Third-Level Emotion

captaincrow · Dec 15, 2017

So, yesterday, I read through this thread, and I had no clue what third-level emotion was.

BethS then posted a link to an article which I've read yesterday. Then again today. Twice.

BethS said:
Basically, third-level emotion is what the reader feels, not what the characters feel. I think Donald Maass invented the term, and he talks about it in his book The Emotional Craft of Fiction. But he also discusses it at Writer Unboxed.

And I'm still not sure what third-level emotion is. Or, well, I think I kind of know what it is now, but I'm still a bit clueless as to how and especially when I'm supposed to make use of it.

In my opinion, I'm pretty good at using this third-level emotion to begin with. For example, in my current WIP there's a very intense and sudden break-up in which my POV character is left alone afterwards. (Basically, POV guy does some magic in a very mindless moment and fiancé sees it. She doesn't turn him in because she loves him but she's scared and wants some space so she can think and sort her thoughts, yada-yada-yada.) Obviously, POV guy feels all kinds of things. He cries because he's sad, he thinks he's stupid because he's angry with himself, and then comes the third-level emotion: he's desperate. I have a a few paragraphs in which he cries, tells himself he's stupid, but most of all, asks himself how he managed to so utterly screw this up because of one little mistake that could've been prevented. That scene is perfect to have him wallow in his feelings for a bit, because (1) he's alone and (2) who would not cry and feel desperate after such a thing. It would come off as unnatural to me if, at this point, I didn't show the reader how absolutely awful this break-up is for the character. Not to mention that I'm writing first-person POV and of course after such an incident, one would think (and cry) about this for quite a while.

So far I'm doing this right, right?

But then there's for example this other scene with the other POV guy. There different intense feelings during this scene and I'm talking first-level emotion here, not the different layers of one emotion. In one ongoing dialogue with a friend, POV guy learns that the friend's sister is in love with him, he realises that he himself might have a crush on the friend, and for the first time in his life, he tells someone about his abusive father. That brings forth a lot of different emotion for POV guy and since this is an ongoing dialogue, wouldn't it (1) destroy the flow if I interrupted the dialogue for larger monologues, and (2) overwhelm the reader because there's about three different third-level emotion monologues in such close succession? Am I even supposed to convey such intense emotion at this point because it's actually the dialogue that's in focus here? Do I need third-level emotion all the time or is it okay if my readers sometimes don't feel anything and just see the characters feeling things?

What do you guys think?

blackcat777 · Dec 15, 2017

I would strongly suggest reading the book because it's more than just crafting an intense emotional monologue. A long monologue is going to be effective if it presents diametrically opposed emotions that conjure a conflict in the reader.

Likewise, you can also invoke third level emotion with a few words by binding emotional significance to small details and creating motifs throughout the piece. This works, again, if it jars the reader independently of what your characters are thinking.

There are other techniques that involve purposely omitting emotion, and using emotions that have no names.

The premise of the book is that the more you can engage your reader in his own head and make him think about his own emotions, the more memorable your story becomes. This doesn't necessarily equate to quantity of emotions in the story.

I just finished reading this book and it transformed my manuscript, I can't recommend it enough.

captaincrow · Dec 15, 2017

Dang it, I didn't want to buy another book until I've worked my TBR down to three books. But I've seen so many of you recommending this book, guess I'll purchase it after all.

blackcat777 · Dec 15, 2017

I said the same thing and then finished it in a couple of days.

Atlantic12 · Dec 15, 2017

I also just finished the book. It inspired great changes in my edit. Can't recommend it enough.

captaincrow · Dec 15, 2017

Atlantic12 said:
I also just finished the book. It inspired great changes in my edit. Can't recommend it enough.

blackcat777 said:
I said the same thing and then finished it in a couple of days.

Okay, you got me. I'm going to finish my first draft and then read it during my pause before the first revision round.

Lady Ice · Dec 16, 2017

From your OP it sounds like you’re just describing a character having multiple emotions, whereas from Beth’s description it sounds like third level emotion is the incidental emotion that the reader feels as a result. So for example, if there was a scene where an innocent man is being tortured, that might provoke in the reader emotions of anger and the injustice of life.

