A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - Z is for Zest (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

zest

zest: great enthusiasm and energy / the outer coloured part of the peel of citrus fruit, used as flavouring.

The reason I've included the 'outer part of citrus fruit' definition here, is because I think this is what separates zest from exuberance. To me, zest is fresh and, in a friend, or companion, is usually welcomed, where exuberance can sometimes be too much and overbearing. Zest doesn't take over, it doesn't dominate, it lifts and supports.

I've already spoken about Maria from The Sound of Music, how her exuberance is clumsy and over excited, but the journey of her character means that the zeal for life becomes much more refined, it changes into zest, her childish exuberance becomes a adult zest, not losing any of its appeal, just becoming more controlled and directed into her love for the Von Trapp children and then their father. In short, she becomes a woman.

But it doesn't always have to be an adult emotion. Peter Pan in Hook has lost his bangerang - his zest for life - and it takes a lot of effort for the Lost Boys and Tinkerbell to return it to him. This is one of my favourite Robin Williams' performances, because he goes from man back to boy (and yes some exuberance is involved her) and then merges the love of life and the energy of Peter Pan back into the man, the father he wants to be.

Zest isn't always seen positively, though :). Hermione Granger always had a zest for knowledge, but in the first Harry Potter book, that was coupled with the almost desperate need to do well, to be the best, and her enthusiasm for learning is seen by Harry and Ron as her being a snobbish know-it-all. It's not until they get past the surface that the boys see the best in Hermione, and she never loses her zest when it comes to learning.

So, zest, for me, is an overwhelmingly positive state of mind, even if it can be taken the wrong way when combined with other traits. A zesty character makes me smile, laugh even sometimes.

And that's it, the end of the A to Z for me. I hope you enjoyed my wander through emotions and reactions in literature :).

QUESTION: What emotion, or reaction evokes the strongest reaction in you when you read or watch it?

I'm going to answer my own question today, since it's the last day, and say, I think the one that gets to me the most is hate. It's rare, it's visceral and it can tie my stomach in knots, because, when it is in a hero/ine, I worry for that character and what the hate will do to them, and when it is in a villain, so much darkness can come from it.

~

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Ythran - goodbye

Sorry I haven't been around on the A to Z this week (if you are looking for my A to Z post for today, it's here), but my cat, Ythran, has been ill since Sunday, and today we had to say goodbye to him. He was a great cat, an adventurer in his younger days, which did get him into trouble. He only had three legs and 1/3 of his tail due to scrapes he got himself into, but he lived a long and happy life despite his disability. 

I'm going to miss him terribly - the house will be a lot quieter without his foghorn-strength demands for attention and food, and I won't have a friend to sit on my lap and miaow at me when I'm not stroking him enough.

So, Ythran, my darling cat, goodbye and I love you.

A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - Y is for Yellow (cowardice) (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

yellow

yellow: not brave; cowardly.

There are a hundred and one reason why yellow is associated with cowardice if you ask Google, the one I like the best is linked all the way back to ancient beliefs in humors. There are four types of humors (bodily fluids) that can affect health: blood, black bile, phlegm and yellow bile. An excess of yellow bile was associated with being irascible, choleric and sick - backed up by the fact that anyone suffering from cholera would produce a yellowish diarrhea. Thus yellow became associated with bad things, being used to paint traitors doors in France, as the colour of clothing for Inquisition victims as a sign of their heresy and we all know the yellow star forced on Jews by the Nazis to mark them out as different and bad. So too, yellow is associated with cowardice as in 'yellow-belly', a favourite term of cowboy movies :).

In older movies, a coward is usually a bad guy. We all remember the characters in the 70's disaster movies like The Towering Inferno who put their own lives in front of others, not waiting their turn to get out, cheating, fighting - and they all came to no good in the end.

There's also the traitor, the person who, out of fear for their own life, betrays the others. Beni from The Mummy is the perfect example of this type of character, he is out for himself, he does whatever it takes to stay alive and he will betray anyone if it keeps him alive. As Beni says about his sudden loyalty to Imhotep, the mummy, "As long as I serve him, I am immune [to the plagues Imhotep is raining down on Egypt]." Beni, unlike the guys in the disaster movies, is a funny character, someone we love to hate and laugh at his total cowardice. He makes no excuses for it, he's a survivor, but in the context of the movie, he is also something of a clown. The Mummy isn't the deepest of movies, but Beni's character is well written and to be admired for that.

