Why Do We Think There's Only One Way
Character interiority and natural order of emotion
Last week I continued talking about showing your character’s inner emotions on the page. This is probably the last of those posts.
I’ve been talking about character interiority this past week, but all of that is based on one dominant theory of emotion, which truly does rigid up its place in western literary thought with every post about showing character emotions that’s out there.
Here’s the thing:
Scientists are still figuring out a lot about emotions. Some think that emotions come from our body. Some think emotion comes from brain activity. Some think that it comes from our brain’s actual thoughts.
Then those theories get broken down even more. There’s evolution where we have emotions because it helps us survive.
As Kendra Cherry for VeryWell Mind writes:
“Naturalist Charles Darwin proposed that emotions evolved because they were adaptive and allowed humans and animals to survive and reproduce. Feelings of love and affection lead people to seek mates and reproduce. Feelings of fear compel people to fight or flee the source of danger.”
Another theory comes from William James and Carl Lange, which is that something external triggers something internal.
You see this in writing posts about showing character emotions all the time.
Something external inspires something internal. You see a zombie. Your heartrate goes up.
Walter Cannon wasn’t into that and he created his own theory. VeryWellMind explains:
“Cannon also suggested that emotional responses occur much too quickly to be simply products of physical states. When you encounter a danger in the environment, you will often feel afraid before you start to experience the physical symptoms associated with fear, such as shaking hands, rapid breathing, and a racing heart.3
“According to the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion, we feel emotions and experience physiological reactions such as sweating, trembling, and muscle tension simultaneously.4
“Cannon first proposed his theory in the 1920s, and his work was later expanded on by physiologist Philip Bard during the 1930s.
“More specifically, the theory proposes that emotions result when the thalamus sends a message to the brain in response to a stimulus, resulting in a physiological reaction. At the same time, the brain also receives signals triggering the emotional experience. Cannon and Bard’s theory suggests that the physical and psychological experience of emotion happen at the same time and that one does not cause the other.4”
As writers, that’s a bit harder to put on the pages. The simultaneous experience is hard to depict in our very linear sentences.
Another one that’s interesting is the theory by Schacter-Singer, which says that our bodies respond to things and then we call that response an emotion. A racing heart could mean fear, anxiety, or excitement, arousal or love.
It’s kind of easy to get confused.
The final one that I want to mention is Richard Lazarus who believes that before you feel an emotion, your brain appraises the situation.
THE MRU DILEMMA
This doesn’t work all that well with Dwight Swain’s motivation reaction units (MRUs). That’s all about the order of things in a sentence or paragraph and what that correct order is. He details this in Techniques of the Selling Writer.
Swain believes that people’s proper order is:
Feeling
Action
Speech
That feeling comes from where though? Is it from smiling first? Is it from the thought? Is it from the sense? That’s what we all have to figure out. When there are so many different brains out there and so many different ways of existing and thinking and being, is there one right way?
I’m not so sure.
The Structure of Story by Ross Hartmann breaks up Swain’s list into smaller components, but there is still an order to it, something that people decry as the natural order. Those edicts when science is still trying to figure things out, worry me a little bit.
https://www.verywellmind.com/theories-of-emotion-2795717
A PLACE TO SUBMIT!
2023 CRAFT Hybrid Writing Contest (Deadline February 28)
Guest Judge Nicole McCarthy will choose one $1000 winner and two runner-ups from the shortlist. This contest is open to hybrid work only! (Please, no work that fits into easy genre or category definitions.) We are looking for cross-genre submissions, for example: prose poetry (but not traditional, lineated poetry), speculative memoir, work that engages with image in innovative ways, lyric essay, etc. However, we are not accepting video or audio submissions at this time.
Established in 2017 as a literary magazine for fiction, CRAFT expanded in 2020 to publish creative nonfiction as well. We explore how writing works, reading pieces with a focus on the elements of craft, on the art of prose. All published creative pieces include an author’s note and an editorial introduction that both discuss stylistics in the work.
CRAFT EXERCISE
This one is from Reedsy’s blog.
LINKS FROM LAST WEEK AND LINKS ABOUT CHARACTER INTERIORITY
https://kidlit.com/interiority-in-literature/
https://www.stormwritingschool.com/cat-person-interiority/
SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION MOMENT
I am teaching another session at the Writing Barn coming up soon, and I’ve forgotten to talk about it!
Here’s the tweet they put out. (I’m that black and white person in the bottom corner, sort of blending in.)
Come at any stage of your publishing journey for the FREE WSS info session on 2/20!
WSS courses guide writers through every aspect of literary life, including submitting. We offer classes for writers of novels, memoirs, and kids lit. Register here: https://thewritingbarn.com/class/write-submit-support-free-info-inspiration-session/
There’s also a free night about it coming up.
Join us from 6-7:30 CST on February 20 (tonight) for a FREE Write. Submit. Support. Info and Inspiration night.
WSS provides one-on-one instruction with acclaimed teachers. Six month WSS courses guide writers to achieve their goals. Register here: https://thewritingbarn.com/class/write-submit-support-free-info-inspiration-session/…