Emotional versus Melodramatic

We’ve talked about how to write action and how to write description. When it came to action, the action needed to have an emotional foundation, otherwise the reader didn’t care. When it came to description, it needed to be told through an emotional lens to prevent feeling like a detour.

But how do you write emotion? What separates an emotional scene from one that just feels superficial or melodramatic?

How to write one

This harkens back to our chapter about Show versus Tell. It introduced a third layer of writing, which I call Feel, which should be used for the most emotional moments.

Most importantly, it states that you should

• Mix showing and telling
• But do it over a longer period of time, building to a climax throughout the whole story.

An emotional scene never stands on its own. No matter your choice of words, no matter your quality of writing, without proper setup and time spent with the characters, no scene will have an emotional impact.

If your hero’s father dies on page 1, it’s hard to care. We don’t know anything about these characters or their world. In fact, a nice “twist” opening would be to reveal on page 3 that the hero absolutely hated their father and is glad they’re gone. A first chapter can play and jumble emotions, as there’s no setup yet that gives the reader strong feelings about parts of the story.

This brings me to my three rules.

Mix showing and telling

If you only tell, the scene feels very superficial and bland. “I was so sad. Man, very sad, extremely sad. Did I tell you how sad I was?”

If you only show, the scene will be drawn out and feel melodramatic. “Tears stream down my face, many tears, endless tears, that just keep on coming, as my face reddens and my body starts shivering, and I’m now just writing anything but my literal emotion.”

Why? Because something feels melodramatic if …

• You spent way too long on the same emotion or message. (Going past conveying the feeling, into overstaying your welcome and frustrating the audience.)
• There is no contrast: if everyone is crying their eyes out all the time, then it loses its meaning.

This is surely a thing that comes with practice. Read a lot of stories, write a lot of stories. Find that balance.

But as always, the general idea is to structure the emotion like a mini-story. At first, start out by telling. The emotional impact is low. As time goes on, and the emotion deepens, switch to showing. Build up to the climax of the emotion, the biggest moment in which you really want the audience to feel it.

If the emotion is at maximum level since the start, showing everything, then the contrast is missing and it feels melodramatic.

Earn it

Similarly, a common response to emotional scenes (which you do not want) is “What? She’s completely overreacting. Why is she being so dramatic?!”

This happens when you haven’t earned it.

There was no proper setup or buildup. You didn’t spend the time and effort to really convey why a person is sad, or angry, or disgusted, or jealous, or whatever. So when you write a scene in which it all comes out, in one emotional outburst, it feels like overreacting. (“She offends you once and you burn her house down!?”)

Again, think in terms of arcs, mini-stories and rising tension. Setup and payoff. There should be many scenes before the big emotional one that set it up and give hints about what’s to come.

Be specific

Now you might wonder: but how to show the emotion? Telling is easy. Just write: “Sarah was angry.” But how do you show it?

• Through actions, mostly body language and dialogue. (“He raised his voice.”)
• Through introspection. You should select viewpoint characters that will have the biggest emotional moments in the story, precisely so you can write those moments from their perspective. When inside their head, you can really show their thoughts and emotions.

If you can do this, you’re already 90% of the way to success. But there’s a last step. Many writers learn the same “standard phrases” to show an emotion, such as “clenching fists” when angry or “raising your voice”. They repeat these phrases over, and over, and over, every time. Because they were taught to show and these phrases do that!

It’s also repetitive, grating and not as effective as it could be.

Instead, find specific and unique ways to show emotion. You can be angry in many different ways for many different reasons. Your story should have a more specific reason for the angry outburst, and it should show in your writing.