Gut-wrenching for MC?

jannawrites · Apr 13, 2008

Hey, gang. I need a few new basic ideas...

I'm finding that when my MC is emotionally touched by things (a sick aunt, news of a fatal accident), my first notion is to, in that initial instant, make her stomach drop/lurch or her heart sink/pump rapidly, etc. These instances are spread out over several chapters, so I don't think it's a huge redundancy problem, but it's enough to bug me as I edit. What are more creative ways I can express how things are affecting her physically?

Thanks!

Phaeal · Apr 13, 2008

I notice this kind of thing, too, though I'm not sure that the average reader does, given enough space between lurches and palpitations. Nevertheless, I try to vary the emotional reactions as much as possible.

In addition to the stomach and heart stuff, I like to use vertebrae tingling or chilling, throat tightening, generalized going hot or cold, dizziness, disorientation, breathlessness, mouth drying, tongue sticking to roof of mouth, bile rising, eyes tearing or overdry, muscle tension, sweating, weakness in the limbs, trembling. Losing control of excretory functions is a possibility, but the stimulus had better be extreme, like a shotgun shoved in the mouth and the hammer falling (King uses this one in Salem's Lot).

Oh, and goosebumps. With just the right character, you can even get away with "horripilation."

steveg144 · Apr 13, 2008

Immediate, blinding headache. You could even make it one of your character's quirks: every time she stuff hits the fan and she gets stressed out, immediate headache.

Maryn · Apr 13, 2008

Physical reactions to bad news or events can vary within the same individual, so there's no reason for it to be the same every time. Consider carefully what reaction is most likely for the actual event.

News of a seriously ill relative might cause the body to go into a sort of panicked mode, with the racing heart, slightly elevated respiration, wringing hands, and a terrible feeling of helplessness. A fatal accident, especially one in which she knows or imagines much blood, gruesome detail, or extended suffering, might make her stomach upset, give her nausea, overproduction of saliva, and so on. News that her son/boyfriend/dad is in trouble with the cops again could give her the shimmering vision that precedes a migraine, so she's got to rush home before it hits.

Maryn, whose reactions to stress are varied

jannawrites · Apr 13, 2008

Thanks! All great stuff. I do have mention of breathlessness and feeling helpless somewhere, but I'm loving all these others, particularly nausea, sweating and trembling. And I do like the migraine idea... there's one specific happening in the plot that could totally bring one of those on. Awesome guys! Thanks again.

Matera the Mad · Apr 13, 2008

Thanks to the era in which I am writing, I can use being hit in the chest by a charging bison.

Danger Jane · Apr 13, 2008

It definitely helps if you can get yourself into that state of mind before you start writing. That way you're basically just recording your physical reactions to the MC's trauma. It's really effective.

Constantine K · Apr 15, 2008

Try to think about how YOU would react given the news. I've never had my "stomach lurch" or my "heart drop into my stomach."

However, I have kind of zoned out and tried to wrap my head around the bad news. It felt surreal, like it was happening to someone else. I wasn't even that upset. Or I'd break out in sweat and tingles.

geardrops · Apr 15, 2008

In my extensive studies of psychology (read: I totally took Psych 101 at the local community college) I learned about stress and its physical effects.

Main thing I wanted to say here was that there are two types of stressers: random targeters and specific targeters.

Specific targeters always carry their stress in the same place. They always get a nervous stomach, or their heart goes tight, or their head aches, or their neck, or back. What have you.

Random targeters will feel their stress in different places, depending on the day, the temperature, and if a butterfly flapped its wings over a specific intersection in Hong Kong that morning. Places are the same as a specific targeter, except that it's not always the same spot.

It's an unfortunate thing to be a specific targeter, because that's where your physical troubles will lie. For instance, people who target their heart typically have heart problems. However, this is merely correlative, and has no testable cause-effect relationship.