Beni is the coward we love to hate, but there is also the type of coward we love to love, the important difference about the lovable coward is that their cowardice rarely endangers others. They will not betray their friends, but they might just run and hide when faced with something nasty. Scooby Doo and Shaggy are these kinds of loveable cowards, and, they surprise us sometimes by actually acting out of character and being brave! :)

We are indoctrinated to dislike a coward, so the accusation of cowardice can also be used to bully and deride. Nonviolent characters who refuse to engage where others are willing to be violent, who will not take on a confrontation with a bullying character can often be labelled cowards for their restraint. This may or may not be so, but eventually, the labelled coward will prove his or her worthiness. The novel, The Four Feathers, is based entirely on this point. A young man, forced into the army by his father, resigns before going to war. He is branded a coward by his friends and is given four white feathers as symbols of their contempt. He sets about proving himself not to be the coward they think he is, returning all the feathers.

So, being 'yella', can be used in many different situations and for all types of characters. Everyone, even the greatest hero/ine, have their moments of self-doubt, their risk of being a coward. Those moments can be very revealing, so too for your villains, because being bad and being cowardly do not always correlate. So, cowardice is something every writer can explore.

QUESTION: Do you have a cowardly character you love to love?

~

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A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - X is for eXuberance (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature and film/TV.

eXuberance

exuberance: the quality of being full of energy, excitement, and cheerfulness; ebullience.

Yes, I know you saw what I did there, I cheated, but then x-words are few and far between, so I went with phonetics ;).

Now, I've already mentioned the Mr Men once in my exploration of emotions in 'literature', and you might think if I am doing it again I'd associate Mr Happy with this quality. However, you'd be wrong. The Mr Man I associate with exuberance is Mr Chatterbox. And, the reason for that is, although exuberance is associated with cheerfulness, for me, it's the energy, the (over) excitement of this reaction that hits me first.

Mr Chatterbox is friendly, happy, engaging, but he won't let you get a word in edgeways, and that is the thing about exuberance, it's an all-encompassing reaction, it takes over the character experiencing it, and it can lead to them dominating the situation which they are in, either to the betterment, or detriment of the other characters.

An exuberant character can sweep others along with them, lifting the mood, winning friends, and this happens a lot in musicals. I expect most of us know the song, 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?' from The Sound of Music.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find the word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

Without Maria's infectious enthusiasm, her exuberance at the wonders of life, none of the story would happen.

Yet, there are times when exuberance can exclude. When someone is rushing along, excited, focused on something, they can stop considering how others are feeling about something, leaving them behind. Have you ever sat down with a group of friends, all who are into a new fandom, except you? They're all chattering away, excited, sharing anecdotes, ideas, crushes and you're sitting there, either unintentionally, or intentionally clueless and feeling pretty flat about it all. Now this is a trivial example, but it can be extrapolated onto other more serious situations: a discussion about battle tactics; a murder investigation, etc. And in these situations it can lead to the isolation of one, or a small group of characters, or even the exuberant character from all the others if they are so excited they don't notice everyone else's negative reactions.

So, positive, or negative, the energy of exuberance can pull a plot along, but it can also create interesting dynamics in its wake.

QUESTION: Do you ever get over excited? :)

~

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A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - W is for Wit (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

wit

wit: the capacity for inventive thought and quick understanding; keen intelligence / a natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humour.

'Brevity is the soul of wit.' William Shakespeare - actually, when it comes to the second one of the definitions for wit, above, I think it's timing, sorry to disagree with you Will old man!

So, wit, a word with two different definitions, but I think it's fair to say that they both share a common core, that of speed of thought. However, you can have the first type of wit, that of quick intelligence and understanding, without having the second. We don't have to look very far to find one character who is an example of both types of wit, but not always together: Doctor Who, in his very first incarnation, was not known for his humour, in fact, William Hartnell's Doctor was a grumpy old man. It wasn't until Patrick Troughton took over the part that wit of the second order began to creep in, and this was honed to perfection by Tom Baker's Doctor, who was always one step, if not several, ahead, of everyone else in the adventure and also eased his way through encounters with his sense of humour. Ever since, there has been an up and down mixture of intelligence type wit and humour type wit in the character, sometimes to better or worse effect, and if I start naming names here, I will probably start an argument, because, let's face it, those of us who love 'Who' all have our favourite doctor(s).

