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As an author, I still have scenes in my books that make me choke up or get energized. These are scenes that I’ve looked over many times, but they still give me chills. As a reader, there are scenes that I will never tire of and get the same reaction. An odd mixture of sadness and pride at Boromir’s Fall, concern for Ender Wiggin when things are stacked against him, and so many other memorable scenes.
So, I have some simple questions for people:
- For authors- What are some of the most emotional scenes you have ever written?
- For readers- What are some of the most emotional scenes that always get a reaction out of you?
- What makes a scene emotional to you?
I think this will be fun and it is in no way connected to me not having any idea which character or WIP I could post about.
Legends of Windemere 
I wrote a funeral scene for a character who wasn’t even in the book. It wasn’t my first funeral scene, but it got to me for some reason. I think it was the devastating effect it had on the survivors that did it to me.
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I’ve yet to write one of those. Honestly, I think I’m scared to do it. Death scenes are rough enough. I like your point that some of the emotion stems from how the other characters react long after the event takes place.
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Writing the endings gets me – I’ve done two now, and ended up doing something with characters I never expected, and it makes me cry every time I read. Another scene that gets me was a new scene I had to write to flesh out book 1. It deals with D learning the truth about his family and it just gives me chills and tears. Big revealing scenes and dramatic-but-gut-wrenching scenes always get me!
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The big reveals are always gut-wrenching. Do you think readers will have the same reactions?
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For the reveal, probably not – because they don’t know all of it like I do – they don’ t know how “big” it is (in my head). The most important takeaway for them is that the information is there, and if it helps them start to see the linkages that were actually present throughout the story, then great, but really, it’s so they understand what happens next.
Hopefully the ending will get them as much as it got me, though! 🙂
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I can’t wait for you to join the ranks of the published. 🙂
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Thank you, Charles – me, too! It’s coming along!
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The most emotional scene I have written was the character Moses explaining what happened to his daughter. Chokes me up every time I read it because I know it was a true story and no parent should have to have that experience. makes me cry to think about it. Then again. the very end made me cry in a happy way, tears of joy. There is an enormous amount of emotion throughout the book. Maybe too much in some ways. I have been called on the amount of hardship and tragedy…but that is life…it is not all flying unicorns with rainbow stars shooting out the arse.
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People seem to get upset if fiction is as difficult as real life. Something I just realized is that ‘The Emotional Scene’ for writers and readers always seems to be somewhat sad. I do this too. A particular scene in Prodigy of Rainbow Tower still gets to me after all these years. Yet, it’s a sad scene. I wonder why we do that.
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When pain is inflicted upon the heart the wound does heal but not the scars. I cry at happy stuff too, though. The thing that gets me about the Moses scene is that, yes it is sad, but there is also a tremendous amount of fear/horror and suspense. That is counterbalanced by hope. That is a lot of emotion going on in one scene. Joy is harder for me to convey in words on a page…don’t understand why.
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Interesting. Sounds like a powerful scene isn’t so much one strong emotion, but conflicting ones.
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Conflicting emotions builds tension. Readers then look to the author to resolve that, methinks.
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As long as the author has enough tissues at hand.
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I wrote a flashback of how the MC’s brother died. I cried a bit during it and, even now, still get a little teary reading it.
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Death scenes are always rough.
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Oh yeah, they are. I’ve written/plotted way a lot of character deaths and they don’t usually make me cry. I might get a little quiet, but tears? Not usually.
Of course, when reading, I often wind up screaming at books that kill off characters. No books with unhappy endings for me.
Perhaps the feelings brought up by that particular has to do with being in that MC’s psyche and having him lose something he’s had since birth then drag him through the torture of reliving a nightmarish moment of watching his twin brother die before him even though he fought to save his twin.
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I always get choked up. Reunions get to me also, but I don’t see those happen as often as character deaths.
Being in a character’s mind when all that happens can really pull at the heartstrings. I feel that’s the sign it will be powerful for the reader.
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I enjoy that big confrontation where characters have been coming in from different sides and suddenly they arrive at the same place and the fireworks begin. Often some big reveal goes on at this time. What had been separate characters now have a relationship — often, not one they’re happy about. There were a couple of big crashes like that in The Seven Exalted Orders, and again in my latest, The Grimhold Wolf.
