guide to wonderland: tips for tailored tales

ch-s002: emotional writing

I'm not an emotional writer.

Which means that I try to, for a lack of better words—null out my personal emotions when I write.

This doesn't mean that I'm an emotionless robot author when I write, rather it means that I put my personal feelings aside when writing and instead take on the emotions that the story requires.

Whether you know it or not, your personal emotions can affect your story, whether it's the plotting or character designing or just writing a chapter.

An example is when I was younger and I was writing a story about a girl who was supposed to be on this big adventure.

I was trying to write her backstory and was unsure about her parents...and well I noticed something funny happened whenever I tried to figure that part out.

Whenever I was upset with my parents in real life, I would go to my room and write, upset and angry and I'd decide that I wanted her to hate her parents or have them die a tragic death in the beginning of the story.

But on days when I was getting along with my parents and my mom bought me ice-cream and all that goodness, I'd change the backstory again so that she had loving parents that she's on a journey to reunite with.

Like I said, I was quite young and my emotions were very easily swayed so I could get angry or become overwhelmingly happy over small things.

My emotions too strongly contributed to my writing because I was a very emotional person and when I felt something I expressed it in everything I did.

As I grew up I became more of a "Neutral Writer." and learned to suppress my own feelings when I wrote so my writing could be more consistent.

And today I figured I'd put a few pros and cons about each writing style since I have been both.

Now this isn't every single pro and con and not all of these will apply to you, you could be a mix of the Emotional and Neutral writer—and that's okay, neither type is superior to the other, but it's good to know what type of writer you are so you can understand yourself better.

Benefits to emotional writing

1.
If you're mood matches the story,
writing can seem easier.

2.
You can put more authentic
emotions into your characters.

3.
If you've poured your emotions into
the scenes, readers will be more likely
to connect with what's happening.

4.
Emotional writers can be proactive and quick to write because they have these short bursts of inspiration and motivation.

5.
An emotional writer's content might look different and diverse due to the different moods that inspired each piece.

Downside to emotional writing

1.
You don't look at the story for what it is and might make critical mistakes because your emotions cloud your judgement.

2.
If writing fanfiction and you hate a character, you might be biased in making them extremely unlikable and unrealistic in your story.

3.
It takes longer to get "into the story" if your mood isn't contributing to the feel of what you're writing.

You write angst, but today you're feeling really good, when you go to write, you're writing isn't...up to your usual standards of angst because your happiness is bleeding into your writing.

4.
Long term writing is harder because not all emotions are long term, emotional writers might be better at short stories than full length novels.

5.
You're more likely to make
promises you can't keep.

Imagine this. You're a public writer
(perhaps on a platform like wattpad)

You're having a really good day, like really good, or perhaps you just feel super good for no reason. either way, you feel like you can do anything, you have a bunch of story ideas in your head that you're excited to write, in fact you just posted to tell those that read your works that you plan to be super super active, post four times a week and will be offering up your first born child.

You start working and going through the motions, and then the next day you have a terrible day, or you just arent in a good mood at all. you feel sluggish and don't want to do anything, you dont feel productive and all of your works that you thought seemed good yesterday now seem too dull for you. you go on a sudden hiatus for three weeks and you don't have the heart to tell your readers that you can't deliver on what was promised, making you feel even worse.

Benefits of neutral writing

1.
You're much more consistent
because your emotions don't sway your
writing ability, you're more stable and
able to have a steady writing flow.

2.
You can "switch on" that writing
mode quicker because you've opened
yourself up to be absorbed in the story.

Again, emotions can either enhance
or slow down the writing process,
but as a neutral writer your emotions
don't contribute to much so no matter how
you feel you can always tap into your writing mode instead of having to "wait" for the right moment.

3.
You can fully transport
yourself into your story.

By pushing your emotions aside,
you welcome the vibe of your story
and you let it guide you in the direction
you need to write—you become part of the story and therefore become more thorough
in writing it.

4.
Neutral writers might be more likely to work on long term projects,(full length novels etc)since their motivation doesn't die as quickly as the emotional writer.

Downsides to neutral writing

1.
Sometimes you can't get the same intense feeling that you need to express in your work, sometimes in order to write something you have to experience it fully, its hard to explain a deep love if you don't feel the love.

2.
If you feel overwhelmed by emotions it's much harder for you to think clearly and write, neutral writers often "ghost" because there's a lot on their mind and they needed to clear their heads.

3.
Neutral writers might take longer to publish a story because they don't have any feeling of urgency, they might be more "chill" as opposed to an emotional writer who is more likely to have those "in the moment" instincts.

4.
Neutral writers tend to procrastinate more because they can write whenever, time management isn't a neutral writer's specialty and it can lead to weeks without even working on a draft.

5.
A neutral writer's characters might seem to fall flat because their emotions seem forced and out of place—or better yet the neutral writer forgets to even give the characters a personality.

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Those were just a few pros and cons that I found in Emotional and Neutral writing, again neither of these are superior to the other, and none of these things have to apply to you, but I think it can perhaps help you figure out your mindset when you write.

So which writer are you?