Personally, I'm not a quick wit in the humour type way - I catch on fast to other's humour, but I can't pun with the speed of some of my friends, the humour I create is of a slower burn :). That doesn't mean I can't write it though, because, on the page, something that appears as a moment in time may take a long time to perfect when we consider first drafts, redrafts, edits, etc. Remy, one of the characters my sister and I write in our Haward Mysteries series, is a quick wit in both senses of the word. He's always ready with a quip, it's one of his defence mechanisms, and that is an example of what wit can be.

We all know the age old adage of a clown being a depressive behind a smiling mask, and that is one way of using wit when creating characters, but the question that needs answering before using this trope is 'why?' What makes the character sad? Why are they hiding it?

Of course that's not the only use for wit. It can be used to break down barriers, as in Tom Baker's Doctor. It can be used to annoy (other characters, not your reader) - how many times have you wanted to give a smart arse a piece of your mind? Wit can also distract - want to drop in an important point that your readers need to know, but you don't want to bring too much attention to it - then jokes and quips can either deliver your message in an offhand way, or can surround it, obscuring its importance until later. And there are many more.

So, maybe I haven't been so brief, sorry again, Will, but then there's lots that can be done with wit. ;)

Question: What kind of wit do you like best, quick intelligence, or quick humour?

~

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A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - V is for Violence (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

violence

violence: behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something / strength of emotion or of a destructive natural force.

Whether our characters are going in club swinging, sword thrusting, fists punching, guns blazing, or even claws slashing, we're in violent territory. However, I would say it's not just the violence, per say, that can tell us much about our characters, but three more things: how they avoid it; how they end up involved in it; how they handle the aftermath.

Most of us have a temper, but, for the average person in real life, it takes a lot for us to resort to violence. Less so, I would say, in genre fiction and TV/movies. I don't know about you, but I grew up watching the A Team, where, every week without fail, there would be some hopeless situation that the team had to build their way out of. Bullets would fly, stunt men would dive for cover and not a single person would get killed (well there was one fatality apparently on the A Team, but it was off screen). This is what is now quaintly termed 'fantasy violence' by the British Board of Film Classification.  Doctor Who, too, was full of violent death, now I look back at it - Daleks, The Master, The Cybermen, all destroying people left right and centre, and I lapped it up, I still enjoy watching these types of shows and reading genre books where violence is present, because it isn't real and I know it isn't real - it's thrilling instead.

However, there is some violence in books and on film that feels very real and it is meant to. War stories like Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan look at the violence of war and the price paid by those taking part in it. So too, Stanley's violence towards Blanche and Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire is not exciting, it is despicable, cowardly, vindictive and eventually leads to Blanche's breakdown. These kinds of violence carry a powerful message, they deliver part of the story.

So, whether our heroes are buckling their swash, or our protagonists are dealing with very real, dark situations, violence has its use in literature. Although, I will say, know your audience and be careful the message you are delivering.

QUESTION: We currently rate films for violence, what are your thoughts on why we don't do the same thing with books?

~

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Sophie Duncan

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A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - U is for Unhappiness (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

unhappiness

unhappiness: the feeling of sorrow, sadness, dejection.

Unhappiness, unlike some of the recent emotions/reactions I've been talking about, can have a full range of intensity. It can go all the way from disgruntled to despair. It's one of those words we can use politely in a sentence to convey a whole heap of disgust when we say, "I am very unhappy!"

As writers, we can play with 'unhappy'. Roald Dahl often has children at the centre of his stories who live lives that make them all ranges of unhappy. James in James and the Giant Peach is an unhappy child, he lives with two horrible aunts after the death of his parents, his life is really awful. This leads him to seek happiness, set in motion when he spills the wizard's potion onto the peach tree. Matilda, too, has to suffer her ignorant family, knowing she is different. She runs away from the unhappiness she has over her family into books, and ultimately discovers happiness in the love of Miss Honey, her teacher.

