Much of the ability to write compelling fiction comes from the willingness to sink one’s teeth into the substance of life, or that, which flows out of life.
Conversations, kind smiles, tilts of the head can reveal joy, simmering sadness, or the ache of a heart playing upon a crafted smile.
These are the human actions reflective of life and living that writers notice and expand upon either by writing a story or novel or tucking them away for later use in describing the response or motion of a character in the heat of conflict or a reverie of emotions stimulated by a memory.
We writers record not just stories, but the feelings that convey those stories.
While it is much simpler to state what a character experiences, we deliver the lush land of emotions in a more engaging style by describing states of being through the human experience of sense: touch and texture, smell, sounds, and taste.
Physicality transforms the most ambiguous of experiences into a live moment.
And what better way to convey the sense of being a live than through the human physical experience?
Emotions color everything. The choices we make, the sound of a concerto played slowly or with rapidity, or the manner in which rain falls onto a tin roof.
All constitute parts of life. The ways in which the listener absorbs them betray her or his mood.
How do you feel when telling a story?
What moves you to write?