"What makes a story is how well it manages to connect with the reader, the visceral effect it has."
--Len Wein
--Len Wein
 |
| His Royal Catness demonstrates the visceral effect |
"Visceral |ˈvis(ə)rəl| adjective of or relating to the viscera : the visceral nervous system. • relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect." (New Oxford American Dictionary)
If you follow me on Twitter , you may have noticed a pattern over the past couple of weeks. I write early in the morning and I spend a lot of time on Twitter early in the morning. Especially of late. Why is that? Twitter offers me a much-needed therapeutic break when my story makes me sick.
As you may already know, my current work-in-progress is set in Occupied Paris and recently, as the tension mounts, I'm experiencing visceral reactions while writing, like shaky hands, chest and stomach pain, and shortness of breath. Crazy, right? In order to cope, I leave that world and connect with my cheery morning tweeps who often make me laugh and recover my sense of well-being.
So what about you? Does your writing ever make you sick? If so, what do you do to cope? I'm not talking about the "inner critic" who makes you feel like throwing your laptop out the window, but those physical reactions that make you step away from your project and breathe into a brown paper bag. Or pop over to Twitter. . .
If you follow me on Twitter , you may have noticed a pattern over the past couple of weeks. I write early in the morning and I spend a lot of time on Twitter early in the morning. Especially of late. Why is that? Twitter offers me a much-needed therapeutic break when my story makes me sick.
As you may already know, my current work-in-progress is set in Occupied Paris and recently, as the tension mounts, I'm experiencing visceral reactions while writing, like shaky hands, chest and stomach pain, and shortness of breath. Crazy, right? In order to cope, I leave that world and connect with my cheery morning tweeps who often make me laugh and recover my sense of well-being.
So what about you? Does your writing ever make you sick? If so, what do you do to cope? I'm not talking about the "inner critic" who makes you feel like throwing your laptop out the window, but those physical reactions that make you step away from your project and breathe into a brown paper bag. Or pop over to Twitter. . .
Interesting. My MS has three different time periods melded together. The one that made me sick is writing about the Vietnam War. Isn't it lovely, but at the same time weird, how writing lives so deeply in us?
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm writing something dark I find twitter or facebook a much needed reality break. I don't like to stay in that dark and twisted world for too long.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! And it's always a pleasant start to my day to say hello/morning to you :)
My WIP is about to take a turn and I've wondered how I'll handle it. Interesting to hear your strategy for stepping away. I'll keep it in mind. :)
ReplyDeleteI have to agree. When I put my characters through harder times, I feel as if I am right there with them. I joked with a writing friend once that I need to write in a coffee break or something with as much stuff as I was piling on my MC. The hardest scene I ever wrote was the first time I killed off a character. He wasn't a major character, but I wrote him as a supportive and dear friend to my MC, so I cried like a baby through it and had to take a break after it was done.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, I believe we feel everything our characters feel, good and bad. Let's just hope our readers are right there with us and are grateful to be.
Yes. I've definitely been so wrapped up in a scene that I've wept or tensed or laughed, etc.
ReplyDeleteIs that you kitty? SO CUTE. :)
I agree, distractions are needed when the writing gets that intense. I had one piece that I was working on and I could only get through one or two new sentences at a time. My work time got shorter and shorter while my time on discussion boards and blogs got longer and longer. Eventually, the piece got finished, and I still had my sanity.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm not alone. Thanks for chiming in you all. And yes, sometimes I write one sentence at a time with fifteen minute breaks in between, inluvwithword.
ReplyDeleteOnly recently did I have this happen. I was writing this scene and trying to put myself in the character's place and it was freaking me out big time. I had to stop and take a break. I guess we all must be practitioners of "method writing," huh?
ReplyDeleteGosh Angelica I hope that's not every day! Not an issue for me as my stories are for younger kids, but that doesn't mean I don't need Twitter ;)
ReplyDeleteI was writing a particularly dark scene once and had to avoid it for a while afterwards.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. This hasn't happened to me yet, as I write for the younger, less angst-ridden set. I do have an idea for a YA, though, that I'd like to start after I'm finished with my current project. I'll have to keep this in mind, and maybe open a Twitter account!
ReplyDeleteHi Angelina
ReplyDeleteOh, sure! What my characters go through affect me. If I'm writing a suspenseful scene I get tense. A sad scene can make me teary. I'm very attached to my characters if they're working well on the page.
Wow. That must mean it's really good then! My writing doesn't make me sick, but sometimes I hate my characters because of how I personified them.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I weep for my characters. If you can connect that strongly, my hunch is the writing must be amazing.
ReplyDeleteYour royal catness is so crazy cute.
Sometimes the writing drags me into the character's place, and I do feel sick or weepy or angry or whatever. Sometimes it's cathartic: I can feel energy, but the writing of it makes me feel empowered, as if I am helping to fight the badness just by writing about it.
ReplyDeleteI am sooooo with you, Angelina. That's why I had writing at work. I can't get up and shake it off like I used to. I sometimes get so worked up that my stomach jumps and my fingers ball up into fists. All of which is a good thing...I think.
ReplyDeleteSo hear, hear to the visceral effect!!
Thanks everyone for sharing. Having chosen difficult subject matter for these last two novels, I shouldn't be surprised that I'm sick since I always experience in my body what my characters are experiencing. I think my next book needs to be on the lighter side of life. ^_^
ReplyDeletegreat post!
ReplyDeleteI think what makes me sick is when I pour out my soul into my character and story and critique partners or editors/agents say they "can't relate" or whatever. Makes me wonder if my voice is irrelevant. Makes me wonder if I have anything relevant to say.