And if that’s the case, then a writer’s primary objective, when plotting a story and every single scene, is to consider how she wants her reader to respond.

To be a masterful fiction writer, it all boils down to a simple word: manipulation. 

Face it: writers are manipulators. We manipulate reality. We manipulate our readers into suspending disbelief. We manipulate our readers into caring about imaginary characters. 

I am not using the word manipulation in its negative connotation of insidiously controlling or affecting things or people for a harmful purpose. This is a good kind of manipulation — one that readers welcome.

It’s astonishing, if you think about it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried and grieved for characters — people and animals that do not exist. That are not part of my life or my world. 

We create worlds and lure our readers into them. We create characters and get our readers to love or hate them. We are magicians with words, as we can weave stories out of thin air and, as a result, even sometimes change readers’ lives.

That’s magical!

Aim for empathy

When readers recognize the character’s emotional state as one they’ve experienced in the past, it creates a sense of shared experience. 

Readers will connect with the character, even on a subconscious level, because of this commonality. This is how empathy develops. 

One definition of empathy is vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another. Just as a memory — a real event — can trigger emotion (because thoughts lead to emotions), so, too, a fabricated memory or experience of a fictional character can trigger a similar emotion in us. 

When we master the art of showing emotion, readers are drawn into the story, their emotions are engaged, and they feel a sense of kinship with the character. 

While empathy is one of the many emotional responses we might hope to stir up in our readers, it’s not the only one. We often want to spark emotion in our readers even when the characters show no emotion at all. 

Example? Picture a heartless man, detached and unfeeling, watching from the sidelines as a child is torn from her mother and thrown into a van, sold to a sex trafficker. 

The characters in that scene are feeling certain emotions, but what do we want our readers to feel? Not that same detachment and heartlessness the man feels. Nor the fear the child feels. We want our reader outraged, horrified, angry.

Of all the facets of emotional mastery, this is perhaps the hardest thing for a writer to do well — manipulate emotion. One of the definitions of the word is “to operate in a skillful manner.” We writers want to manipulate our characters and our readers. 

Masterful writers don’t just show characters emoting and expect readers to feel the same feelings. Every writer should understand that just because a character is afraid or angry, it doesn’t make the reader afraid or angry.

And even if a writer adeptly shows a character feeling emotions, that doesn’t guarantee the reader will feel anything at all.

Know yourself

Uh-oh, here is the hard place writers have to go. 

For some, this is a joy, a cathartic experience to delve deep into one’s emotional landscape to draw out the feelings needed to craft truly human characters. For others, this is a danger zone, a restricted area full of landmines and chasms.

Since characters spring from your imagination, they, in some ways, are you. 

What moves you, what’s important to you, what you fear and love and hate informs your characters. Your values, what you treasure in relationships — all come through your characters. You wouldn’t spend so much time writing about your characters if you didn’t relate to them in some way, even the negative ones.

What makes compelling characters that readers relate to is their authenticity. Their feelings, actions, reactions — essentially all behavior — must be authentic. And while people are greatly different, there is universality to basic human nature. 

While writers are told to “write what they know” and, supposedly, we know ourselves better than anything else. But the truth is, we probably don’t know ourselves well. Dostoyevsky said, “Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.” We are blind to our faults, we make excuses and rationalize our behavior, we live in denial of our failings and shortcomings.

So it’s not an easy journey into the self. Yet, it must be done if we’re to craft great characters who show believable emotion and to effectively evoke emotions in our readers.

Donald Maass says, “Fiction is an emotional mirror, a mirror that reflects you.”

Are you willing to dig into your feelings in order to create strong characters? If not, maybe you need to reconsider your choice to be a novelist. 

Emotional mastery requires writers to set up the dynamics of a scene in such a visual, textural way that readers can’t help but feel what they are meant to feel. Understanding that emotional mastery requires a twofold approach — the emotional landscape of both the character and the reader — is the first step.

So it behooves writers to learn all they can about the emotional craft of fiction. Which essentially means learning to manipulate emotion. 

What do you see as your greatest challenge to manipulating your readers’ emotions? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Want to learn how to become a masterful wielder of emotion in your fiction? Enroll in Lakin’s new online video course, Emotional Mastery for Fiction Writers, offering more than six hours of instruction and analyzing more than forty passages from best-selling novels.

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Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

So many new writers start their books with pages — even chapters — of backstory.

They want to tell the reader all about the creation of their fantasy world. Or they want to make sure readers understand every nuance of Mexican politics in 1956 because it will be critical to the plot on page 103. Or they want to make sure the reader understands every feature of time travel or cloning in the year 2133.

Then their writing coaches or editors suggest that instead of including all this material in the opening chapters of their book, they should just reveal the backstory through dialogue.

Aha, the author thinks. Dialogue — of course! But instead of jettisoning their precious descriptions and explanations, they essentially put quotation marks around the same ponderous material.

Problem solved, right? Wrong.

