Power Writing - using words to create emotion

Power Writing

By our written word we attempt to evoke the senses of the reader.  In this context there are two elements to powerful and engaging writing.  The first is to trigger, through the written word alone, as many of the readers senses as possible – the more senses called into play, the more intense is the experience in the mind of the reader.  The second element is, of course, to deliver an accurate, believable message.

Let’s look first at triggering the senses.  OK, what are the senses?  They are input channels through which a person experiences external stimuli.

• Sight
• Smell
• Touch
• Taste
• Hearing

However, in literary terms, there is also a sixth sense with which we must engage.  It is a sense of self-awareness and identity (even ownership), which connects with the emotion of the reader. 

The difference between the five senses and emotion is that the five senses are the vehicles through which we experience the external environment; the raising of emotion is an internal function generated by a cumulative effect of input from the five senses as they impact on memory.

Essentially then, a writer can only get at a reader’s emotion through triggering their senses.  Problem is, the written word doesn’t actually make a noise, smell, have texture, show pictures or taste of anything.  Luckily for writers, all our readers have a huge library of remembered smells, pictures, tastes, textures and noises already in their heads, which are linked to an encyclopaedia of personal experiences and emotional responses.  The written word can borrow from this library and use the reference section to consult the encyclopaedia of emotion.

Maybe we can explore this further if we attempt to define a list of emotions.  Not quite so easy as with the senses.  However, some researchers have had a go and for purposes of illustration I’ve selected some work by a guy called Robert Plutchik who, in 1980, created what he called a wheel of emotions. This consisted of eight basic emotions and eight advanced emotions, each composed of two basic ones.

Basic emotion             Basic opposite

Joy                                Sadness

Acceptance                  Disgust

Fear                             Anger

Surprise                      Anticipation

Sadness                     Joy

Disgust                      Acceptance

Anger                        Fear

Anticipation               Surprise

 Advanced emotion           Composed of...               Advanced opposite

Optimism                               Anticipation + Joy             Disappointment

Love                                     Joy + Acceptance             Remorse

Submission                           Acceptance + Fear          Contempt

Awe                                       Fear + Surprise               Aggressiveness

Disappointment                     Surprise + Sadness        Optimism

Remorse                               Sadness + Disgust          Love

Contempt                              Disgust + Anger              Submission

Aggressiveness                    Anger + Anticipation       Awe

If, through the written word, we can tap into memories of those smells, pictures, etc. in various combinations we can fire-up the same emotions that were generated from the original real-life experience.  If we get really good at this we can, maybe, even generate new, fictitious experiences by combining emotions.  For example, no-one has actually ever flown like Superman, but by calling up a cumulative series of emotions through triggering powerful sensory images like a smell of mist, the taste of fresh air on a windswept sea cliff, the sound and the feel of rushing air, the feeling of weightlessness on a roller-coaster ride, a view of the tapestry of neat fields below (as seen from and aircraft window); then we can make people fly – but let’s start with the simpler job of generating Robert Plutchik’s eight basic emotions through tapping into their library of sensory memories. 

For our purposes here we can take those eight basic emotions and look at how we might engender these in a reader, using our writing to access their sensory memory library and, from that, reference their encyclopeadia of emotion.

However, just before we do that, we need to look at the second point I mentioned at the beginning – the accuracy of the message.  This is about three things:

• using language with which the reader can identify,
• getting it as close to reality as we can, and
• avoiding imposing one of our own ready-made emotional experiences on the reader (we need to tap into their sensory memories to build their own emotion, not simply relate one of our own experiences – which may have been a highly emotional event for us, and even make us cry, laugh, or tremble with fear when we recall it, but it won’t do the same for the reader unless they have had the same emotion derived from the same sensory inputs.)

The point being, if we want to trigger past sensory memories and, through that, access a reader’s emotion, they must:

a) understand what we are talking about and,

b) accept the situation as credible in the context in which it is offered, and

c) be able to identify personally with the experience.

Let’s look at an example:

Why is the following unlikely to capture your acclaim as a piece of powerful writing?

Their dog was dead and both Jenny and her brother felt very sad; but these things happen and the disappointment that they now didn’t have a dog to play with, would be accepted over time.  Their Dad had just come home with a replacement puppy, which he had bought in a moment of capricious disregard for his usual cautious approach to life.  It had been a wonderful surprise and had made them optimistic for the potential joy to be experienced from this new arrival.

How is this different?

Jenny felt the wetness trickle down her cheek.  She looked across to her little brother’s similarly tear stained face; her hand, laid gently on his shoulder, quivered with the shivering sobs that shook his body.

            “Why did our dog have to die?” His plaintive question, delivered haltingly between sobs, had no ready answer.   ‘How’, Jenny thought to herself, ‘how do you tell a small child that such things happen naturally?  How do you say that, in time, the hurt will be healed?’

            Then that sound of a puppy’s high-pitched bark.  A yapping bundle of brown and white fluff coming around the door frame from the next room, crossing the floor on bouncing legs, and taking up position, sitting, head inclined, with large brown, expectant eyes that just said, ‘pick up and cuddle …… please’.

            Dad’s face appeared cautiously around the door frame.

            “I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do,” he said.

            Jenny just ran to him and flung her arms around his neck in the biggest hug she had ever given.

If you want many more examples, please have a look at my recently published book, Randolph's Challenge, Book One-The Pendulum Swings.

Try to list the differences in the above example and use them in the construction of your own writing. 

Chris Warren