In the Podcast “Emotions, Emotions Everywhere” Tim and LeeAnna tackled the glories of uncontrollable emotions.
Which brings a new challenge for you writers. The prompt: Keep it under 600 words.
A character is about to be emotionally flooded. Does it take a few seconds, a few minutes. What is that moment when someone is staring normally at butter in the grocery store (or use your own example) and what triggers them to suddenly become emotionally flooded; and what is that feeling? You don't want to be writing “Jane feels flooded” but how can you represent the experience of her being flooded without it just saying it. She's really, really unhappy. Right? It's not about just directly expressing the words of that emotion. It's about expressing her actions that inform us as a reader what those emotions are.
Or, someone reflecting on their circle of emotions as I talked about in the podcast, maybe a year or two after a major event like the death of a partner or some enormous success in their life. How do they tell the story of those emotions from a distance?
Or, the experience of an emotional mugging. An emotional mugging is when you are going through your everyday calm normal and something triggers you, a memory, a person, a word, a piece of music, a piece of art, and suddenly you remember all the grief, sadness.
Write whatever inspires you—just make sure it’s under 600 words. Pop it over to us through the submissions page. Who knows, maybe we'll even feature it on the podcast. Extra points if you can throw in a grocery store and even some butter.
Comments