Bufty · Dec 16, 2017

It seems you (captain crow) are not grasping that the third level is the reader's level - the emotions felt by the reader.

I see it as an awareness of the emotions our writing can create in the reader's mind, not the random and wild ladling of emotion into a character's reactions.

Harlequin · Dec 16, 2017

Emotion is constant, continuous. Unless you are a very unusual human being who experiences emotion in brief flashes and snippets in your day to day life, you will be constantly transitioning from one emotional state to the next.

It's not about overkilling the big scenes--because anyone can ham their fists with an 'Et tu, Brute?'--but painting a picture of consistent emotional depth which rises and falls at the appropriate moments, and carries the reader with them.

as a separate note, that wasn't my understanding of the concept, Bufty >.>

Sparverius · Dec 16, 2017

What Maass is saying (in the article and his craft book) about the reader’s emotions is that readers are unmoved by plot devices and reactions that are expected and overused. The way to stir readers is to choose an emotion that is unexpected from the character, yet still wholly believable, and interesting. To achieve this in an emotional moment or in smaller ways throughout the MS, he suggests digging up the emotion from a deep, third-level place beyond the obvious. Most people aren’t experiencing a single emotion in any one event or moment. There are layers to it, and the deeper emotions can be developed on the page to surprise and delight the reader. “The emotion being processed is a surprise… and so analysis is demanded on the part of the reader.” This is an engaged reader.

OP is correct to reach past the MC’s sadness and anger to get to the deeper sense of desperation. That’s much more interesting than simply a guy crying or smashing furniture, and it’s something we can explore to learn more about him. Why is he desperate? What is the inner need that has driven him here? - The way I see it, using third-level emotions is a way to engage readers deeper, play with their expectations, keep their attention, and offer them new angles on a character. If, in a scene like the second example, the reader is already deeply engaged and chewing on the narrative, there’s no need to wring more out of the moment unnecessarily. Beta readers can tell you if the moment has the impact you want. But definitely read the whole book—there are so many more techniques to employ than just this one! Different ones will be appropriate for different moments.

Ari Meermans · Dec 16, 2017

Bufty said:
It seems you (captain crow) are not grasping that the third level is the reader's level - the emotions felt by the reader.

I see it as an awareness of the emotions our writing can create in the reader's mind, not the random and wild ladling of emotion into a character's reactions.

This is what Donald Maass is meaning by third level emotion: the reader's experience, the reader's emotional response. Think about it—the books that stick with you, the ones you remember years later, the ones you reread are those that elicited an emotional response in you. We can sympathize with others and feel happiness for them but we cannot experience the same emotional intensity as they do. When crafting our stories we should be going after what we want/hope our reader will feel.

Your readers' emotions are the third level. Not your emotions as the author. Not the characters' emotions. Both yours and your characters' emotions and how you handle them play a part in eliciting the reader response, but the reader's emotional response is the author's goal.

ETA: I also highly recommend The Emotional Craft of Fiction.

Sparverius · Dec 16, 2017

Another good post continuing this same topic is Emotions vs. Feelings by David Corbett. There's good discussion in the comments as well, as Don and David often debate topics on their posts.

Harlequin · Dec 16, 2017

Probably better than having a debate here, at any rate!

captaincrow · Dec 16, 2017

Oh, this thread blew up, ha-ha! (Low-key anyway.)

Thanks for your answers!

If y'all are right and third-level emotion is what the reader feels and has nothing to do with the character, I'm even more confused now. In that article BethS posted the link to, there's an exercise at the end--from that exercise, I understood that we should go past the obvious emotions a character is feeling and whatever we discover below that is the third-level emotion, hence, something the character is feeling. So, in my example, the sadness and anger wouldn't reach the reader as much as the desperation, which doesn't mean that the reader is supposed feel despair as well, but that the fact that POV guy's rawest perception of his situation comes down to despair. Therefore, there's a much higher chance that the reader can identify with the situation. I don't know, though, maybe I really didn't get it after all--hopefully, I'll know more after I've read the book. (It also doesn't really help that my parents are currently watching TV right next to me and I'm very, very distracted.)

