How Important is Emotion in Writing?
If there is such a thing as a true magical ingredient for fiction writing, then emotion is one of them. Like conflict, it’s the one thing a story absolutely needs. Emotion doesn’t just make a story; it feeds it, sustains it and heightens it. Emotion is essential. A story without emotion isn’t much of a story. That’s because every story relies on emotions we all feel, the kind we all understand and can all identify with. It may not seem like it, but everything in a story revolves around emotion and there are two distinct ways to work with emotion in fiction writing – showing it and eliciting it. Show the Reader Our characters convey all manner of emotions as the story unfolds. Scenes are often charged with emotion, be it anger, love, betrayal, pain or fear etc. Characters act and react constantly to other characters, to different situations and to personal conflicts. We put our characters in danger, we’re mean to them, we give them dilemmas, we kill off their loved ones, we