Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
About a month ago, one of our regular commenters, Andrew Budek-Schmeisser, pondered why readers buy a particular author’s books (beyond name recognition).
Here were some examples Andrew gave, along with his opinions of the books:
* Richard Bach’s readers are largely people who like him and his philosophy. Storytelling isn’t his forte, and neither is characterization, but he has the knack to give readers a feeling of “the possible.”
* Lillian Jackson Braun’s “The Cat Who…” series had cute, engaging stories featuring cats that helped their owner solve mysteries. The writing was indifferent, the characters not terribly three-dimensional, but the premise brought people back. They wanted to see what the cats would do next, I guess.
* Tom Clancy appealed to the Walter Mitty in everyone, with “ordinary” characters forced by circumstance into extraordinary situations.
I would posit that, to succeed as a writer, you must strike an emotional cord 
with your readers. Readers generally want to connect emotionally with the books they consume, including nonfiction.
Most of us choose to read books that satisfy us in some way–whether because we feel good while we’re reading; we feel fascinated by detail we never knew; we are inspired to be better; we want a good cry; we want our brains tickled by a mystery, etc.
I recently read the narrative nonfiction Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson. It ranks as one of my top favorite books in 2015. Why? Because I knew, even as each passenger boarded the ship in New York harbor, that the majority of them would never reach their destination of Liverpool. As Larson takes us through the days on board and we meet various passengers, we have foreknowledge; we also are given the view of what happened from the submarine that launched the torpedo that brought the great ship down; we visit the governmental centers in Britain and the US, watching as the world leaders respond to Germany’s threats to sink the ship. Each setting has its own set of dramas playing out.
I found it to be captivating, and I wasn’t alone, considering the book remains on The New York Times best-seller list and reached #1.
The Time’s reviewer also saw the emotional impact of the book:
“Larson is an old hand at treating nonfiction like high drama…He knows how to pick details that have maximum soapy potential and then churn them down until they foam [and] has an eye for haunting, unexploited detail.”
NPR’s review stated:
“…Larson brings the past stingingly alive…He draws upon telegrams, war logs, love letters, and survivor depositions to provide the intriguing details, things I didn’t know I wanted to know…Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”
And the Washington Post:
“Larson’s account [of the Lusitania‘s sinking] is the most lucid and suspenseful yet written, and he finds genuine emotional power in the unlucky confluences of forces, ‘large and achingly small,’ that set the stage for the ship’s agonizing final moments.”
Note all the emotive words used in these reviews. They showcase how, as readers, we long for an emotional connection to what we’re reading. And it’s up to the writer to evoke that response in us.
I also recently read a novel that I felt emotionally distant from. The story was good, the characters diverse and interesting, but underneath good mechanics, for me, the book didn’t emotionally connect me with the characters and events.
Even if you’re writing Christian Living or self-help, you must find the emotional connection between your words and the reader. Mark Batterson did that splendidly in The Circle Maker. For example, the opening story that sets up the book’s premise is brimming with emotive connections.
How do you write in a way that gives readers reasons to attach themselves to your book?
- Feel what you’re writing about. If you aren’t filled with sadness when a story’s character dies or when you write about some betrayal in your nonfiction book, then how is the reader supposed to feel sad?
- Don’t let your characters overplay their hands. I believe it was Flannery O’Connor who once opined that, if your character experiences immense grief over some loss but does not cry, the reader will cry for her. I that that, if you portray a novel’s protagonist as sobbing enough to drown the world, the reader sees the sadness but doesn’t necessarily take it on for him or herself.
- Ask critiquers/readers for specific words to describe how your material made them feel. If they struggle to find descriptors, you know you’re in trouble. As they choose words, create a list. It directs you on where you succeeded. You might be surprised–or dismayed at what you’re told.
Note: I’m not suggesting you load your manuscript with highly volatile, dramatic moments. Dead Wake has lots of detail that gives the reader space to take a breath before diving back into drama. Reading should give us an emotional roller coaster to ride. Ultimately, we’re in for the thrill of it. That’s primarily what readers want–along with other motivations for reading, of course.
