Mastering Emotional Manipulation (in your writing)

I cry during dog adoption commercials. Rarely do I walk away from a Disney movie with dry eyes. I will undoubtedly sob-sing when a song is getting in my feels. And if a book makes me cry? There’s a good chance that it will be a four- or five-star book for me. I love getting emotional with my media. 

The weird thing is, though, I am not really a huge crier in my real life (my husband may gently disagree, but his shoulders are designated for tear-collection duty, so he sees more than most). But truly, in general, I hate crying, and I absolutely LOATHE crying in front of anyone who isn’t my husband. 

I have an inkling that I may not be alone in these sentiments. But regardless of whether you enjoy a good cry in your real life or not, I do think readers enjoy wrapping themselves in books because it can be cathartic to get lost in stories that play out our hurts, hopes, and dreams. 

My favorite authors are my favorite almost exclusively because they write characters and stories that evoke big emotions in me: Anguish. Joy. Amusement. Devastation. Fury. Exhilaration. 

If you really think about it, authors are basically master emotional manipulators… 

But how do they do it? How is it possible to read words on a page and suddenly be throwing the book across the room or making a grab for the tissue box?

Well, let’s see if we can turn you into an emotional manipulator, too, shall we? *cue maniacal laughter*

1. It might sound crazy, but it ain’t no lie. Baby, why, why, why? (why, why?) **sorry**

If an event (usually a conflict of some kind) in your story is going to create an emotional impact, there has to be a why behind the emotion. Why does the character care? Why should readers care? Every conflict is only a conflict if the characters in your story care about it. 

To understand why a character is impacted by an event, you’ll need to dig into their backstory and personality to find out what they long for, fear, and believe about the world. What is this character’s ultimate goal? How is the event stopping them from achieving this goal? Why is achieving the goal so important to the character? 

Let’s say I have a character, we’ll call them Sam, who is attempting to become a lawyer by passing their bar exam after many grueling years of school. Very suddenly, they have to fly home to become a caretaker for a loved one. As a reader, you may be able to see the general outline of the conflict here: Sam has to put their dreams on hold to take up a difficult caretaking role. We can anticipate that there will be some frustration and sadness, but why is this really going to be a huge emotional moment in Sam’s life? 

Well, if Sam’s desire to become a lawyer stems from their inability to prevent their younger brother from being falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, and Sam believes that the only way to assuage their guilt and do something worthy with their life, is to become a lawyer… we suddenly have a lot more impact and purpose behind their emotions. Now we can have Sam confront some hard truths about their brother, or perhaps finally admit they don’t really want to be a lawyer at all. 

With a why, there is so much more to tease out of a character’s emotions, which will ultimately tug on readers’ heartstrings, too.

2. The Language of Emotions

I think one of the truly difficult aspects of writing emotions is utilizing language in impactful ways. It is tempting to do a lot of telling with emotions because we want our readers to clearly understand what our characters are feeling. But by simply stating the emotions (even if we pull out the thesaurus and use “devastated” and “furious” instead of sad and mad), we are only manipulating the character’s emotions, and we want to be the red flag here and manipulate our reader’s feelings, too.

• Figurative Language

Okay, be careful with this one. We all love a good metaphor, but these can tumble quickly into Cliche Valley, or get tangled up in webs of abstraction that only serve to confuse readers. However, when done right, figurative language can be a great way to emphasize profound feelings. To say, “A hug from him was a crackling hearth and a warm mug of tea in the dead of winter,” will make a bigger impact than, “His hugs were comforting.”

• It’s your book, and they can cry if they want to… but maybe don’t tell us every time they do. 

This may be surprising, but many of the books that have turned me into a sobbing pill bug had very little page time of characters crying. Typically, my crushing emotions built over time, as I was shown by the author each time the character was crushed, weighed down, and burned. I don’t even think I usually cry when the character does; I cry when they finally win, finally let someone help them, or take back control over their lives. I cry when the character’s experiences have been too human, and I see my broken parts reflected back at me. (Or I cry if a pet dies or something because I can’t handle that shit). 

Writing that a character is crying is sometimes necessary, but don’t spend paragraphs describing the crying. Instead, use those paragraphs to show readers how the character sees themself and processes their own hurt, shortcomings, and fears. This is what will turn on the reader’s faucet for the waterworks.

• We love a good thesaurus moment.

I know I joked about it before, but please don’t ignore the vast and expansive sea of language brought to you by your friendly neighborhood thesaurus. While we don’t want to go wild, and the use of better adjectives alone won’t be causing any readers to tear up (unless it’s me or EJ because we are nerdy and like words THAT much), there is something to be said about using words intentionally to pack as much power and emotion as possible into what you are trying to convey. 

And because you know us editors like to harp on them, cut out crutch words when they are used to intensify an adjective, and instead, use better adjectives: enraged, instead of really mad, or thrilled instead of very happy.

3. Surprise!

Often, when we experience drastic emotions, we are not simply feeling one thing at a time. We may not even be feeling the most obvious emotion, the most predominantly. We get concoctions of the most unexpected sensations and emotions.

For example, I have always been very close to my older brother, and when I was seventeen, he was diagnosed with cancer. (Fortunately, it was a very treatable cancer, and he tackled chemo and radiation like a champ and has been cancer-free ever since.) I will never forget the moment we found out he had cancer for many reasons, one being because I felt the most surprising and peculiar emotions in that hospital room. 

I was shocked and scared on the surface, but I remember the distinct urge to laugh almost immediately after the doctor told us. You know that kind of hysterical laughter that bubbles up and catches at the back of your mouth, usually when something is funny in the middle of a church service or library where you know you absolutely cannot laugh? Which then, of course, just makes it even funnier and harder not to laugh? It was that kind of laughter—this weird amusement manifesting from my shock and panic. And then, about thirty seconds after that, I felt a rage unlike what I had ever experienced before. My fingers tingled, and I wanted to throw the box of rubber gloves on the counter next to me at the doctor’s head. It wasn’t until later that I felt the more expected emotions of sorrow and fear in more familiar ways.

All of this to say, when life throws tragedy, horror, or even fantastic, joyful moments at you, you don’t always process and feel emotions in the most logical ways. So why would our characters? Dimensional characters that readers will become attached to, love, and root for (resulting in those BIG emotions) are characters who collect the ugly, beautiful, and overwhelming pieces of humanity and forge them together for readers to understand the human experience through.

I think most of us will agree that storytelling is one of the most crucial and valuable tools we have to communicate, process, and heal from the worst and best that this world has to offer us. We read to feel. To feel seen, to feel lighter, to feel what those who are different from us may feel, to feel something when feeling nothing is the norm.

Your homework for this week is to go curl up with a book, have a good cry and get your heart torn out, then write something that will destroy someone else in the best of ways, too.