Writing Stack Exchange
Writing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [emotions]

This tag should be used in question related to portray a given emotion in a writing, or dealing with certain feeling during the act of writing.

75 questions
38
votes
13 answers

How to represent jealousy in a cute way?

The main character (which is a girl) of the first romance I'm writing would feel jealous sometimes of her love interest, but I want it to be a cute trait or even a setup for funny scenes, not a very obsessive or possessive trait, so they can have a…
KLTKGK
  • 553
  • 1
  • 4
  • 10
34
votes
12 answers

How can you write when you're upset?

I mean exactly this. Writing needs focus, to some extent. Even if you may fall into a state were words flow naturally on the keyboard almost without effort, you still have to reach that condition. Being a very unstable, stressed out, and prone to…
Liquid
  • 15,895
  • 4
  • 52
  • 117
31
votes
11 answers

How to detach yourself from a character you're going to kill?

So, in a WW2-ish story featuring a co-ed military, I have a female soldier who is very kind and caring. I'm setting her up to be a mascot and somewhat of the postergirl. Trouble is, she dies further down the story to kind of remind the player that…
Kale Slade
  • 2,653
  • 16
  • 45
27
votes
7 answers

Outlining the climax made me lose interest in writing the actual story

I am a discovery writer. I wrote more than 50% of my first novel's first draft. I got really confuse about some aspects of writing, so I took a break and analysed my plot. I've started developing my world much better and made an outline for the…
Sangeetha
  • 967
  • 8
  • 15
25
votes
13 answers

What makes writing emotional?

Over the years, my English professors seem to have agreed on one thing: that I'm a superb technical writer, but terrible at eliciting emotional response in something like a story or an argumentative essay. The last paper I've received back had a…
Corey
19
votes
11 answers

How do you write about the human condition when you don't understand humanity?

I was talking with some writers, and they were mentioning how writing is fundamentally about "the human condition, our take on it, what we see in our world and experience. All stories, no matter the genre, are people stories. We're always writing…
user2352714
  • 4,682
  • 19
  • 47
18
votes
6 answers

Making him into a bully (how to show mild violence)

Joe is the worst. Nobody likes him, not even the so-called friends he teams up with at school, filling other students with terror. He's sarcastic, nasty, and a bit of a racist, and especially anti-Semitic. Over-all jerk. When some of the other…
Cyn
  • 32,483
  • 6
  • 77
  • 145
17
votes
6 answers

How do I avoid getting depressed after receiving edits?

I just wrote my first op-ed for my college newspaper, and I've always considered myself a pretty okay writer; but after receiving my first round of edits I just feel so low, like I've disappointed the entire editing staff, and I never want to write…
Carson Edwards
  • 179
  • 1
  • 4
16
votes
5 answers

How to write a vulnerable moment without it seeming cliche or mushy?

So, I have a kinda loudmouthed character who's always the first to fight and first to go on the offensive (This is a fantasy, so she fights a lot.) But, later in the story, she comes across someone she truly fears, and finds that she must fight that…
Kale Slade
  • 2,653
  • 16
  • 45
14
votes
6 answers

How important are the author's mood and feelings for writing a story?

How important are the author's mood and emotions while writing a story or describing a scene? For example, while writing an erotic scene, is it important for the author to feel the same way as they expect the readers to feel when describing the…
srini
  • 1,233
  • 11
  • 21
12
votes
3 answers

Can disgust be a key component of horror?

The feeling of disgust is often used in horrors, exspecially visual medias (where is arguably easier to shock the audience with great effect). Often horror stories revolve around one scary element (a villain; a monster; a disease) that carries…
Liquid
  • 15,895
  • 4
  • 52
  • 117
11
votes
4 answers

How can I write a panicked scene without it feeling like it was written in haste?

I normally try to place myself in my character's shoes and I think to myself, "how would I react if I were in this situation?" Well one of my beta-readers commented on my work, and he said the chapter sounds like it was written in haste to go along…
Dawn Kelli
  • 1,075
  • 10
  • 19
11
votes
7 answers

How can show that my cold hearted character is coping with grief?

I have a little contradiction in my story that may well be fatal. In my high sci-fi setting, one of my main characters is an android. Let's call him Bob. Bob is efficient, cold and straight-to-the-point: we may as well say that he is heartless. To…
Liquid
  • 15,895
  • 4
  • 52
  • 117
9
votes
5 answers

How do I keep an essay about "feeling flat" from feeling flat?

I was invited to participate in an anthology of essays about a tv show. I chose an episode based on the Wikipedia summary (since it had been so long since I had watched it), but after I watched it, I felt nothing. I wrote to the editor and said…
April Salutes Monica C.
  • 4,652
  • 13
  • 45
9
votes
7 answers

Writing about extreme trauma

I've just written a chapter in which one of my protagonists witnesses her entire family massacred during an invasion of her home city. This is obviously an extremely traumatic and horrifying event and, in writing the chapter, I realized that I'm out…
JSBձոգչ
  • 6,625
  • 34
  • 45
1
2 3 4 5