Show Through Actions
Evoking emotion within a story is key to making your readers feel connected and invested in the characters and their outcomes in the story. This allows them to experience a deeper, more meaningful experience. It draws them into the story and makes it more memorable.
Characters often show their emotional state through their actions. In The Hunger Games, when Katniss cries out “I volunteer as tribute!” as her younger sister’s name is pulled to be sent to her likely death, is that an emotionless action? Or can you feel the devastation of that moment and how desperate she feels to save her little sister? If Katniss had remained stone-faced and calm while being selected herself instead of desperate to save her sister would that have been as effective to connect the reader to the story? There would have been far less emotional investment or understanding of Katniss’s emotions and who she is as a person.
Consider your character’s motivations and what they would be feeling in each moment that may drive them to action. The ways in which they respond to things and the actions they choose tell us about who the character is so that we care about them. This is true just as much of the protagonist as it is of the antagonist and every character in between. Their actions show us their motivations and emotions that causes us to invest in their part of the story. Go back to your worldbuilding and consider how the various aspects of this world contribute to how the character feels and behaves.
Create Relatable Experiences
Relatable experiences that the reader can identify with allow them to connect to the characters. They become understandable because the reader knows what it feels like to experience the same thing. Universal themes like love, loss, grief, fear and joy are things that most humans can relate to. A common struggle, even something small like spilling something on a new shirt, can make your character relatable.
Emotional wounds can be common ways for readers to connect to a character. The loss of a parental figure or mentor is a common trope that many people connect to. We have been hearing the orphan archetype most of our lives in stories from comic books to romance novels to epic fantasies.
In Greed and Calcination Zoe’s mother is taken by the government when she is very young, and this allows for connection to both her and her father, Jason, through the concept of loss and grief. The overworked parent who struggles to keep up is an experience that many parents can understand. It also garners empathy for Zoe, living without a mother, struggling to take care of herself while her father is always working to provide. Their thoughts and emotions around this makes them real characters that readers can understand.
Book One of the Tower of Alchemy Series by Krystle Phoenyx
Use Sensory Details
Sensory details can evoke the sensation of emotions, bringing the characters to life. The reader can recall times they have felt those same sensations and what that was like. The sensation of a dry mouth is often associated with fear or nervousness. Warm, reddened cheeks show embarrassment. A quickened pulse and the sound of laughter may show excitement or joy.
Think of the feelings associated with various words when trying to describe an emotion. What sights, tastes, sounds, smells, and tactile sensations make you think of that emotion? A rainy, gray day trudging through water that sloshes in your shoes might evoke a sense of depression. The smell of vanilla and baked cookies might evoke a feeling of happiness or love. A warm cup of hot chocolate while wrapped in a soft blanket by the fire may bring the concept of safety and comfort to mind.
When the brain recalls the memory of what a described sensation feels like, it reactivates that portion of the brain. This is why sensory descriptions can be so powerful in pulling us into a story. The reader remembers the sensation and their brain activates those regions of the brain and all of the emotions that come with it. This can also work very strongly to create a sense of repulsion or horror, such as describing the slimy, stench of vomit or the snap of bones breaking. Keep that in mind to be conscious of what sensations you associate with different characters.
Build Emotional Intimacy
Emotional intimacy allows the reader to get inside the character’s head and identify with them. Vulnerabilities, what the character fears most, those are the things that readers will remember over the details of the plot. Inside jokes and insight into the truth of what a character thinks will give the reader the sense that the character is real. It engages them in the story and makes them feel closer. They become invested in what will happen to a character that they feel connected to in that way.
You want your readers to feel like they are getting to see things that others in the story don’t see. You want them to feel as if they are inside the protagonist’s head, as if that could be them acting as the protagonist in the story. People read fiction in order to live an experience outside of themselves as if it were their own. Reading spurs growth and self-development. It increases our understanding of the world around us. Storytelling communicates concepts we might not otherwise experience in our every day human existence. We read to live many lives instead of just one.