I am a specific targeter: my stomach. When I'm stressed, I usually stop eating because food will disagree with me. Sudden stress makes my stomach clench, drop out, or get that strange cramp like I just drank a gallon of ice water.

Anyway. Hope that ramble helps.

Mr Flibble · Apr 15, 2008

I'll have to say I'm a specific targeter - my throat every time. When I'm angry I stutter because my throat closed up. Why I cry, my throat closes up. When I'm ill it's tonsilitus ( even though I had my tonsils out). I have CFS -- where do the glands burn? When I got married, couldn't talk, throat closed up. My daughter -- always her stomach, happy sad or ill.

Strangely (^^) my MC's tend to be the same. One has the habit when stressed of gripping her knife ( not her main weapon) until her fingers go numb. As long as each description is suffciently different, there should be no problem.

Dale Emery · Apr 15, 2008

One possibility: For some of the reactions, give a line or three about the MC's immediate thoughts at that instant, and let the reader supply the appropriate emotional/physical response.

Dale

Judg · Apr 15, 2008

You might also consider not telling us what the character is feeling. Instead, make us feel the same way. Emotions are much more powerful when we're experiencing them instead of reading descriptions of them.

Go over your bookshelves and pull out a book that affected you deeply when you read it, where you really felt like you were in the character's skin. Read the emotional bits. I'm willing to bet there are very, very few descriptions of physiological responses. I will also bet that most of them wouldn't seem too impressive if you put excerpts here. What would make them effective would be how well the author has gotten us to identify with the character so a couple of simple sentences would pack a punch.

"She dropped onto the sofa. Johnny gently pried the letter out of her hands before she crushed it entirely."

That's not very good, but I hope it gives you the idea.

ACEnders · Apr 15, 2008

Oh thank you for this thread! I just happen to be revising also, and I've come across the same problem! Thanks goes to you Janna for starting the thread and to the rest of you for all of you suggestions.

maestrowork · Apr 15, 2008

jannawrites said:
Hey, gang. I need a few new basic ideas...

I'm finding that when my MC is emotionally touched by things (a sick aunt, news of a fatal accident), my first notion is to, in that initial instant, make her stomach drop/lurch or her heart sink/pump rapidly, etc. These instances are spread out over several chapters, so I don't think it's a huge redundancy problem, but it's enough to bug me as I edit. What are more creative ways I can express how things are affecting her physically?

Thanks!

How about not describing it at all? Let the readers take over and feel the punch instead. The more you try to describe the heart sinking or stomach lurching of the character, the more banal and rote it becomes. Plus that's more "tell" than "show." Show how she reacts once (shaking, etc.) would be enough and then in later times when bad news hit again, the readers will get it without you keep telling us how the character reacts. Instead, SHOW us the devastating news and let the readers feel the gut-wrench.

Constantine K · Apr 15, 2008

Judg said:
You might also consider not telling us what the character is feeling. Instead, make us feel the same way. Emotions are much more powerful when we're experiencing them instead of reading descriptions of them.

Go over your bookshelves and pull out a book that affected you deeply when you read it, where you really felt like you were in the character's skin. Read the emotional bits. I'm willing to bet there are very, very few descriptions of physiological responses. I will also bet that most of them wouldn't seem too impressive if you put excerpts here. What would make them effective would be how well the author has gotten us to identify with the character so a couple of simple sentences would pack a punch.

"She dropped onto the sofa. Johnny gently pried the letter out of her hands before she crushed it entirely."

That's not very good, but I hope it gives you the idea.

That's great advice. I just looked over a novel that affected me the most (the last dark tower book). Two main character's die, and the people experiencing those deaths don't have dropping stomach's or beating hearts. The emotion is in their actions and the words that they say. It really makes it more powerful that way, to me at least.

I just never thought about it until you said it.

jannawrites · Apr 15, 2008

Constantine K said:
That's great advice. I just looked over a novel that affected me the most (the last dark tower book). Two main character's die, and the people experiencing those deaths don't have dropping stomach's or beating hearts. The emotion is in their actions and the words that they say. It really makes it more powerful that way, to me at least.

