Make Them Feel

by Heidi Kneale

One day my film professor said to us, "Here is a piece of white paper and a ping-pong ball. I want you to photograph it."

Okay. White ping-pong ball on white paper. First thing through my mind: why? Second thing through my mind: how hard can it be?

Pretty difficult, when there's a catch. "Everyone's shot must look different."

So while the rest of us were trying for closeups, long shots, angular shots, and all sorts of funny shooting, one bright spark went off on his own.

When he'd come back, he had his shot. In a dark room, he'd lit the ping-pong ball with a blue key light and a red fill light from down low.

He succeeded in showing the ping-pong ball in a different light. It was dark, moody and evocative.

Unlike all the other plain white shots of ping-pong balls, this one stirred something in our souls. And he walked away with an A+ for the assignment.

This ability to evoke emotions in our audience is also vital in writing. We want our audience to feel empathy with our characters and take them on the same journey. The hook that grabs a reader is the one that entices them to make an emotional investment in the story.

Open your favourite novel and read the first page. What emotions stir in your heart? From the very beginning, that author managed to grab you and never let go.

As authors, we don't have the benefit of lighting to create mood and atmosphere. We must rely on words--words with subtle shadings and similar meanings to elicit an emotion.

What emotion/s do you feel from the first page of your favourite novel? What words bring out that emotion?

Picking on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a favourite novel of many a romantic soul, her first opening lines are:

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

Certain words will evoke certain emotions. "Universally acknowledged," "must be," "truth so well fixed", "considered as the rightful property", will make people react.

The reactions will be different from person to person. But they will react. Pride and Prejudice is all about characters' emotional reactions, and Austen does an excellent job in stirring these various emotions in her readers as well.

As you read through this month's issue of Penumbra, make a note of your favourite story and what emotions it stirs within you.

Meanwhile, ever thought about photographing a ping-pong ball?

Heidi Kneale is an Australian author of moderate repute. By day she works computer miracles for the local library. The rest of the time she writes books and raises babies.

Learn more about Heidi on her website.