Harlequin · Dec 16, 2017

Nah, it's all good, standard fare on a writerly forum I imagine!

Sounds like you have it right to me, OP.

Ari Meermans · Dec 16, 2017

captaincrow said:
Oh, this thread blew up, ha-ha! (Low-key anyway.)

Thanks for your answers!

If y'all are right and third-level emotion is what the reader feels and has nothing to do with the character, I'm even more confused now. In that article BethS posted the link to, there's an exercise at the end--from that exercise, I understood that we should go past the obvious emotions a character is feeling and whatever we discover below that is the third-level emotion, hence, something the character is feeling. So, in my example, the sadness and anger wouldn't reach the reader as much as the desperation, which doesn't mean that the reader is supposed feel despair as well, but that the fact that POV guy's rawest perception of his situation comes down to despair. Therefore, there's a much higher chance that the reader can identify with the situation. I don't know, though, maybe I really didn't get it after all--hopefully, I'll know more after I've read the book. (It also doesn't really help that my parents are currently watching TV right next to me and I'm very, very distracted.)

I'm sorry if I helped confuse you. No one said it has nothing to do with the character—only that it's impossible for the reader to feel exactly what the character does. The article BethS linked to is this one, Third Level Emotions. From that article:

Here’s a truth: We do not feel what characters feel. We feel what we feel. That’s so in life and it’s so in reading fiction. Hearing or reading about an experience can stir us, certainly, but when it does it mostly stirs comparison to our own experience. When a friend relates something that happened and how it felt to them we respond, “Oh, I know exactly what you mean. That’s just like the time when I…”

It’s good that we get what they’re saying but the exchange between that friend and ourselves is not the Vulcan Mind Meld we may imagine it is. That point is not just academic. It fundamentally changes our approach to the emotional content in our novels. The emotional state of readers is not a clone of what’s on the page. What’s on the page only triggers—let’s hope—an emotional effect in them.

[pullquote]The goal, then, is not to get readers to feel what characters feel but to get readers to feel something in the first place. When they do they associate what they’ve felt with the story they’re reading. They feel swept up in its currents, as if they themselves are experiencing what’s happening.[/pullquote]

You can also read Take Five: Donald Maass and the Emotional Craft of Writing (also on Writer Unboxed) to see if it helps any.

I still recommend the book because it provides the depth to make the subject much clearer.

Best of luck.

Roxxsmom · Dec 16, 2017

This is really interesting. It also explains why some readers will never resonate with a particular character, even if the writing is very good. Not everyone has the same suite of experiences or emotions to draw upon. I know there are some books where I just can't relate, and there are other books with characters that moved me deeply where others say, "Oh, I couldn't stand that character. He was so whiny," or, "She didn't ring true to me as a woman" etc. And some writers can draw me into characters who are experiencing things I've never actually experienced (like combat, or being a parent) because they allow me to imagine, at least, what it might be like for me in that situation. Occasionally, there's a book that is so raw for me I can't read it, because it actually feels too much like something I've been through, something I don't want to relive.

The challenge, I guess, is to make sure you frame things the readers who can relate to the experiences of a given character in some way that's relevant to their own lives and experiences have that opportunity.

Atlantic12 · Dec 18, 2017

I took a lot of notes out of the book, and I think there's some terminology confusion here. Definitely the point of all this is to get the reader to feel their own emotions and self-reflect, as people have said. This is what Maass called Outer Mode. Third level emotions are something else (though related, of course).

In the book, that really was about digging deeper and excavating below the obvious emotions a character has in a given situation. Since everyone has multiple emotions at once, we often assume the dominant emotion (fear, anger etc) is the strongest and should be on the page. But for the purposes of the story, the real target may be something else, the subterranean emotions like abandonment or shame or whatnot. In order to get depth in an emotional scene, it's good to focus on the deeper level, letting that shimmer through the more obvious emotions.

If done well, this can challenge what readers are feeling instead of trying to force them to feel a certain way. If in a given situation the reader assumes the character should feel *this* way, but the character feels *that* way, it encourages the reader to assess their own reactions. This engagement is good for the story.The reader is learning something about themselves. This is Maass' Outer Mode.

