I probably shouldn't be writing this post. I am learning from Donald Maass how little I know about emotions. At 57 years old, I would have thought I at least had more emotional intelligence than a concrete block. But now, I am not so sure. Let's just say I learned a great deal from the second chapter of Maass's excellent little book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction.
Maass explains a simple but impactful strategy for compelling readers with the complexity of emotion and the human experience: don't show the obvious emotion, but dig down to the third layer of underlying emotions.
I don't think I knew emotions had layers.
First, Maass explains why saying things like, "Her eyes shot daggers at him," won't make much impact on a reader. We've read about emotions too many times to retain our fascination or wonder. As Maass puts it: "those daggers have been dulled."
Then, he waxes poetic for half a dozen paragraphs about the complexity of emotions. And the layers. Apparently there are surface emotions and underlying ones. And there is such a variety of shades of emotion. Our emotional DNA comes from our past experience, the people who have influenced us, the people around us at the moment (because humans are social and emotions are contagious), our morals, history, and politics.
And our emotions change.
Maass gives an example from a story by Daphne Du Maurier. A young man gets news that his cousin—who raised him as a surrogate father—will remain abroad. He will do so because he met someone and fell in love. There are many things the protagonist could feel: happiness for his cousin, sadness at his absence, bitterness at being left alone, and so on. In the end, he feels numb and alone, and self-critical.
Maass does a deep dive into the scene, detailing the skill with which Du Maurier crafted it. Not only has she surprised the reader with an unexpected range of emotions, she has also taken the reader through four steps in portraying the inner feelings of the young man: an analogy, alternative emotions the character considers, a moral judgment the character makes about himself, and the character's justification for the feeling they choose to nurture.
Of these steps, I suppose the "analogy" is the least self-explanatory, so let me clarify. The protagonist is about to face loneliness, the loss for a time of a trusted parent-figure. But the reason for the separation is something happy for the parent-figure (he found a new love abroad). As the protagonist is processing the news and deciding how to feel about it, he has a memory. The parent-figure used to take a boat out to the protagonist's favorite swimming spot an anchor it there. He would watch the protagonist swim and dive and help him feel safe. That memory leads into the character's feeling of abandonment. And also his shame at being unhappy.
Maass gives us an exercise to do the same. Start by choosing a moment of strong emotion for your character. Ask your character, "What other feelings are you having right now?" After that, ask a second time, "Okay, what else?" Maass recommends working with this third emotion instead of the first one.
Then, like Du Maurier, he says we could: (1) objectify the emotion with an analogy, (2) make a moral judgment about it, (3) consider alternative emotions, and (4) justify the character's emotion. In the scene by Du Maurier, the memory of swimming with the parent-figure nearby is the illuminating analogy. The character judges himself poorly, knowing it is crappy to be miserable about someone else's happiness. The protagonist considers other feelings. But in the end, he justifies his own feeling of abandonment and decides to live with it.
Du Maurier's scene makes for a compelling character study. And Maass unveils the artful method by which she achieved it.
Comments