What do you want readers to feel when they read your latest work? What words do you hear critiquers or readers use to describe material you’ve written?
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Janet, I am thrilled and honoured to see my name and words in this post! Thank you –
* The most important thing I think a reader can take away from my work is the great triumvirate…Faith, Hope, and Charity.
* I’d like readers to see that Faith is not just for Sunday mornings, and that it doesn’t need saints to exercise it. Some of the roughest, most profane men and women I knew had the kind of faith I could never hope to touch…the kind of faith that made them willing to fight for their still-benighted land from whom Christ has been banished. And they watered that tropical soil with blood that burned…and still burns…for love of the Lord, and for love of their brethren.
* Sean Connery said it best, in the nonstop-action film “The Rock”…as a convict, he said the way he survived was this – “I nurtured the hope that there WAS hope, that one day I’d breathe free air.”
* Hope is something for which we have to care. I am learning this daily, in that keeping up my morale, being able to face each day with a clear and smiling soul…that requires intention, and effort. My reading and movie choices are geared toward what plugs the holes in my heart, at least for another day. And activities, such as I can still accomplish, are chosen to link me to a future that I desperately want to see.
* Some call it Love, but I prefer Charity. Love’s a feeling…people fall into and out of love with tedious regularity, especially in Hollywood, but Charity is a CHOICE. Charity is the decision to give to God’s other children what is theirs by right; our compassion, our forbearance, our regard, and even the respect we may not think they have earned, nor ever will. Charity is telling God that we’ll walk to His orders, and His alone.
* From what readers have said, I think I do at l;east moderately well in getting those three pillars of my writing across…but I don’t make an effort to remember what was said. It’s not that I don’t care about others’ opinions…I do, deeply.
* The reason I don’t keep the words in mind is that I don’t want to let my interpretation make my writing style mannered, top fit the positive and heartfelt reviews that speak most closely to me. If I were told, and retained the telling that I used “haunting, unexploited detail”, in my next works I would LOOK to that, and the unexploited detail would thus become exploited, and the haunt would just be a writer with a white sheet over his head, saying “boo”.
* As for not letting characters overplay their emotional hand, I think I’m pretty far from that. My description has been called minimalist (which made my day!), and most scenes are driven by dialogue and the most economical description of action with which I can fairly get away.
Andrew, thanks for your contribution in the blog post and to it. You seem to have a strong handle on the pillars of your writing. But I return to the question: What do you want readers to FEEL? I see the concepts you want to shore up in their lives, but what feeling do you want to evoke?
Ah, good point, Janet! I danced around the question. What I would like readers to feel is this kind of hope –
* The clean freshness of a spring sunrise…I work in the intention that when readers turn to my writing it will bring them first to that ambrosial hour before the dawn, and that they will feel a world of possibilities, and the hope, grounded in faith, will rise in each reader’s breast that it’s never too late, that the only way we lose is by giving up.
* I pick words and the ‘structure’ of my writing to try to get that across. In other words, I’m looking for a bright clarity, hope elucidated with the sunrise, the kind that you hear in the opening bars of the third movement of Hanson’s 2nd symphony.
* Or, if you prefer a visual model, the sporting scenes of Leroy Niemann; the action picked out in high tones, with the swirl of the fans and stadium forming a dynamic stage set. I want them to feel the hope in the dynamism and the brightness.
* And when the story ends, I want them to feel like dancing…that through the inevitable sorrows and hardships that are part of every story, the Lord of the Dance is waiting just offstage…I want them to feel that anticipation, as the curtains to stage right begin to tremble, as He makes ready for His appearance.
* And I want the readers to be able to give a shout of laughter as they close the book, and feel just a bit (or a lot) stronger, and more optimistic. Not because every temporal ending is happy, but because NO temporal ending is truly the end.
* Does this make sense? I write for hope because it’s the most important thing I have.
Beautifully answered, Andrew.
Thanks, Janet…hope is what I find here, in this community of giants who have carried by wounded heart and soul more often than they – YOU – know.
* When one day I meet God face to Face, I will not sing, or dance. I will tell him of Books and Such, and he will see in this place a mirror, reflecting His Love and Glory.