There's a lot of complex stuff in his book, and I think it's much better to read all of it instead of relying on blog posts or excerpts. Third-level emotions are just one technique in a big bag of tricks Maass offered in the book.

Harlequin · Dec 18, 2017

@Atlantic - as with Spar's post, that was my understanding as well, but I don't in general feel confident enough to gainsay others.

His books are good, and very humbling to read. You (or well, I) start questioning whether everything I've included would have sufficient depth for a reader of Maass' level (and that is what I'm aiming for.)

evangaline · Dec 19, 2017

Okay, I'm confessing my ignorance here. I read the book (certain passages more than once) and I truly can't wrap my head around the third level emotion premise. On a very surface level, I think I get it—the reader 'feels' what they internally feel, not necessarily what the character feels. But how does that equate with reader emotion in general? (shakes head) Is there really a disparity between the two? I'm sorry, I guess I'm just dense but it's not adding up in my addled brain.

blackcat777 · Dec 19, 2017

Putting third level emotion in your manuscript is like a giant mind trick. It's not a trick meant to work on yourself--it's specifically intended to work on other people. I strongly suggest playing with the technique and passing it off to your betas. If I hadn't done that, I would have been like, "forget this third level garbage," because I personally didn't feel differently about my manuscript when I did it. I kept it a secret from my betas I was playing with third level (okay, they wouldn't have cared even if I told them

)--and they all came back and reported intense emotional reactions like I've never gotten out of any of them before.

It's a formula for provoking reactions in other people, using symbols, scenery, motifs, conflicting emotions, and emotions without names. This works on a reader because people make emotional associations with things.

This is one thing that kept coming back to me when I read the book:

I have no idea how I felt when my mom died. I was sixteen, she died of cancer. The only thing I remember feeling was being angry at my dad, when I asked him how long she'd be at the hospital and he answered, "until she dies." She loved stuffed animals, she had all the bunnies and mooses and a bright orange Tigger. She had a stuffed animal that she named my name, but spelled backwards. Eventually we brought them all to her in the hospital and she kept them in bed with her. She was so fucked up on morphine at the end she kept calling that stuffed animal my name.

I remember coming back to the house the morning after she died. The house was quiet. My dad had placed all of those happy stuffed animals together on an ottoman in the living room. I don't know how long I stood there just looking at them.

So in real life, I still probably couldn't write about the feelings I have about my mom passing. But I could write forever about that pile of stuffed animals.

It's things like that. I bring this up because EVERYONE makes weird and complex emotional associations with things, with places, with smells that trigger them. And if you invoke emotions through associations with weird little details not obviously related to a profound emotion, you're going to trigger a complex process in the reader. And that is when you bag them and your book sticks with them forever.

evangaline · Dec 19, 2017

Again, forgive my 'denseness,' but does it matter 'how' the reader feels vs. that they just 'feel'? I'm so sorry but I'm just not getting it. *sigh*

Roxxsmom · Dec 19, 2017

Atlantic12 said:
In the book, that really was about digging deeper and excavating below the obvious emotions a character has in a given situation. Since everyone has multiple emotions at once, we often assume the dominant emotion (fear, anger etc) is the strongest and should be on the page. But for the purposes of the story, the real target may be something else, the subterranean emotions like abandonment or shame or whatnot. In order to get depth in an emotional scene, it's good to focus on the deeper level, letting that shimmer through the more obvious emotions.

I think this is important. We're often told to show emotions and not tell them. Have the character clench their fists or grit their teeth or shout or whatever if they are angry. Have their heart pound if they are scared, and so on.

But without a context or deeper reason for those "shown" emotions they tend to be rather trite and boring. Anger that stems from jealousy over a lover who left you for someone else isn't the same as anger from resentment over a parent who didn't meet one's needs as a child. And neither kinds of anger is like anger at the villain who murdered your family.

Any or all of these can make for interesting characters and conflicts, but the reader has to have an idea why seeing or hearing something sets the pov character off, or to get a sense that there's more to a character's reaction to something than just the proximal situation, even if the reader doesn't have the whole story.