The subtlety of unhappiness is that a character may not even know they are unhappy until something comes along to contrast with their life and what they are used to. I think this may be true for Demelza from Poldark. She has lived in poverty all her life, she accepts beatings from her father as if they are totally normal. Not until Ross Poldark takes her in does she see a different life, one where people can be generous and kind, and she never wants to return to her father.

So, we can use 'unhappy' in many different ways, but we must be precise - what type of unhappy are we thinking for our characters - how does this make them react - do they even recognise their own unhappiness?

QUESTION: Do you have ways of combating unhappiness?

~

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A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - T is for Terror (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

terror

terror: extreme fear, dread, horror.

Now those of you who popped by yesterday may think the emoticon in the corner looks a lot like the one for shock, but there's a big difference here - shock is momentary and can generate many reactions, terror can last a whole lot longer!

When I think of true terror, to me it is all-encompassing fear. We're at the extreme end of this emotion, just like rage is the ultimate in anger, terror is the zenith of fear. To be terrified, a character must be facing something that makes their fear response hit overdrive. If they're human, their heart beat will race, their adrenaline will pump - maybe they feel light headed, or their muscles go weak. There are many physical responses to terror.

But then, what is happening in the mind?  

Terror can be unreasoning dread, making us act both in and out of character. I think Donald Gennaro, the lawyer from Jurassic Park, who abandons the children and runs to the toilet shed is a perfect example of acting in character: his self-preservation in the face of threat, leaving the kids to fend for themselves, and then, when the T-Rex descends on him in the bathroom, we see his unreasoning terror.

Horror stories are the perfect place for terror, and, if the writer/director/actor is good, we as reader/audience, are taken along with that terror, we feel some of the thrill. Susan Hill is excellent at building her protagonist, Arthur Kipps', terror in The Woman in Black, from rationality through suspicion and doubting his own senses, to outright terror that makes him ill and separates him from those around him.

Ash, from Evil Dead 2, also goes through moments of madness brought on by the terror he feels about being alone and under attack from the demons. This is both comedic and tragic and is part of what makes this movie a horror classic.

Terror doesn't just happen in horror, though: many actors will tell you about crippling stage fright, which can be likened to terror - they can't think straight, they sweat profusely, their heart is racing; exams, too, terrify some people; a small child may find being lost in an unfamiliar place terrifying. It's all a matter of perspective, your character's perspective - play with that and you can generate all types of terror.

QUESTION: Do you like reading/watching things that scare you?

~

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A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - S is for Shock (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

shock

shock: a sudden upsetting or surprising event or experience / amazement.

Shock is sudden! Shock is hard. Shock knocks you out of your current frame of mind.

Electric shock, short sharp shock, a shock to the system, all of these are things or sayings that relate to the immediacy of this reaction. There's no anticipation associated with shock, and no time for processing it, it is an uncontrolled and immediate reaction. Therefore a person's reaction to a shock can be a very telling one.

Fainting happened a lot to ladies after a shock in penny dreadfuls, and Mrs Bennet was even prone to it in Pride and Prejudice, although what she considered a shock and what her daughters did were very different things and revealing of her character :). Fainting in shock is used by Victorian gentleladies to great effect: to avoid answering questions in confrontations with those seeking them; to swoon into the arms of their hero. And, given how tight their corsets were laced, it is actually not surprising that some women succumbed to a faint when anything beyond gentle breathing was required.

Men in Victorian penny dreadfuls tend to have more varied reactions to shock. The rogue will undoubtedly reveal himself by running away when confronted with something terrifyingly shocking, whereas the hero, of course, will stand his ground :). In modern literature, women are allowed to do this too!

Another reaction is to freeze. This kind of response can be used to great effect to insert drama into a scene - whether that is the hero/ine faced with an unexpected monster crashing down on them, or a character faced with a mental shock, information revealed that takes them a little time to process. How will they react, what will they do, why are they wasting precious seconds doing nothing? All will make the reader take in a breath and hold it as you force the sudden halt in proceedings! :)

Although the moment of shock is instant, the outcome can be far from it, even delayed for days, weeks, months. PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) was, in the days of WWI, known as shell shock and the terrible echoes of fighting in the trenches could stay with a young man for years to come. One use of this in drama that I think was both poignant and maddening for one of the protagonists, was in The Mrs Bradley Mysteries, namely the episode, Laurels are Poison. George Moody, Mrs Bradley's indomitable chauffeur, meets his brother's old commanding officer, Douglas Prideux, the man who sent his mother the letter to say his brother died quickly and honourably at Passchendaele.  George wants answers about how his brother really died, knowing the letter would have been a glossing over the terror of the trenches. Eventually, though, Douglas, who is a detached and snobbish man, breaks down and admits he does not remember, that he cannot remember the faces of any man who served under him due to shell shock. It is an emotionally charged moment for both men, despite the war being 13 years in the past at the time of the story.