* Well, He knows that ALREADY, fer SURE, but repetition can’t hurt, eh?
Andrew, what a privilege we all have to share in your hope and to help carry your burdens through prayer.
Thank you, Janet, for reminding me of this extremely important point! My WIP is a romantic historical suspense novel, and weaving a balance of feel-good and aaack! emotions continues to present a challenge.
Nicely expressed, Rachael: “feel-good and aaack!”
Good advice to feel what *we* should be feeling, for maximum impact, as we craft our WIP. In the end, that’s what will come through, hopefully. Imagining what others might feel can get us in trouble because what makes one person cry, sometimes annoys someone else!
Good point, Hannah, that we can’t predict what emotions various readers will experience as they read. I do think if the author enters deeply into his/her writing, the readers will know that and emotionally join in.
Janet, I appreciated the topic and the tips of this post. And your reminder that readers want an emotional connection with our words is spot on.
Some of the teaching I’ve received from Susan May Warren and My Book Therapy has focused on the emotional components of a story. Susie suggests, before writing a word of the story, we should know what emotion we want our reader to have at the end of our book. She also suggests knowing the emotion we want our reader to have at the end of each scene and writing with this in mind.
I’m not a master on this, but I’m learning how to add the emotive aspects into my writing. Not that I want to manufacture it, but knowing what I’m aiming for helps me come closer to the mark, so to speak.
You’ve given me a lot to meditate on today. It’s a good thing I’m drinking my first cup of coffee. 😉
That’s an interesting idea, essentially writing an ’emotional arc’ for the story. It leaves me wondering, though…and perhaps, Janet you could address this-
* Not all readers will react the same way, so ‘guiding’ emotional response can be tricky. Case in point – Barbara and I watched the film version of ‘Camelot’ recently, and I came away from it loving the music, but irritated beyond measure at the self-indulgent character and rank stupidity of the main characters.
* The music (‘I I Ever Leave You’ and “I Loved You Once In Silence’ in particular) are designed to make us feel sympathy for Lancelot and Guinevere, and sorrow for their doomed love…but inasmuch as Lancelot betrays his principles and Guinevere her husband, I don’t have that kind of reaction at all. (And as for that silly wmip Arthur…well, losing his kingdom meant he could work as a greeter at WalMart…if he had the guts for it.)
* Had the same feeling about ‘The Bridges Of Madison County’; it’s designed as a haunting love story, and marketed as such, but in the end it’s simply sordid seduction and sellout. Or can infidelity be chic?
* I could go on, but I won’t. It just seems to me that we have to be very careful in assuming that the emotions we engender are those which we ourselves experience.
Ah, my fingers aren’t doing what my brain says. The song is, obviously, ‘If Ever I Would Leave You’.
Andrew, you’re correct that we can’t predict readers’ emotional responses to our work. But I think a skilled writer can guide the majority of readers through a similar emotional arc.
I would say you are correct about the moral laxity in the two examples you gave, yet both were tremendous hits. They connected to, I believe, a longing for attentive love. The characters may have pursued that goal in a wrong-headed way, but the audience recognized themselves in those flawed beings and the motive behind their wrong actions.
Susan is right on. If the writer is conscious of the desired effect, she’s much more likely to evoke it. If the writer lets her characters meander aimlessly in their emotional life, the reader won’t latch on.
The first line of my first MS is “They promised his family food and blankets, if they surrendered.” Italics on the “if”.
I want a chill to go down my reader’s spine right off the bat.
I also wanted to lay out the Big Questions immediately.
Who are ‘they’?
Who is he?
Why is his family cold and hungry?
Why do they have to surrender?
Did they surrender?
Why the ‘if’?
What would happen if they didn’t surrender?
What about the promises?
Who defeated them?
Who are they, the ones who have nothing?
All those questions are knots in a rope I want my reader to hang onto as I lower my characters into a pit. And I want the readers to feel like if they don’t turn the page, they’ll miss the gut grabbing moment where they let out that breath they’ve been holding since the page before when THAT happened…
I love to know I made my readers cry.