Has anyone else ever read a story where a character reacts to something in a way that just seems off? Like they're over the top angry or sad or disapproving or something, and the situation laid out thus far in the book doesn't seem to warrant it? Sometimes it's framed in a way that hints there's more to it, even if I (the reader) don't know why yet. That may keep me reading in order to find out what's going on, what the backstory is or whatever, and what it's relevance will be. Other times that depth isn't there (for me, at least), and I simply become bored or annoyed with the character or the writing.

Atlantic12 · Dec 19, 2017

Evangeline, it's complex stuff! Just keep at it.

Riffing off of blackcat's excellent comment --- This emotional swapping between one person and another isn't just something that happens in fiction, but everywhere. Here's what happened when I read blackcat's memory about the stuffed animals:

Suddenly I remembered being 7 years old. My mom had picked me up from school unexpectedly. In the back seat were two huge garbage bags. The head of my favorite stuffed animal, a giraffe, stuck out of one of them. I used to hug him so much, he looked like he had a broken neck, so his head lolled a lot while my mom drove. I saw my giraffe in a garbage bag and got really upset -- don't throw him away! And Mom said she wasn't, we were just taking him with us. Where, I asked? She said she didn't know.

So...blackcat was talking about something totally different, mom's death with the levels of grief and loss all that entails. That memory triggered *my own* memory (and emotional response) -- the moment when my mom left my dad and everything I knew and loved was packed into two garbage bags in the backseat. A different kind of loss, but *my* loss. And now I'll remember blackcat's memory because it's been fused to mine emotionally.

That's what we hope to pull off in our stories. It won't work with every reader because they don't all have the kind of baggage that will resonate with what's on the page. But if you can catch some people, you're doing great.

Has anyone else ever read a story where a character reacts to something in a way that just seems off? Like they're over the top angry or sad or disapproving or something, and the situation laid out thus far in the book doesn't seem to warrant it? Sometimes it's framed in a way that hints there's more to it, even if I (the reader) don't know why yet. That may keep me reading in order to find out what's going on, what the backstory is or whatever, and what it's relevance will be. Other times that depth isn't there (for me, at least), and I simply become bored or annoyed with the character or the writing.

Roxxsmom makes a great point about the dangers of misusing some of these techniques Maass was talking about. You could easily end up with melodrama. Over-the-top, teeth-gnashing, forced emotion that leaves readers cold because they don't understand why it's happening on an emotional level. It's like there are 2 levels of understanding when it comes to the reader and a character. The brainy type of understanding what the character's goals and immediate wants are. Then there's the visceral understanding where the reader connects at a deeper emotional level. I think it's fantastic Maass is addressing that deeper layer. Just like any other tool, when it's new, we have to practice. His techniques aren't all going to be useful, and they won't work instantly everywhere in a manuscript. I've been revising bits slowly, trying things out. So far the results have been really powerful for characterization as a whole. But I'm going to keep working at it.

evangaline · Dec 20, 2017

"So...blackcat was talking about something totally different, mom's death with the levels of grief and loss all that entails. That memory triggered *my own* memory (and emotional response) -- the moment when my mom left my dad and everything I knew and loved was packed into two garbage bags in the backseat. A different kind of loss, but *my* loss. And now I'll remember blackcat's memory because it's been fused to mine emotionally."

Atlantic12, that explanation broke through my cobwebbed brain. *g* So I'm getting there! Tx!

Third-Level Emotion

captaincrow

blackcat777

captaincrow

blackcat777

Atlantic12

captaincrow

Lady Ice

Makes useful distinctions

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

Harlequin

Eat books, not brains!

Sparverius

Ari Meermans

MacAllister's Official Minion & Greeter

Sparverius

Harlequin

Eat books, not brains!

captaincrow

Harlequin

Eat books, not brains!

Ari Meermans

MacAllister's Official Minion & Greeter

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

Atlantic12

Harlequin

Eat books, not brains!

evangaline

blackcat777

evangaline

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido

Atlantic12

evangaline