 So, even if the moment of shock is not in your story, the repercussions can be used to great effect as well.

QUESTION: What is the best shock reaction you've read/watched/written?
  

~

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A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - R is for Rage (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

rage

rage: violent uncontrollable anger / a vehement desire or passion.

Note the word uncontrollable from the definition. Rage is not a little emotion, it's anger when you see red, when your passions take over. Rage is when rules and common sense go out the window.

Rage can take a moment, as when one character strikes another, or it can last a lifetime - Game of Thrones, need I say more? It can also be the making or the downfall of a character. That pique can save a character's life, be the impetus they need to turn the tables on their enemy, this is used to extremes in The Hulk. It can also be the loss of control that means someone else has a chance to step in and win the day.

I used rage in Curse of a Banshee, which is the book you can get for free by signing up to our newsletter below. In B, my protagonist, rage is a desperate emotion, one drawn from fear and protectiveness. It is the culmination of a lifetime of searching and a new need to keep another person safe. It does not come easily and it does not leave B unscathed. She suffers for her rage.

That is something I think is important about this emotion - rage costs. There is always a price to pay for such intensity, whether that is physical or mental. Rage is in the pulsing vein on a character's forehead, or the clenched jaw. It is in violence, in mind, or body. It is a devastating thing, even if the character doesn't know it.

Rage can be both a catalyst and an inhibitor, it is a versatile emotion, but one to be used sparingly.

QUESTION: Do you think loss of control is always a bad thing, or does it have its uses?

~

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Sophie Duncan

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A to Z Challenge 2015 - Emotions & Reactions - Q is for Quarrelsomeness (writing discussion & fiction)

This year for the A to Z Challenge, I'm investigating emotions and reactions and their use to in writing. So, I'll be talking about my first thoughts as a writer when I think about the words we use to describe emotions and my experience of their use in literature.

quarrelsomeness

quarrelsomeness: the quality of being given to quarreling, fighting / belligerence.

Anyone who has siblings, or cousins, or even close friends knows all about quarrels (unless you're a saint that is). Who hasn't had a hissy fit and yelled and been yelled at amongst people you trust? I know my twin, Tasha, and I have had some spectacular quarrels, a lot about writing, but other things too, like whether the room light should be on or off!

A single person can be given to quarrelsomeness. They are touchy, they take offence easily, or they just like being rude in order to pick a fight. Hot-headed heroes can be quarrelsome, especially when their honour is challenged, sometimes with fatal consequences. An excellent use of this is in The 13th Warrior, a movie with Antonio Banderas. 13 warriors, 12 of them Norse, one an Arab, are called to help a community under attack from what is thought to be an otherworldly source. However, before they can protect the community they must deal with dissension from the King's son, who thinks them a threat to his own power. Herger, one of the warriors, deliberately annoys one of the prince's men and it is a master class in how to pick a fight. Cause a problem, deliberately misunderstand the response, take offence, generate a challenge. Needless to say he and the other man end up fighting, but it is the lead into the fight that is priceless.

Quarrelsomeness can also come down to the mixing of different characters. A person may be perfectly stable on their own, but put them in the same room with someone who rubs them up the wrong way and you have a powder keg waiting to go off. This can be used effectively in stories where a pair or group dynamic is being built up. How many times have you watched a buddy movie where the two leads can't stand each other to begin with, keep winding each other up until there is a barney and then everything is okay after that - they've come to terms, they're best buds? Can I just say - this is a very masculine way of handling things - speaking as a woman, we don't always come out of quarrels and forget. :)

Quarrels can be used for drama, for fun, for despair. They can be verbal, physical or even mental. Take your pick!

QUESTION: Have characters ever surprised you by ending up in a fight?

~

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Natasha Duncan-Drake

Curse of a Banshee
Sophie Duncan

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