Anaïs Nin once said that writing is how we experience life twice, “in the moment, and in retrospect.” When documenting our own stories, tasting life for the second time as Anaïs said, figuring out how to articulate the emotions we felt in those pivotal moments is imperative. It’s not enough to tell the reader that you were sad or happy or angry – that doesn’t make for very compelling writing, and it won’t do your story any justice. Instead, you want to show the reader how it feels to be sad, happy or angry. Spoiler alert: that’s how you get them hooked.
Writing about what you feel is also a compass for how the reader will feel. Think of the last book you read that took you on an emotional rollercoaster. What did the story conjure inside you? Heartbreak? Trauma? Fury? Hope? Joy? Dejection? A great book pierces that cloudy space between writer and reader, creating a passage where the emotions flow straight from their pen (or keyboard) right into the heart of our shared humanity.
The reader won’t necessarily relate to every experience you’ve gone through. They may not have suffered the same losses or traumas. They might not be able to connect with your particular successes and achievements. But they can empathize with how you felt during all of that. Your emotional journey is the hook that keeps them tethered to your story.
Writing emotions is no simple task. It’s really easy to rely on overused cliches and slip into overly-flowery, exaggerated language. Good emotional writing is descriptive, honest and original. We’ve put together a few tips on how to elevate your emotional writing and make it more authentic, relatable and impactful.
Give All of Yourself
Writing your own story is an indubitably vulnerable undertaking. You are sharing the best and worst of yourself, putting your most embarrassing, shameful and intimate moments out there for the world to read. That takes guts, and it requires you to uncover the ugliest parts of yourself. As scary as it is, you’ll likely find that those ‘ugly’ parts that you’d rather keep hidden are more common and relatable than you think. Humans are multifaceted. As much as we’d like to present ourselves as perfect specimens devoid of flaws or faults, it’s not very believable. Give yourself the grace of being human, and give the reader an honest and nuanced look into who you are.
Use Vivid Imagery
Vivid imagery, and language that evokes a certain sensory experience help readers to not only relate and connect with what you went through, but also to put them right there in the moment with you. Think of what you were feeling in your body while you were living those experiences in real life. Maybe you are writing about the moment you discovered that your partner was being unfaithful to you. How do you feel, physically? Is there a clenching in your gut? A tightening in your jaw? Does your heart race? It’s been scientifically proven that we hold trauma in our bodies. Even our emotional wounds can leave physical ‘scars’. In addition, think of what was happening in the environment around you at that moment. Does anything stand out? Did the ticking clock seem extra loud as the silence deepened between you two? Was a storm gathering, the sky shifting colors quickly, dark clouds hanging ominously over everything? These details and descriptions set the tone for your emotions to jump even more authentically off the page.
Avoid Cliches
There are an abundance of common cliches that you should avoid when writing your memoir. Things like, ‘it was love at first sight’, or ‘they had a heart of gold’, or ‘I was drowning in sorrow.’ We’ve all heard them before. We know what they mean. But they lack depth and authenticity. When you first laid eyes on the person who would eventually become your life partner, maybe you felt something akin to love at first sight, but there are far greater ways to describe what was going through your mind. Don’t reduce the impact and profound joy of finding the love of your life to one-liners that can be found in every other book on the market. Think of what makes your story memorable and worth retelling.
Write What You Feel As You Feel It
We’re not suggesting that while you’re being broken up with, you step away to journal your feelings. But if you make it a habit to spend time writing down your feelings, you will become more connected to them, and more capable of articulating how they feel. If you come home after an extremely fulfilling, joyful day, take a few minutes to document how you feel, why you feel that way, and what events led to these feelings. You will never have more clarity into your emotions than when you are living them, and then you will have a reference guide you can use to tap back into those emotions when it’s time to write about them.