Your backstory can slow down the plot

None of your characters should talk like the narrator. And readers still don’t want a backstory dump, even in dialogue. Your attempt to stuff backstory into dialogue results in long, tedious monologues instead of more believable two-way conversation.

Let’s take a look at a before-and-after example passage:

Before:

Debby started panicking. “You know, John, that we can’t send people back in time without the right amount of energy, and even though we’ve done an excellent job in extracting energy from dark matter, as our last two experiments attest, I fear that there isn’t enough to get Colleen into the past and out of danger. Just look at the flux capacitor levels — the microcosm indicator is off as well, and it needs to be at 90 percent for a guaranteed trip. The flux capacitor is crucial for making a time jump, and needs to be at about 92 percent efficiency to work well. Also you need to contact Clare and Silas and make sure they can divert another 38 gigawatts of energy to the main frame so in one hundred hours she can make her jump back to the present. The main frame can handle up to 50 gigawatts, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Whew, did you find that tedious to read? It was pretty tedious to write, too.

To make matters worse, these types of monologues often take place in the middle of important action. Readers aren’t going to believe a character will stop and give a lecture when bullets are flying or buildings are blowing up around her. Backstory, even in “active” dialogue, stops the present action.

After:

Debby frowned at the bank of blinking lights. “We don’t have enough energy here for Colleen to make the jump.”

“Is there anything we can do?” John asked.

An alarm sounded, and Debby hit the panel to the left to silence it. “Don’t know.” She glanced at the flux capacitor level and gritted her teeth. It was nowhere near the 90 percent she needed. “I think you need to contact Clare and Silas. Maybe they can divert more energy.”

“Sure, but how much?” John asked.

Debby thought for a moment. “I need another 89 gigawatts of energy.”

“All right,” John said, jumping up out of his chair. “I’ll contact them — if I can find them.

In this example, we assume that John and Debby already know a great deal of the backstory and pertinent information because they are in the story. Even if I wanted to make sure that the reader (as well as John) was clear about time travel, a cumbersome description only slows the action and raises more questions than it answers.

Readers don’t really need to know it all

Have faith in your characters, and have even more faith in your readers. Allow the reader to enjoy the journey. It can be more fun for them to discover the world and plot along with the heroine.

Sometimes dense description given through dialogue sums everything up, causing the reader to wonder why they should bother to read on.

Use a limited amount of shorthand that your readers will understand to convey what’s going on. Use the characters to convey their expertise in their own proprietary language, which can add depth to a character and give a better sense of what’s going on.

Become the expert in your field of study, and of the world you are developing. But don’t build a time machine piece by piece through your dialogue.

Backstory keys to success

Next time you’re weaving backstory into your project, remember:

• Jettison the dense backstory paragraphs at the beginning of your novel’s scenes.
• Explain in common, character-driven language some finer points of the plot via dialogue.
• Trust your reader to pick up on gestures, expressions, and atmosphere as substitutes for direct (and long) explanations.
• Don’t explain everything. Only include bits that are essential and interesting, and that advance the plot.
• Don’t build a time machine all in one monologue.
• No one wants a truckload of information dumped at the start of a story. Readers want to be swept away, transported — not buried under a ton of rock.

Readers don’t spend as much time as they used to “getting into” a novel or story. It’s your job to put the reader into the action and intimacy with your characters as quickly as possible. The rest will follow.

How have you introduced backstory in your own writing?

We know what makes a great, riveting scene in a movie, and what makes a boring one — at least viscerally. And though our tastes differ, certainly, for the most part we agree when a scene “works” or doesn’t. It either accomplishes what the writer or director has set out to do, or it flops.

As writers, we can learn from this visual storytelling; what makes a great movie can also strengthen a novel or short story. Much of the technique filmmakers use can be adapted to fiction writing.

Break up your scenes into segments

Just as your novel comprises a string of scenes that flow together to tell your story, so do movies and television shows.

However, as a novelist, you lay out your scenes much differently from the way a screenwriter or director does. Whereas you might see each of your scenes as integrated, encapsulated moments of time, a movie director sees each scene as a compilation of a number of segments or pieces — a collection of camera shots that are subsequently edited and fit together to create that seamless “moment of time.” By thinking in terms of segments in creating each scene, writers can create a dynamic, visually powerful story.

So how can novelists structure scenes with cinematic technique in a way that will supercharge their writing? Here are six steps that will help you structure your novel as if you were a filmmaker:

1. Identify key moments

Think through your scene and try to break it up into a number of key moments. First, you have the opening shot that establishes the scene and setting. Then, identify some key moments in which something important happens, like a complication or twist, then jot those down.

Then write down the key moment in the scene  — the “high moment” — that reveals something important about the plot or characters. That should come right at or very near the end. You may have an additional moment following that is the reaction or repercussion of the high moment.

2. Consider your POV

Now you have a list of “camera shots.” Think of each segment on your list, then imagine where your “camera” needs to be to film this segment.

