Making your reader feel something

[Ronn Munsterman]

Sometimes when I write an emotional scene I find myself tearing up. Even if I go back and read those scenes years later, I still am affected. I always have hoped that my readers react in a similar way. I occasionally get emails from readers who do say that a certain part really hit them, which is quite satisfying.

Here's a nice quote about this.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
~ Robert Frost, poet (26 Mar 1874-1963)

[Post-Doctorate D]

When I want to ensure the reader feels something, I demand the cover and pages of my books be coarse sandpaper.

[Maggie Ann]

As Joan Wilder (author) in Romancing the Stone said when turning over a manuscript to her publisher, "Read it and weep. I always do."

Yup, me, too.

[Lick Darsey]

I make myself laugh when I write. I think that comes through in my books.

Readers always tell me the characters in my books remind them of someone they know. I think that's a great compliment and it does reflect that the writing touched a nerve somehow.

[Lorri Moulton]

Sometimes when I write an emotional scene I find myself tearing up. Even if I go back and read those scenes years later, I still am affected. I always have hoped that my readers react in a similar way. I occasionally get emails from readers who do say that a certain part really hit them, which is quite satisfying.

Here's a nice quote about this.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
~ Robert Frost, poet (26 Mar 1874-1963)

Robert Frost was my dad's favorite poet. Thanks for sharing.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Same here.  When I feel myself getting emotional, that's when I know I've hit the mark.

[RappaDizzy]

When I want to ensure the reader feels something, I demand the cover and pages of my books be coarse sandpaper.

See if your printer can use onion skin for the pages. It will keep the faucet of tears running once they crack the book open.

[Vijaya]

That's really the ultimate compliment--to feel something deeply, to laugh or to cry while reading a story. It's one of the most useful things in a face-to-face critique group, watching the expression when someone else reads a story aloud the first time.

[The Doctor]

A story of mine  (my second-ever published piece) made two writer friends cry when they beta-read it for me.

Was surprised at their reaction at the time, but looking over the story, it was quite sad with a bittersweet ending (the protagonist becomes a time travelling assassin). I guess I was/am a cold-hearted bitch. 

[antares]

]I was physically present at my Sunday writers' group while my subconscious wrestled with the motivation for the hero in Heart of Stone. Why was he doing this?

Driving home, it hit me: He was doing it to keep a promise to his dead love.

Tears flooded my eyes. I don't know how I made it home, but once there I bolted upstairs, flipped on my computer, and pounded out an eight-hundred word prologue. Good thing I touch type, 'cause I couldn't see the screen for the tears.

[RappaDizzy]

A story of mine  (my second-ever published piece) made two writer friends cry when they beta-read it for me.

Was surprised at their reaction at the time, but looking over the story, it was quite sad with a bittersweet ending (the protagonist becomes a time travelling assassin). I guess I was/am a cold-hearted bitch. 

Are we allowed to second that emotion, 

[R H Auslander]

I get far more reviews via private communication than show up on Zon and quite a few mention tears and sadness, and often anger, when they read Never The Last One. One of my first reviews on that tome showed me I done something right, this one from a lady in Australia:

"I have no military experience and the gut wrenching description of battle bought tears to my eyes.
I do have nursing experience and in the hospital scenes I could smell the blood and gore.
In passages where Annya Dmitrovna spoke and ‘saw’, I felt her heartbeat and constantly had goosebumps."