: Re: How can you insert more emotions in scenes? I have a scene where my character has to feel scared, sad and alone. I'm good at describing her surrounding but describing feeling are a bit harder

@Cofer669

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Hemmingway has some solid advice (tip 5). Don't describe the emotion, describe the thing that caused the emotion.

Imagine a young couple, expecting their first child, and suffering a miscarriage. It's probably very difficult to describe accurately what that feels like, but even if you succeeded, it wouldn't make the reader actually feel it. If, however, you describe the sequence of events that caused the emotion: sudden stomach pains, the husband rushing to the hospital, waiting for hours to see the doctor, all that tension will induce emotion in the reader without you ever describing what anything feels like.

It's events that make readers feel, not descriptions of emotions.

The further you trace the events back, the more you layer the emotion. Contrast the shock of the miscarriage by showing the joy of a successful pregnancy. Of course, don't describe the joy, show the difficulty in getting pregnant, and then release that tension. Go back further, why does becoming a parent mean so much to both of them? The further back you go, the bigger the payoff.

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