Remember, you are in a character’s POV — either a first-person narrator telling and experiencing the story or a third-person character in that role. So consider where that character is physically as he sees and reacts to the key moments happening in your scene. You now have your “direction” so that you can write this scene dynamically. Come in close to see important details. Pull back to show a wider perspective and a greater consequence to an event.

3. Add background noise

Consider what sounds are important in this scene. They could be ordinary sounds that give ambiance for the setting, but also think of some sound or two that you can insert into the scene that will stand out and deepen the meaning for your character.

Church bells ringing could remind a character of her wedding day as she heads to the courthouse to file divorce papers. Birds chirping happily in a tree next to a grieving character can sound like mocking and deepen the grief.

4. Color your scenes

Colors can be used for powerful effect. Different colors have strong psychological meaning, and filmmakers often use color very deliberately. Red implies power; pink, weakness. You can “tinge” your scenes with color and increase the visual power. Color can also add symbolism to an object or be a motif.

Want to learn more? A great book to read is Patti Bellantoni’s If It’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die.

5. Think about camera angles

The angle of a “shot” also has powerful psychological effect. A camera looking up at a character implies he is important or arrogant or powerful or superior. A camera looking down implies someone who is weak or inferior or oppressed or unimportant.

If your character is in a scene with others and feels superior, you might have him elevated or being seen from below to emphasize this. A woman being fired might be sitting in a chair with the boss standing over her. These little touches add visual power.

6. Include texture and detail

Consider adding texture. Too often, novelists put their characters in boring settings, without saying where they are, what time of year it is, or what the weather is like. We exist in a physical world, and movies showcase setting and scenery in great detail.

Add texture to your scene by infusing it with weather and sensual details of the surrounding area. The feeling of the air in late fall in the middle of the night in Vermont as two characters walk through a park is texture the reader will “feel” if you bring it to life in your scene.

Novelists who think like filmmakers can create stunningly visual stories that will linger long after the last page is read. Spend some time using a filmmaker’s eye to take your scenes to the next level, giving them dynamic imagery and sensory details as well as deliberately placing characters, colors and sounds in your scenes for targeted psychological effect.

If we want to move readers emotionally by our stories, the best way is to bring our novel to life by using cinematic techniques.

Have you tried using these cinematic techniques to bring your story to life? Can you think of a novel you’ve read that used colors or sounds in a significant symbolic way? Share in the comments!

Starting a novel is asking a question. What if …? What would someone do if …? What if the world was like this and this happened …? Those initial questions lead to more questions, which shape and bring life to characters and story. Questions are the key to story.

Over thousands of hours critiquing and editing manuscripts, I’ve noticed that there are some questions I seem to ask a lot, which tells me there are some general gaps that many writers have in common in their novel-constructing processes. As you work on your next fiction project, keep these questions in mind.

Where is this scene taking place?

A reader shouldn’t have to ask this question, right? The writer is thinking, Isn’t it obvious? I know where this scene is taking place.

Unfortunately, readers can’t read your mind. The biggest problem I see in novel scenes is the lack of sufficient information to help the reader “get” where a scene is taking place. Just a hint of setting, shown from the character’s point of view, can do wonders. And what’s usually missing is not just the locale but the smells and sounds, a sense of the time of day and year, and exactly where in the world it is.

How much time has passed?

So many scenes dive into dialogue or action without letting the reader know how much time has passed since the last scene. Scenes needs to flow and string together in cohesive time. It’s important to know if five minutes or five months have passed, and it only takes a few words to make that clear. Don’t leave your reader confused.

What is your character feeling right now?

This is a biggie. It alternates with “How does your character react to this?” I often read bits of action or dialogue that should produce a reaction from the POV character, but the scene just zooms ahead without an indication of what the character is feeling or thinking.

For every important moment, your character needs to react. First viscerally, then emotionally, physically and finally intellectually. If you get hit by a car, you aren’t going to first think logically about what happened and what you need to do next. First, you scream or your body slams against the sidewalk or you feel pain streaking through your back.

Keep this adage in mind: for every action, there should be an appropriate, immediate reaction. That’s how you reveal character. (Click to tweet this idea.)

What is the point of this scene?

This is a scary question. Not for the editor — for the author. Because if there’s no point to a scene, it shouldn’t be in your novel. Really.

Every scene has to have a point: to reveal character or plot. And it should have a “high moment” that the scene builds to.

What is your protagonist’s goal?

If she doesn’t have a goal, you don’t really have a story. The reader wants to know your premise as soon as possible, and that involves your main character having a need to get something, go somewhere, do something or find something.

That goal should drive the story and be the underlayment for all your scenes. That goal is the glue that holds a novel together. It may not be a huge goal, and in the end, your character may fail to reach that goal — you’re the writer; you decide. But have a goal.

There are, of course, a whole lot more questions than these, and many are just as important to crafting a powerful novel. If you can get in the habit of continually asking questions as you delve into your novel, you may find they will lead you to the heart of your story.

What questions help you develop your stories?