to communicate characters' inner states?
This is a huge question, parts of which have been answered on this site. However, this is one of the biggest challenges writers face, and so I think the question's relevancy matches the amount of work ...
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2
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Is it okay to write short adjacent story of a second lead in the main story?
I am writing a story of a slice of life of a teenager girl who seeks her forgotten past and run away from her forced marriage to follow her dreams. I want to add another story of her cousin and her ...
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2
answers
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Saying something reluctantly dialogue tag or 'said' synonym?
For example, I'm rewriting a sex scene and my current dialogue and subsequent dialogue tag is:
Almost reluctantly, he said, “Okay, I'll pull out now.”
"Hinted" is a bit too straightforward, and I ...
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