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Were they all battle confrontations?
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Thinking…. Mostly, but one was a guy walking into the throne room and discovering his hated older brother sitting there with the crown on and everything.
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That can be a bit of a shock.
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I’ve written a few scenes that have had some emotional impact on me… One was the marriage proposal/consequent wedding between two of the characters. I teared up while writing it. I’m fairly certain the scene itself is as cheesy as you can get, but I found it adorable while writing it. And then there was that one character’s first death scene. He pushed his best friend out of the way of this one blade, not knowing that he’d come back. The part about that that gets me is when this friend realizes what’d happened. And the time where a character had spent a prolonged period of time with a serial killer. She manages to psychologically break him to the point where he starts pushing his family away. There was also the death of one character at the hand of her sister. But the biggest one of all is one I haven’t even written down yet (visualized it clearly in my head, but haven’t committed it to paper), involving a future the characters would much rather avoid, where one of the normally nice main characters ends up seeing everyone he cares about die in front of him. That pushes him off the deep end, and results in him turning against his own nature.
As for published scenes that get some kind of reaction from me, one of the biggest in recent memory was when reading The Hunger Games, with what’d happened to Rue. And in Harry Potter, it was Fred Weasley’s death. And if comics/graphic novels can be included with this, issue 100 of The Walking Dead was a major punch to the gut for me. I won’t go too far beyond that with it.
And addressing tier 3 of the questioning, I usually like to make sure I care about the character(s) involved. I know, that’s probably the most generic way of summing it up. But I tend to get drawn to particular characters. I don’t look for particular qualities in them when I read, it just happens.
…Hot damn, this wasn’t meant to be a full-blown essay. But things happen…
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Strange. I swear I replied to this comment yesterday and her it is with no response. I’m sorry about that.
Psychological breaking in a book is so hard to do sometimes. To me there’s a more subtle approach to doing this than physical issues. When done right, those scenes can certainly have amazing impact on writer and reader.
I’ve heard about the Rue thing. I’m still a little lost on it since several people told me she was a minor character that was barely in the story. I can’t tell if they’re talking book or movie.
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Sounds like a powerful scene that you have there. Not surprised you couldn’t sum it up in a few sentences. 🙂
I never read The Hunger Games, but I’ve heard about Rue. I think every good series has moments like that.
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Sirius’ death in Harry Potter gets to me every time. It was just so unexpected, and it happened so suddenly. There really wasn’t even much of a transition, just… he’s there, then he’s not. I read that part like twice the night I first got the book, and then I cried so hard my parents heard me upstairs and came down to see what was wrong. xD; “Are your book characters having troubles again?”
I write bummer scenes all the time, and I’m a sucker for drama, so I have a few scenes that I like to read over. One scene from my nano project where the MC and the main guy are in an alley throwing (verbal) barbs at each other tends to get me kind of pumped, it’s just very fast-paced. And then ending I wrote of a book I haven’t finished yet makes me sad, but I don’t want to give too much away on that–just that it’s a kind of inevitable, but no less depressing, ending.
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I suddenly feel old now that I realize how long ago the Harry Potter books came out. I should really get around to reading them. Stopped due to the movies and spoiler-spouting friends.
It’s hard to mention ones own scenes without saying spoilers. I like the verbal sparring scenes though. They always make me smile because you get to come up with some witty one-liners.
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Witty one-liners are the bomb! =D
And yes, I know–they will forever date me and my generation, ha ha. I figure at this point everyone knows all the major and pertinent details, but imo still very worth a read if you never have. 🙂
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One of these days, I’ll get beyond the first book.
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Writing lots of scenes in African Me made me want to bawl. Apartheid, abuse and death, then I really did bawl when I added excerpts from one character’s “diary” at the end. Fun. 😀
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Sounds like a blast. I learned a little about that in school and it was upsetting. I couldn’t imagine having to write about it without getting affected.
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It’s always the child losing the parent that always gets me. However i do remember reading Little Women, when Beth dies. I wept.
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Those scenes are definitely tear jerkers. Anything with a child is brutal.
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