So when one friend told me she’d cried, “and I never cry! I can usually see things coming…” I was quite pleased.
When another friend said “I totally did not see that coming!” I was thrilled, because she’s sort of good at seeing things come her way.
When pulled off well, the literary blind-side is a wonderful thing.
Great list…and one question. Did you formulate this list a priori, for implicit or explicit questions posed on the first page, or did it become refined and sharpened over successive drafts?
I Googled “a priori” and tilted my head all the way down the page of answers.
To answer your question…I just sort of shot off a list based on that opening line, based in each word and combination of words, in the sentence.
Basically? Who, what, when, where and why.
That really pulls to mind a cool concept – just write the first draft, and then formally develop a list of questions to which the reader should want answers in the first few paragraphs.
* This goes up on the refrigerator, to keep me reminded. Thanks, Jennifer!
Jennifer, your work is beautiful, and I’m so blessed to take a peek into it. You have given me goose bumps, made me sad, angry, happy … 🙂 and I just wiped the tears away. You have pulled me into your story, causing me to feel an array of emotions. This story will remain in my heart. I’m diving back in to finish … and I’m hanging onto that rope. Well done. 🙂
thank you, so very much.
I love Erik Larson’s books, esp. Devil in the White City. (Dead Wake is on my read-soon pile). His nonfiction reads like a novel As a historical novelist I long to master that blend of factual history and a gripping story. Looking forward to studying more closely how he makes the magic happen.
I’ve heard Devil in the White City is masterful, but the story he’s telling is too chilling for me. Dead Wake is more my style. I think you’ll enjoy it, Jenny.
It is a chilling story, Janet. Not my usual fare, but I’m crazy about Chicago history in all its peaks and valleys.
“If your character experiences immense grief over some loss but does not cry, the reader will cry for her.” Thanks for sharing this tip, Janet; it leaves something for me to be mindful about. I’m about to begin the process of rethinking my WIP after being away from it for a while.
Guys cry too. The most moving scene, for me, in the HBO miniseries “The Pacific” is when Eugene Sledge enters an Okinawan home that has been hit by a mortar round, killing a family and leaving the grandmother fatally injured.
* He’s become a killing machine, a transformation made vivid in the previous scene, but when the old woman asks, through sign language, that he shoot her…he can’t.
* Instead he puts his Thompson down, and cradles her until she dies; at her death, a child’s rattle that she was holding, and used to get his attention, rolls out of her hand, chiming sadly for the last time.
* When he leaves the hut, another Marine is waiting for him, and asks if he’d found anything.
* Sledge’s answer is delayed a couple of heartbeats, and he says “No” in the flattest voice I have ever heard. That one word is the culmination of the scene, and the watershed of Sledge’s long personal journey from innocence to savagery and eventually back to humanity.
* Eugene Sledge was played by Joe Mazzello, and the way he built his performance of weeping without tears leaves the audience to weep for him, and for all that’s been lost.
You’re welcome, Jennifer. I hope that tidbit helps as you launch into a revision.
Great tips, Janet. Thanks for sharing. I like your point about not “overplaying their hand”. I’m going to have to think about that one a while longer.
Good points to ponder. It took me a long to finish Unbreakable. Not because it wasn’t gripping and well-written, it was. But because I knew once Zamperini and his crewmates were adrift, it would be so enthralling I wouldn’t be able to put down the book. I was right, but I did love it. I haven’t read Erik Larsen yet, but he sounds like an author I would enjoy.
Point number 2 is excellent. My critique group discussed this last week because one of our members is writing about a personal journey of loss and someone questioned her if she used tears too often in her narrative. Of course, she cried frequently, but would the tears have more impact if they happened more rarely in the story?
For me, I want readers to feel emotionally satisfied, as if they’ve been on a journey with friends, laughing and enjoying each other’s company.
Carrie, I agree that Unbroken was emotionally forceful.
Your critique group sounds like it’s got the goods in terms of being able to critique and make important suggestions.
I really enjoyed reading this! Thank you for the tip to ask my readers what they feel when they have read something from me. I do love emotions in a story 🙂