{"id":334,"date":"2012-03-22T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2012\/03\/22\/thursdays-tips-harvesting-your-hard\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:23:15","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:23:15","slug":"thursdays-tips-harvesting-your-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/thursdays-tips-harvesting-your-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursdays Tips: Harvesting Your Hard Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Authentic emotions. These are some of the toughest elements to include in a manuscript. Why? Because writers, like most of society, do not like to be transparent. (I can relate to this too, since I write as well as edit.) Makes us too vulnerable. <\/p>\n

But if we don\u2019t, we\u2019ll probably hear something like this from our critique partners, or editors: I\u2019m not feeling the emotion in this scene. <\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s back to the writing cave to scratch out a new version. Only problem is, if we restrain our own emotions again, we\u2019ll have the same problem over and over, manuscript after manuscript. Have you heard the saying, \u201cNo tears in the writer, no tears in the reader\u201d? There\u2019s a reason for that.<\/p>\n

Let me share a surefire way to overcome, once you\u2019ve decided to dive in, no matter what it may cost you (which choice is in itself one of the most heroic elements of being a writer!): Ask yourself the following question: <\/p>\n

What\u2019s the hardest thing you\u2019ve ever had to do? Before we continue, do I have your permission to dig deep\u2026? Thank you. <\/p>\n

Maybe it was read the eulogy at your own child\u2019s funeral. <\/p>\n

Or put your aging dog down.<\/p>\n

Or face the doctors for some life-changing news.<\/p>\n

Or carry on after a car accident that claimed your family. <\/p>\n

Or face your birth mother who tried to abort you.<\/p>\n

As you read that list, what happened? Suddenly the brevity of the earlier paragraphs of this article faded and a heaviness settled, I\u2019m guessing. It did for me. <\/p>\n

That heaviness is the first step to accessing hidden, buried emotions. Once you do, you can infuse those painful, tragic scenes in your writing with the same gut-wrenching emotion you felt going through a painful time in your own life. And if you can pair up similar situations, all the better. (Ex. Your eight-year-old character\u2019s cat was just hit by a car and when you were a child, you lost your pet tragically as well.)<\/p>\n

Same is true for more minor emotional elements in stories. Like the first day of kindergarten for your youngest child. Nobody died, but I imagine you still cried. Or that first week of the empty nest. <\/p>\n

So, the key is to put yourself in the shoes of the character who is suffering and somehow get in touch with your own life experiences and the emotions those situations brought out. This will take courage, but your writing will be stronger for it. Ready? Roll up your sleeves, grab a box of tissues, access that painful stuff and\u2026 write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authentic emotions. These are some of the toughest elements to include in a manuscript. Why? Because writers, like most of society, do not like to be transparent. (I can relate to this too, since I write as well as edit.) Makes us too vulnerable. But if we don\u2019t, we\u2019ll probably hear something like this from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[237,138,62],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-emotions","tag-thursdays-tips","tag-tips-for-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}