I can still remember watching Titanic shortly after it came out (late ‘90s). It was the climax, after the iceberg has done its damage and the unsinkable ship is sinking. Rose is lying on the floating debris, and Jack is about to succumb to hypothermia. In the sea of people surrounding me and a friend in the movie theater, we were the only two not sobbing. We looked at each other as the credits rolled, baffled at the teary response we were witnessing.
It was a powerful lesson in storytelling to realize that not everyone reacts to an emotional scene in a way the author (or director) hopes they will.
That varied reaction is one that plays out again and again in discussions with other readers—in my book group, in my movie group, and in my various writers’ groups. We each bring to the books we read and movies we watch a unique set of experiences that influence how we respond to the material.
When the emotional pull is deep, the power of the story can remain long after I finish the book or the movie ends. For me, a book that stayed with me long afterward was Atonement by Ian McEwan. The ending (spoiler alert!), when the reader discovers that Cecilia and Robbie, the young couple they’ve become invested in, actually died because of what another character did that put them in harm’s way, devasted me. I put off starting a new book for days because that story kept haunting me.
Another example is Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, about a teen boy who may or may not have inherited his family’s ability to become a werewolf. By the time the climax arrives, the reader is beginning to think the potential transformation will not happen. (Spoiler alert!) So when it does happen, the reader feels the relief viscerally, just as the main character does. I returned to that scene to reread it again and again, marveling at how it affected me.
Neither of these books may have affected you, but it was alchemy magic for me. Or, not really magic, but the skill of the author to build a story so that the emotional stakes for the protagonist feel so real and true that the reader can’t help but experience it along with that main character.
As a book coach, I can be impressed with and enjoy a story for a number of craft reasons—but the reader in me will fall in love with a book because of how it moves me.
According to Donald Maass inhis superb nonfiction book The Emotional Craft of Fiction, the key to moving the reader is making the emotional stakes clear—letting the reader see/understand why what happens is meaningful to the main character. When the important thing does happen (or doesn’t), we feel the impact deeply and it remains with us. “Focus on the emotional world of your characters,” Maass writes, “and you will not only make a better tale, but you will build a better world for us all.”
Let’s return to the movie Titanic. Rewatching that film recently, more than twenty years after my first viewing, my reaction to the climactic scene in the water was much different. I ran for the tissues. The movie hadn’t changed (Jack still died), but so it had to be me. Those intervening years provided enough love and loss to connect emotionally with the scene that played out.
Books By Bethlehem Writers Group
Sally Paradysz wrote from a book-lined cabin in the woods beside the home she built from scratch. She was an ordained minister of the Assembly of the Word, founded in 1975. For two decades, she provided spiritual counseling and ministerial assistance. Sal completed undergraduate and graduate courses in business and journalism. She took courses at NOVA, and served as a hotline, hospital, and police interview volunteer in Bucks County, PA. She was definitely owned by her two Maine Coon cats, Kiva and Kodi.
Sal is missed by all who knew her.
Featured Books
FIVE BELLES TOO MANY
When Sarah Blair’s mother participates in a reality show competition for brides in Wheaton, Alabama, things get a little too real as a murderer crashes the wedding party . . .
More info →
CHARACTER WITNESS
Kathleen Cotter, junior partner at a past-its-prime Beverly Hills law firm gets a doozy of a first case.
More info → 
MISS MATCH
What happens when the matchmaker inadvertently gets matched while matching someone else?
More info → ROT & RUIN
In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen . . .
More info → 
