EMOTIONAL PUNCH
© 2002 Joyce Sullivan
Often writers will receive a
rejection letter with a line from an editor, "Well written, but lacks emotional
punch."
What is emotional punch?
Emotional punch is what sells
romance novels. Readers read them for the vicarious emotional experience. No
two romance novels are alike--just as no two people are alike--because emotions
are absolutely unique to the individual.
As a reader you don't think much
of someone who hears horrible news (their mother is dead) and doesn't react.
Now, as the writer you might say, "Well, my heroine didn't react to the news
because she was in shock." My reply as a reader would be, "Show me your heroine
being shocked--and do such a good job that I experience your heroine's shock at
the same time. I want my money's worth out of your
book."
On the same note, it's hard to
feel sympathetic to a heroine who's constantly arguing with the rugged, macho
hero without just cause. If we don't know why she overreacts in his presence,
we can't sympathize with her plight and we start
wishing the hero would find a more appreciative heroine.
Humans experience emotions on a
physical and an emotional level (thoughts and feelings). If your novel lacks
emotional punch it's because the necessary physical responses to emotion or the
emotional responses to emotion
(or both) are missing from your book in
the necessary places.
1.
The physical response to emotion.
For characters to be real, they
need to react to emotion just as real living, breathing humans do. Their
stomachs should be tightening at bad news. Their breathing should accelerate
when they're frightened or in danger. The tears should come to their eyes or
their throats should knot when they're sad. The reader "experiences" these
physical responses along with the hero and heroine. It's part of the pleasure
of reading. Not including these physical reactions makes your characters about
as interesting as talking cardboard puppets.
2.
The emotional response to emotion.
The emotion of a romance novel
centers around the internal and external conflict. The external conflict will
bring these two people together. Then good old hormones will get them attracted
to each other, while their minds start listing all kinds of logical reasons why
they shouldn't get involved in a relationship with this person in particular
because of the internal conflict. As the story develops EMOTION will start to
battle LOGIC until EMOTION emerges as the final victor.
For your novel to have emotional
punch, your characters must have strong motivations for their actions and for
the choices they've made in their lives. Falling in love must pose a serious
threat to their emotional well-being. The reader must understand why they
behave the way they do to each other . . . even though it's obvious to the
reader they're attracted to each other. Those motivations must be
substantiated through the dialogue and the internal dialogue as your scenes
unfold. You need to provide the reader with enough background information to
make them care. That's not to say you give all the background information at
once. Instead, you gradually leak out information scene by scene to give the
reader a clear picture of the enormity of the conflict.
Example: In This
Little Baby, Sullivan, Intrigue, the heroine is devoted to her job and isn't
interested in getting married or having a family. She meets the hero whom she
finds incredibly attractive, who happens to be the guardian of a baby.
Logically, she starts resisting
the attraction:
* Her
work is too important to her to get involved in a relationship. There are
hundreds of kids she can help if she remains devoted to her work. She doesn't
want these kids to experience what she went through as a child.
* She
works crazy hours and has to be able to leave on a moment’s notice.
* She's
been married before and knows she can't live up to the hero's expectations of a
family/home life.
Logically,
he starts resisting the attraction:
* He wants
a stay-at-home mom for his kid.
* He owes
it to his brother to provide a stable home-life for his nephew (the baby).
By the story's end, one or both of
them will have to change their stance so LOVE will win out.
All these
doubts and rational arguments need to crop up throughout your story in the
dialogue and the internal dialogue to substantiate each character's position.
Let's take a look at two kiss scenes
from This Little Baby:
"Gil,” she said softly, shaking
her head. This case was rattling her nerves. No, her client was rattling her
nerves. It was up to her to keep a level head.
“I’m the last kind of woman you
should be wanting to kiss.” She didn’t know if she was trying to convince
him—or herself.
"I know. I recognize a career
woman when I meet one. But I still want to kiss you." I’ve wanted to since
last night. His fingers lightly grazed her jaw.
Paulina bit her lower lip as a
tremor shot through her body.
"Let me, just once."
She knew she shouldn’t, and yet
she felt her resistance crumble like a stone wall giving way to a strong and
insistent wind.
“All right,” she said,
exasperated with herself—and him. (snip) “Just once.”
She closed her eyes as Gil's
lips swept gently over hers as though seeking permission a second time for the
kiss.
She granted it, opening her
mouth to the seductive forays of his tongue. He tasted of beer and honeyed
heat. The taste of him invaded her, claimed her in a way she never thought
possible.
* * * * *
Gil frowned as though
perplexed. “Why wouldn’t you want to have children?
You obviously love them.”
Paulina lowered her eyes. “I do
love kids. But the thought of being responsible for a child’s upbringing
terrifies me. I’m so afraid of making a mistake that’ll leave emotional scars.
There’s no way to predict whether a marriage will last. People say that having
children is supposed to bring couples closer, but just the talk of having a baby
was driving Karl and me apart. I know it sounds selfish, but I just couldn’t
agree to have a child. In my heart, I knew I couldn’t give Karl what he wanted
and still be there for my missing kids.”
“Selfish is not a word I’d use
to describe you, Paulina. Ever,” Gil said brusquely.
Paulina smiled, appreciating the
accepting warmth of his fingers on her cheeks. The mood shifted subtly between
them as her gaze rose to linger on the shadows hovering in his eyes. An insane
and crazy desire to kiss him flared through her. His mouth hovered inches from
hers. She wet her lips, the temptation so strong it pulled at her with
invisible strings. It would be foolish. Stupid even. Her heartbeat
tripled. She’d already conducted an experimental foray into that danger-laden
zone.
Yet her hand slid slowly over
the muscled plateau of his chest to cup the back of his neck. She knew it was
his love for a little boy that defeated all the logical, rational reasons why
she shouldn’t kiss him right now. His eyes shuttered closed as she planted
moist, featherlight kisses on his brow, his lashes and his firm, supple lips.
Something splintered in her as their tongues met in a tentative embrace. Fear
and desire, passion and need passed between them in a heartbeat.
Paulina felt a surge of urgency
stir within her as Gil groaned deep in his throat and slanted his mouth more
firmly against hers, deepening the kiss. His fingers fanned over her back,
creating a field of sensuous friction between her skin and the filmy fabric of
her red crepe dress.
“Paulina,” he whispered in a
ragged tone, breaking their kiss to run a trail of hot kisses along her jaw.
“Is it hopeless for me to want you to spend the night?”
1.
In the above
scenes point out where the internal conflict is stated in dialogue?
2.
Where is the internal conflict stated in internal dialogue?
3.
What about the physical responses?
The important thing
to remember is that emotion belongs in every scene of your book, not just the
love scenes. Pay particularly close attention to key dialogue scenes where the
characters are saying things that hurt, or admit to vulnerability. Make your
reader feel the numbness creeping into the hero's heart when the heroine rejects
him. Make your reader feel the tight lump of dread gathering in the heroine's
throat when the hero announces he's returning to his job on the other side of
the world.