I just never thought about it until you said it.

Would you do me a huge favor and post an excerpt here? Please?

Constantine K · Apr 15, 2008

jannawrites said:
Would you do me a huge favor and post an excerpt here? Please?

jannawrites said:

Here's a tiny piece. The whole situation itself is MANY pages long. Roland is a man and Jake is his adopted son.

Roland staggered to Jake and fell on his knees
beside him. His first thought was that Jake was all
right after all. The boy's limbs were straight,
thank all the gods, and the mark running across the
bridge of his nose and down one beardless cheek
was oil flecked with rust, not blood as Roland had
first assumed. There was blood coming out of his
ears, yes, and his mouth, too, but the latter stream
might only be flowing from a cut in the lining of his
cheek, or--
"Go and see to the writer," Jake said. His voice was
calm, not at all constricted by pain.

Constantine K · Apr 15, 2008

"JAKE, NO!" Roland bellowed again, but it was too late.
The boy he thought of as his son disappeared beneath
the blue vehicle. The gunslinger saw one upraised hand
--would never forget it--and then that was gone, too.

maestrowork · Apr 15, 2008

I think the trick is not tell: "Her stomach lurched" or "her heart sank" but instead describe the action: "she pressed a hand on her chest and slumped onto a chair" or "she started to wheeze as she clutched the hem of her blouse with a fist."

Constantine K · Apr 15, 2008

maestrowork said:
I think the trick is not tell: "Her stomach lurched" or "her heart sank" but instead describe the action: "she pressed a hand on her chest and slumped onto a chair" or "she started to wheeze as she clutched the hem of her blouse with a fist."

Yes, because in the end show is always more interesting than tell. I think I've known this all along, but thank you for putting it into words.

By the way, I might be a little biased with the dark tower excerpts. I spent 5000 pages with these characters, and would've been affected if Uncle Stevie had just said: "Jake died." That's how attached I was.

Daehota · Apr 16, 2008

Danger Jane said:
It definitely helps if you can get yourself into that state of mind before you start writing. That way you're basically just recording your physical reactions to the MC's trauma. It's really effective.

The only problem with this method is that I'd spend too much time being sick with the problems of my MC than actually writing about them.

Daehota · Apr 16, 2008

Constantine K said:
"JAKE, NO!" Roland bellowed again, but it was too late.

Thank's, Constantine. I just cried all over my new shirt...again!

Seriously, it is a good bit of writing and it affected me deeply. And it was all in his words and his actions.

Now, I must go and edit my 1st-person wip a bit...

mikeland · Apr 16, 2008

There's a lot of good advice here so far. I always have to go back and make sure I'm showing not telling.

But I think the real problem with "his heart sank" and "her stomach lurched" is that they're cliches. It's just shorthand for "my character is feeling something" -- without really expressing what the character is feeling. If you think about them, those phrases don't actually mean anything (unless you have a character whose heart descends into his kneecap or stomach literally jumps out of her abdomen).

I'd take such phrases out anywhere you find them. Replace them with actions that can be seen. You can't see what is happening to one's stomach or heart, no matter how dramatic it might be.

maestrowork · Apr 16, 2008

mikeland said:
But I think the real problem with "his heart sank" and "her stomach lurched" is that they're cliches. It's just shorthand for "my character is feeling something" -- without really expressing what the character is feeling. I

That's a good point. A lot of times that's when a writer is taking shortcut. Telling us "her heart sank" is a quick and easy way to convey something without really having to describe it. Cliches are good placeholders during first draft, but during rewrites, expand on them. Declichefy them.

Andre_Laurent · Apr 16, 2008

Oh damnit to hell...now I have to go back and revise the chapter I just revised. I knew I should have stayed away from this thread.

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