This week: A Subtle Gut Punch Edited by: Cinn  
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Today's newsletter is about creating a scene and letting it ride out in the reader's mind, allowing them to feel the emotion rather than telling them about the character's emotion. And as per usual, a poem to serve as an example (and to encourage people to read poetry, as I believe all writers should):
It’s not that I don’t like the hospital.
Those small bouquets of flowers, pert and brave.
The smell of antiseptic cleansers.
The ill, so wistful in their rooms, so true.
My friend, the one who’s dying, took me out
To where the patients go to smoke, IV’s
And oxygen in tanks attached to them—
A tiny patio for skeletons. We shared
A cigarette, which was delicious but
Too brief. I held his hand; it felt
Like someone’s keys.
~Excerpt from "Lost in the Hospital" by Raphael Campo
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The novel that I'm currently reading (and which I'm not ready to recommend as yet) has a fair amount of drama. Yet, there is no melodrama in sight and, if anything, the emotion is downplayed in the writing. The characters take everything in a pretty matter-of-fact way.
The Setup
This is a scifi novel taking place in the future. To ensure the survival of the human race, women who pass genetic tests are "Mothers" and are allotted a certain number of pregnancies in their lifetimes. They raise children until their eight birthdays (along with any siblings) to provide something to work for and protect... and are then promptly dropped off at "school", where they will remain until adulthood.
The Mother in question did not tell her son anything about school, simply that they were going. The boy said goodbye to his toddler sister, said he would see her "tonight", and went with his mother. She dropped him off at school, telling him simply to "go with this man and behave". All of this was from the mother's perspective.
And then, the boy meets the director of the school and is told he will not return home or see his sister for 26 years (as she will be in school when he gets out). The boy, in shock, is dragged from one activity to another, thrown headlong into school life.
Non-Emotion
Both characters have reason to not be emotional. We discover later that Mother has had 12 children, of which the boy is #11. Preparing kids for school is her job. Mothers do everything they can to avoid becoming too emotionally attached to their children... it's viewed as amateur to care about the drop off.
Meanwhile, the child is understandably in shock and is placed with other children who are in the same predicament... except that their mothers told them what was about to happen. He goes from shock and a bit of concern for abandoning his sister to acceptance very quickly. This is the way things are.
Effect
The feelings of the characters were barely mentioned. There were no tears or outbursts. There was no mention of either person's world shattering (though the boy's entire existence was upended in a minute).
And the effect was much greater than typical for me, the reader. I filled in the blanks and imagined promising my little brother I'd see him in a little bit, only to become an accidental liar. The betrayal I'd have felt at my mom not telling me what was about to happen so that I could mentally prepare and say a proper goodbye. The fear of being in this new militaristic school with strangers. And as a parent myself, I gotta say I felt pretty sick at the idea of dropping my son off and walking away with a casual "be good" too.
The Lesson
My take away from this: If the situation is relatable, you don't need to try to tug at the reader's heartstrings. You don't need the melodrama. It's a dramatic situation that most people can relate to in one way or another (being abandoned, abandoning your child, losing a sibling). I'm going to try to keep this scenario in mind when I'm writing. The poet in me wants to manipulate readers into feeling a certain way (a major part of a poet's job)... but fiction can afford more subtlety. Let the reader figure out the character's feelings for themselves. It doesn't take much imagination. 
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A wreck appearing on the beach means a lot more to Lucy than just a random curiosity.
#2219828 by Jake Cake  |
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Drama: April 29, 2020 Issue [#10140]
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