Reliving Emotions

Have you ever felt unsatisfied after reading or watching an emotional scene? I have. About 98% of the time. Why is that?

Emotional scenes are very delicate to write. Why? If the audience can’t relate to them or have enough time to absorb and experience the core of the emotional characters’ pain, the audience will view those scenes as something that happens to be in the story.

And, believe me, your audience WANTS to relate, feel, or relive the power of that experience. And so should a writer, producer and director.

Why do so many emotional scenes fail? The answer is simple: Most emotional scenes are too short or cliché, i.e., an affair results in a quick yelling match, the body of a kidnapped child is found and immediately goes into a whodunnit hardly seeing a parent’s deep pain that causes in real life. Perhaps that’s creative license but people don’t just go to the movies or read for entertainment. They also want to get answers or ideas of how situations are handled, especially emotional ones they’ve endured themselves. They want to relive it and remember how they survived it or find a way to.

There are a few movie/book scenes that allow the audience to make reading or watching it a memorable, relatable, emotional experience. Here’s one that does:

LOVE ACTUALLY, an ensemble romantic comedy (albeit a bit choppy), ironically has one of the best emotional scenes: Emma Thompson realizes the gold necklace she finds in her husband’s coat pocket was a Christmas present not meant for her. She painfully hides her shock, excuses herself from the family’s gift exchange and retreats to her bedroom.

Here’s how it’s written in the script:

INT. KAREN’S HOUSE – BEDROOM NIGHT

Cut to Karen in her bedroom. She’s just standing there-rigid-listening to Joni, playing ‘Both Sides Now- loud on the CD player.

She dries her tears and tries to smile-and as the song continues, heads back to rejoin family life.

That’s a pretty short scene. Probably read it in 6 seconds. It played for almost 6 minutes.

It’s more than just watching her cry and feel her pain. Director Richard Curtis knew this scene had to be drawn out on screen, that the audience needs to experience the pain with her while reliving our own times of emotional pain the same way. It’s relating to the audience. We’re mesmerized, quiet as we watch her cry, double-over, wipe her tears, sigh in shock repeatedly. We (the audience) have time not only to absorb and feel her pain, most of us are living or reliving the event and the pain with her. In fact, just as we think she’s going to return to her awaiting family, she decides to straighten the bed that didn’t need straightening.

The scene is drawn out longer than expected and the audience has time to feel, absorb and/or relive a similar event that evokes a memorable, emotional pain. Thank you, Richard, for realizing shock and pain are not quick discovery, reaction or recovery times. WE experience the pain WITH her and, we don’t feel alone in our own grievance whatever painful memory this extended scene evokes in us.

So write your emotional scene in a way that allows your book audience to relive their own emotions with your character and requires a producer and/or director to at least extend the scene to allow the audience to relate and relive their own painful emotions.

Emotions need time, reliving them over and over. So do emotional scenes.