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RobertBMarks
Jul '22

There is a very well-known horror movie called Alien, directed by Ridley Scott. One of the most interesting things about it is that the jump scares always work. It doesn't matter how often you've seen the movie, or how well you know what's coming next - when the jump scare happens, it makes the viewer jump, every time. You don't need to take my word for it - just go watch it twice and see it for yourself.

But how does it do this? For that matter, how do you reliably create an effect on the reader when you are crafting a scene, be it happiness, or dread, or expectation?

For the answer, we only need to look at Alien. When the jump scare happens, every character on screen jumps. The characters on screen do it, so the audience does it too. The audience follows the lead of the characters. Simple, right?

But how does it work?

In performance magic, this is called an "audience surrogate" (I am an amateur magician - let's just say I wear many hats), and this is probably the best term to use for explaining and understanding this. During a magic trick - particularly a close-up magic trick like a card trick - the magician will pick a volunteer from the audience. S/he will then show this volunteer the trick. The audience watches the both the trick and the volunteer - but they take their lead on how to respond to the trick from the volunteer. So, even if the audience can't clearly see the trick, as long as the volunteer reacts with amazement, so will they.

Creating an impact on the reader when crafting a scene operates using the same principle. With rare exceptions, every scene any writer ever writes includes an audience surrogate - this is almost always the point-of-view character (although, there can be exceptions - sometimes, it can just be a character that the scene is focused on, even if that isn't the POV character). The correct use of that surrogate conveys the intended effect to the reader. If the audience surrogate is scared, the scene will be suspenseful or frightening. If they are happy, the scene will be joyful. If they are aroused, the scene will be erotic. And so on.

That's the mechanism. Let's see it into action. We're going to create two scenes, both with the same setup. Our setting is a room with a door. On the other side of the room, facing the door, is a chair. Sitting in this chair is our POV character, a young lady, who is watching the door. The door is going to open, and a young man is going to step into the room, and in a pleasant tone say, "Well, I'm home!" The only thing we are going to change between these two scenes is the reaction of our POV character:

Scene 1: As the young lady waits, she trembles in anticipation. The door opens and the young man enters and says "Well, I'm home!" She leaps out of the chair, into his arms, and gives him a passionate kiss.

Scene 2: As the young lady waits, she grips the chair for dear life to stop her hands from shaking, her eyes wide and wild as she stares at the door. The door opens and the young man enters and says "Well, I'm home!" Her body trying to force itself even deeper into the chair, she screams.

So, we have two dramatically different scenes, creating two dramatically different effects. The first scene was happy and romantic. The second was terrifying. And the only thing we changed was the reaction of the character upon whom the scene was focused - the audience surrogate.

And that's the key to it. Make certain that the character(s) your scene is focused upon are experiencing the emotions that reflect the effect you want to convey, and the reader will follow their lead.

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DiegoPalacios
Jul '22

That's an interesting trick to use people's mirror neurons in the story's favor.

However, there are cases when it can create a dissonance if the reaction feels unrealistic.

That's not always a bad thing, because it can be played for comedic value like overreactions and under-reactions, or for horror, to show that something is off with a character. For example, a murderer reacting with indifference to his victim's screams.

In the end, it's important to use the tools you have to convey the emotions you are aiming for. Be it with an emotional resonance or dissonance.

RobertBMarks
Jul '22

Very true.

One of the things about writing is that with one exception, there is pretty much no rule or technique that is without, well exceptions.

This is not that rule (I'm about to do the write-up for it, in fact).

authorvicomara
Jul '22

Thank you for the good explanation and the clear example.

What are your thoughts about the character additionally explaining what she is feeling while in the moment (by adding 1-2 sentences to the end of your scene as an example)? Would this be considered as adding to the story, or should it be used sparingly (or left out) as it belongs to the "tell" part?

RobertBMarks
Jul '22

You're very welcome!

Admittedly, the first thing that comes to mind is the Robot Devil from Futurama: "Your lyrics lack subtlety! You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!"

When it comes to characters talking about their feelings (I've been thinking about this myself, as I'm probably going to be writing a scene in which some characters do just that) there are two rules/guidelines that seem to me, at least, to make the most sense:

  1. Is the character talking to another character? Normally, the only time you want to have a character engage in this type of "telling" is in conversation with another character. Otherwise, it's very artificial, and will pull the reader out of the narrative as a result.

  2. Is this a thing that a person would actually say under these circumstances? To take the example of our two scenes, in the first scene you could certainly see our female character saying something like "Oh, thank God, it's been too long!"...but much less "Seeing you makes me happy." For the second, an incoherent "No! Keep away! KEEP AWAY!" seems quite natural, whereas "I'm afraid." does not.

Ultimately, though, these examples are always stripped down to their bare bones so that the mechanism - and only the mechanism - is illustrated. If you think something might work, add it and see if it works. If it doesn't, you can always edit it out later.

TheLemmaLlama
Jul '22
authorvicomara

I've personally found a lot of this kind of extra dialogue accompanying strong emotional reactions to be narmy, even if it's not a robotic 'I feel angry' kind of line. Examples I see a lot is when a character is sobbing violently, but is simultaneously able to eloquently explain what they're sad about (e.g. "I ... I thought I was going to lose you for good this time!")

I feel like it's usually better to leave out the lines and trust the readers to pick up on the emotions from context alone (or stick with one word exclamations, like someone's name or a swear word, that are easier to say in the heat of the moment), while lines are better suited for after the moment, when the intensity of the emotions subside a little. For instance:

Scene 1: As the young lady waits, she trembles in anticipation. The door opens and the young man enters and says "Well, I'm home!"

"Bob!" She exclaimed happily. She leaps out of the chair, into his arms, and gives him a passionate kiss. After they pull away from the kiss, she smiles. "Oh, thank God, it's been far too long!"

Scene 2: As the young lady waits, she grips the chair for dear life to stop her hands from shaking, her eyes wide and wild as she stares at the door. The door opens and the young man enters and says "Well, I'm home!" Her body trying to force itself even deeper into the chair, she screams. As the man ignores her visible distress and comes closer. She leans away from him. "No! Keep away! KEEP AWAY!"

A character sobs violently into the arms of their injured friend, who weakly raised a hand to stroke his hair. "It's okay ... I'm going to be okay ..." Maybe let the sobbing character have some internal monologue about how worried they are, but he's sobbing too violently to speak incoherently. Cut to the aftermath, where the character has calmed down but is still sniffly and red-eyed. He rests his forehead against his friend's shoulder. "I ... I thought I was going to lose you for good this time ..."

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