To continue reading or watching, readers and audiences need to understand and care about the characters. Yes, the action has to be compelling and there must be meaning attached to the writing. People identify most with character emotion — the characters and the emotions they convey.
Action as a Emotional Response
One way to help a reader connect is to “show” the character’s emotional response to the conflict and action. By this I don’t mean the character’s internal monologue about how she feels about what just happened to her. Best is when shown through the actions she takes as an emotional response.
Early in the story, the character’s emotional responses as shown through their actions help identify and develop the character. Later in the story, the character’s emotional change, maturation, transformation is revealed through the change, maturation, transformation in the choices and behavioral responses she makes.
We Connect to One another through Emotion
A character’s emotional reactions that come as a response to the dramatic action deepen the readers’ understanding of who the character really is. When we know how the conflict emotionally affects the character, we care about her.
Each time the character succeeds or fails as they go after their specific goals, follow up by “showing” their emotional reaction to their success or failure. By this, I do NOT mean, “tell” us in internal monologue about how they are feeling. “Show” us as an actual dramatic action response.
Character Emotion
Writers are usually great at showing character emotion while in the heat of the dramatic action. Often, however, writers fail to “show”:
** the character’s emotions as she prepares for conflict
AND / OR
** the character’s emotional reaction after the conflict
Of the three — (1) a character’s emotions in preparation for conflict, (2) a character’s emotions in conflict, (3) a character’s emotional reaction to conflict — which scenes flow the most freely from you?
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