Chapter Twenty-Three
The Change in Emotion Column
Just as the conflict in every scene affects the overall emotional growth of your characters throughout the entire work, the dramatic action in each scene affects and changes your characters’ emotional states on a moment-by-moment basis. I’m not necessarily referring to lasting emotions but to mood changes that fluctuate, and rise and fall, in correspondence with what was said or done in a specific scene. These emotions are experienced in the moment and are not permanent. They are a result of feelings that come and go based on the character’s circumstances and her internal state and are often experienced through the senses.
To make your characters real and relatable, and the action true and impactful, show how the character’s emotional state changes from the beginning of the scene, through the middle of the scene, and at the end of the scene. All of us go through a multitude of emotions throughout a day. It is not normal for someone to feel the same way all the time. From anger to reason to confusion to uncertainty to joy, sometimes these emotions pass through us in rapid succession. Cumulatively these moments of change, from happiness to sadness, aggressiveness to avoidance, confusion to fear, anger to passivity, can add up to a more substantive transformational moment over time.
In the same way, a character who exhibits the same emotion all the time feels unauthentic and thus could be viewed by the reader as untrustworthy. More important, change in the character’s moods and reactions and feelings and emotions makes a story come alive. Moving from inside the character to the external action rivets the reader’s attention. A character’s emotional changes within a scene give readers what they need to make the story their own: emotion in the moment.
Case Study: A Shameful Affair
The opening scene of Kate Chopin’s short story "A Shameful Affair" begins as follows.
Mildred Orme, seated in the snuggest corner of the big front porch of the Kraummer farmhouse, was as content as a girl need hope to be.
[cut to paragraph three]
From her agreeable corner where she lounged with her Browning or her Ibsen, Mildred watched the woman [pull the great clanging bell that called the farmhands in to dinner] every day. Yet when the clumsy farmhands all came tramping up the steps and crossed the porch in going to their meal that was served within, she never looked at them. Why should she? Farmhands are not so very nice to look at, and she was nothing of an anthropologist. But once when the half dozen men came along, a paper which she had laid carelessly upon the railing was blown across their path. One of them picked it up, and when he had mounted the steps restored it to her. He was young, and brown, of course, as the sun had made him. He had nice blue eyes. His fair hair was dishevelled. His shoulders were broad and square and his limbs strong and clean. A not unpicturesque figure in the rough attire that bared his throat to view and gave perfect freedom to his every motion.
Mildred did not make these several observations in the half second that she looked at him in courteous acknowledgment. It took her as many days to note them all. For she singled him out each time that he passed her, meaning to give him a condescending little smile, as she knew how. But he never looked at her.
| Scene Tracker: A Shameful Affair by Kate Chopin | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Lunchtime | Condescending toward the farmhands | To give him a condescending smile | Farmhand crosses class lines | X | +/- | |
The Change in Emotion Column for this short story received a “+/-“ because the protagonist’s emotion at the beginning of the scene was positive (she is confident and condescending) but ends in the negative (she is being ignored). If the scene had started out with negative emotion and had risen as the scene progressed into positive emotion, then the Change in Emotion Column would have received a “-/+.”
Feel free to write the actual change in emotion rather than use the symbols. For instance: “She goes from ignoring to being ignored.”
Case Study: All the Pretty Horses
The character shows no emotional change from the beginning of the scene to the end. However, this in and of itself creates tension—we wonder why he feels nothing after having seen the dead man laid out. In showing no change of emotion, McCarthy creates suspense and thus forces the reader to read on to find out why. Later we learn that the character does not show a lot of emotion, and thus this opening scene accurately portrays a man who keeps nearly everything inside.
In this example, we leave the Change in Emotion Column blank.
| Scene Tracker: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Just before dawn | Speaks the truth | View of dead man | X | |||
Case Study: The Sea-Wolf
The protagonist begins the scene in a confident manner. However, before long the stranger hints that, because of all the fog in the San Francisco Bay, things are amiss.
He gave a short chuckle. “They’re getting anxious up there.”
Soon after, the boat the protagonist is traveling on crashes into another vessel. Fear fills the protagonist as chaos ensues.
| Scene Tracker: The Sea-Wolf by Jack London | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SU | |||||||
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Jan. Mon. A.M. | Blames others; intelligent; writer | Write essay | Stranger appears | X | +/- | |
Case Study: White Oleander
The protagonist’s dark mood does not change much throughout the scene. Thus we leave the Change in Emotion Column blank.
| Scene Tracker: White Oleander by Janet Fitch | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Nighttime, Santa Ana | Deeply identifies with mother; 12 years old; afraid; takes care of mother | Give mother comfort | Roof w/ mother | X | ||
Case Study: Where the Heart Is
The protagonist’s emotion moves from miserable to hopeful and from low to high throughout the scene. Most important, how Novalee shows emotion and how she feels at the start of the scene—on the verge of desperation to go to the bathroom—is vastly different twelve pages later when the scene ends. She feels triumphant because not only does she convince her boyfriend to stop, he also gives her enough money to buy herself a pair of shoes to replace the ones that fell through the rusted-out hole in the car’s floorboard.
| Scene Tracker: Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Date and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | In a car headed for CA | 17 yrs. old; 7 months pregnant; superstitious about sevens | To use the restroom | Riding in a car | X | -/+/-/+ | |
Case Study: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
We know without being told that the character has a change of emotion from the beginning of the scene, when he is hiding, to the middle of the scene, when he is being threatened with a switch, to the end of the scene, when he runs to freedom. The Change in Emotion Column receives a “-/-/+,” because the implied emotion begins as fear of getting caught, moves to fear of getting whipped, and finishes favorably.
| Scene Tracker: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scene (SC) or Summary (SU) | Time and Setting | Character Emotional Development | Goal | Dramatic Action | Conflict | Change in Emotion | Thematic Details |
| Ch. 1, SC 1 | Fri. Aunt’s house | T: Small, smart, fast, liar A: Took in dead sister’s son | Escape | Tom/Aunt trouble | X | -/-/+ | |
Tracking Your Story
In the Change in Emotion Column, plot the emotion at the beginning of each of your scenes with a plus or a minus sign depending on how the character is feeling at the beginning of the scene. Continue to change the sign as the character’s emotion changes. If no emotional change occurs, leave the cell blank.
Change in Emotion vs. Character Emotional Development
Change in emotion and character emotional development are two distinct but equally essential elements present in every scene.
Take a look at the Scene Tracker and note how narrow the Change in Emotion Column is. Compare its width to that of the Character Emotional Development Column, where plenty of space is needed to record anything that has to do with the character through whom the story moves and breathes at each unique moment in time.
The Change in Emotion Column is one of the narrowest because little room is needed to show emotional change. Using plus or minus signs, or drawing simple arrows pointing up and down, will do. For your story, you need only note the positive and negative emotional change the character goes through in a scene.
Character emotional development changes as the character passes through the entire story, step by step toward transformation. Change in emotion is a more focused, but fleeting, emotional shift the character experiences as he passes through a scene. Change in emotion indicates the visceral reactions the character feels in the moment.
The change in the character’s emotion does not have to be significant but it should attempt to create a change in the character. There are always exceptions, of course, in scenes where characters enter and leave unchanged emotionally by what happens. But as long as you look for ways to record a change in the protagonist’s emotional level somewhere throughout the scene, then your chances of keeping the reader’s interest increases. If you can’t record a change, then the scene has done nothing to develop the character.
Without some sort of emotional change in your character, your story will become stagnant and you will likely lose the reader. Stories are living, breathing organisms, as is your protagonist, who must grow and change as he tries to get something in life, fails, and tries again. Each time your protagonist is knocked down, he must get back up and steel his resolve.
It is best if the protagonist is in worse shape when the scene ends than when it began. No matter how bad things get for the character, the situation can and should always get worse.
If you find that your protagonist is always happy or always sad with few definite changes in emotion, then perhaps you are like the writer who told me that in tracking her scenes she found her piece was “a rather dour story of a dour character.” Armed with that realization, she began working on integrating a variety of emotions to show more of the protagonist’s strengths and hopefulness.
Keep writing. Do not polish. Do not go back and start over. Keep moving forward. Write your entire book as a rough draft all at once. Do not show it to anyone. Do not worry about spelling or grammar. Just keep writing until you get to the end. Only then do you know what you have.
The Writer’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Do not worry if tracking the emotional changes within your protagonist is difficult for you. Most writers have strengths and weaknesses in their writing. For instance, many writers are particularly adept at creating quirky, likable protagonists who feel emotions strongly, but those same authors have difficulty creating dramatic action and lots of conflict. Other writers are just the opposite and can create all sorts of amazing action scenes but break down when it comes to developing characters and their emotional growth.
Whatever your strengths and weaknesses, be aware of them. When you are feeling brave and energetic (if you were tracking yourself, you would receive a +), spend time in the arena you find most challenging. When your energy is low (you would receive a -), stay in your area of strength.
If the +/- symbols are too confusing for you, just jot down some keywords for the emotions. What really matters here is that your protagonist does not remain flat but is emotionally affected by the tension and changes within the scene.
We experience mood swings, albeit fleetingly, in reaction to every conflict we face. Chart those emotional changes for your characters.
The Role of Emotions
Emotions are what make us human. Changing emotions in scenes transforms a cardboard and predictable character into an individual who is both fascinating and real.
Emotion is the character’s reaction or a response to his relationship with others. It is a natural, instinctive state of mind both tied to logic and also separate from thought. Understand the role emotions play in your character’s progress and how his feelings have the potential to either defeat him or lift him up.
In the middle, as the obstacles become more insurmountable, the protagonist should exhibit conflicting emotions. Her emotions, when out of balance, cloud her vision and dull her perception. Her personal powers of perception and intuition shut down. Emotions color a message’s true meaning, linger, and become heavy burdens. The keynotes for emotions often translate in chaos and confusion and turn to drama just as the crisis brings the character to her knees.
In the end, she learns to control her emotions. The difference in her emotional maturity from the middle of the story to the end demonstrates her level of change and transformation.
As you examine how the character’s emotions change throughout a scene and how he shows those changing emotions, examine how the scenes move you emotionally. Do you feel the same having read the end of the scene as you felt when you started it?
Grow to appreciate all the layers of both light and dark emotions as you search for patterns of what provokes your characters, how it provokes them, and why.
One by one, the protagonist confronts his beliefs. In the end, he becomes aware of another way to act and react. Rather than pass every decision through his intellect or unconsciously react at the emotional-response, gut-driven level, he begins to emotionally anticipate each major relationship that spins the energy of his life in a new direction. He slowly begins to greet these key moments that inspire change with confidence and a belief in the miraculous. Suddenly he is willing to risk losing the person he has always been in order to integrate who he is becoming.