Emotion vs Meaning: What do readers want? pt 2

Image by DAMIAN NIOLET from Pixabay

Submitting writing for feedback from readers is a bit like a science experiment. You get the results on how your writing affects others – but you also learn about the psychology of the individual readers themselves.

Take two extremes: people who engage with the feeling of a piece, the emotions evoked by language and imagery; and those more concerned with its rational elements: what is happening in the narrative, the plot, motivations and behaviour.

Every reader engages with both of these elements – even if not consciously – and both are equally important, but every reader has different priorities. Just as writers have different priorities for different pieces of writing and different characters within them. For example, if our intention is to bring out the confusion of a character, we might deliberately avoid giving away too many details or exposition to make the reader feel that confusion too.

But writing is always a balancing act – particularly where meaning and feeling are concerned – and we all know you can’t please everybody all the time. In the above example, the writer might be so aware of the meaning of their story (or think they are!) that their attempts to obscure it go too far, making it incomprehensible to more rational readers, while others are completely sucked in by the emotion of it.

So how do you approach such diverse feedback in terms of potential edits? You have to be honest with yourself, and explore what matters to you in the story. Is your chosen style/form/language truly conveying the meaning of the story? By piling on emotions have you obscured the story’s rational meaning, or vice versa? Are your characters consistent? Regardless of how much or how little you reveal about their underlying motivation, their behaviour still needs to reflect it authentically.

Here's a piece I recently submitted to our writing group. This is the version before feedback:

He spoke

 …and though his words were gently purred, they crashed like a wrecking ball through the concrete of her thoughts.

Always they had been two pieces on a board, waiting for their turn. Stalemate, perhaps – but he had seen an opening, and taken it, out of turn. Cheating. Cheating her. His words were hers. She had waited years to speak them. They had forever fizzed in her mind, frothing her emotions, so close to boiling every time he returned: late from work; dishevelled from office parties; hidden, vampiric, behind shades, after weekend breaks. But she had held them back, always. Always held them back.

He shouldn’t get to use them; think them; even know of their existence. Such words of power, of effervescent destruction, should be beyond his dull imagination.

This was a theft. A brutal robbery. Neither logic nor emotion could counter their effect. But it wasn’t what they stole, two stranded lives, twisted and fused into silent compromise, and swingeing demands. That was not the crime. That, she might given up at any point in time. It had been hers to abandon when she wanted. 

The crime was his honesty. His openness. His “revelation”. As if it could ever be a revelation! Did he think her stupid? Ignorant? Blind to the trail of sweat-soaked breadcrumbs that he’d behind? Not once, in all the arguments she had rehearsed and stored away, ready for the final move, had she considered such a gambit might be played by him against her. It was all too unfair. But how could anything be unfair, when nothing was ever really fair?

Take it. Swallow it whole. Feel it writhing in your gut; acid-tongued; corrupting. 

Now let it rise, glorious and liberating, up through your chest, to burn your throat. Now let us see just what comes out…  

She laughed

…loud and raucous. Powerful. Belittling his moment; his choice to do this here, and now; to grasp the dagger first. See how blunt his blade is; how dull the metal of his declaration. Let all these guests, these staff, the whole world see that It. Means. Nothing.

Let all be confusion, and all confused, for ever and ever, Amen. A well-shaken bottle of string and glue. Let him wrestle and squirm for the Rest of His Life. No discussion. No explanation. No final word. No closure. Pure confusion. Forever wondering; never closing. The perfect plague, sticking to its victim; crippling their mind; festering their certainty with ever-blooming questions.

“A laugh? That’s it?”

You’ll think you got off easy, but tomorrow, waking in our separate rooms, packing all that we have left, to emerge, blinking back misery, and walk among the people who knew us as a pair, it will not be my tears they talk of, but the look on your face as my laughter strikes you. That will be the news, tomorrow. You’ll hear it then, and the questions will take seed. Their burning will begin. And you will never understand. And that is just the start.

The trick, my dear, is not to care; to play along, and take your turn. Move your pieces, on your turn, with politeness and civility. But never show your inner mind; your motives and desires. Honesty’s for losers, boy. Integrity, a trick of the mind. Never play your true hand, dear. When that gets cut, it truly hurts.

And now, you see, I know her name.

Emotionally, readers agreed that it hit the spot. There is a power in the language that most enjoyed, with the overuse of imagery bringing out the whirling of the protagonist’s mind in this unexpected moment of potential defeat.

But after listening to their crits and reading the story back several times, I realised the rational meaning is too obscured here, and worse, the protagonist is inconsistent. What is it that she wants? To be seen by others as the “winner” or to seek revenge (as suggested by the final line?). Clearly, when I first wrote it, I was so determined to shove as much emotional imagery and language into as short a word count as possible that I never fully explored the motivation and behaviour of the character.

Also, wanting a killer last line, I went for one that suggested some kind of future revenge. Chilling perhaps, but it doesn’t make sense – a woman motivated by playing the game of a relationship to the point where they will put up with infidelity, awaiting the satisfaction of ending it on their own terms, doesn’t make sense with someone who will then go off and seek revenge on the mistress. If they were that threatened by the affair, they would have done something about it long before this moment.

“She laughed” is the point where the confusion needs to end – for both the protagonist and the reader. The laughter brings clarity for her, but it’s also the point where she reflects the confusion onto her ex, hopefully forever. So after this, any confusion in the imagery needs to stop as well. She is now seeing clearly, both in the moment and on into the future.

Interestingly, these specific points about the protagonist’s motivation weren’t overtly suggested in any of the feedback – but those readers who wanted more understanding, more background, did point out that it was the last two paragraphs that undermined the understanding they thought they had. Others, those more caught up in the emotion of the piece, didn’t have a problem with them – in fact a couple really liked the final line, again responding to the emotion of it.

Which is a shame for them, because once I’d really nailed down what the story meant to me, that final line had to go. As did the paragraph before it. Here’s a new version of the story – though probably not the final one!:

He spoke

 …and though the two words were gently purred they crashed like a wrecking ball through her concrete thoughts.

Always they’d been pieces on a board, awaiting their turn. Stalemate, perhaps – but he’d seen an opening and taken it, out of turn. Cheating. Cheating her. And his words were her words, the ones she’d waited years to say. Forever fizzing in her mind, frothing her emotions, close to boiling each time he returned late from work; dishevelled from office parties; hidden, vampiric, behind shades after weekend breaks. But she’d held them back, always. Always.

He shouldn’t get to use them; think them; even know of their existence. Such words of power, of bubbling finality, should be beyond his dull imagination.

It’s a theft. A brutal robbery. Neither logic nor emotion could counter their effect. But it wasn’t what they stole – two stranded lives, twisted and fused into silent compromise and swingeing demands. No no, that wasn’t the crime. That, she might have given up at any point – hers to abandon whenever she wanted. 

The real crime was his honesty. His openness. His “revelation”. As if it ever could be! Did he think her stupid? Ignorant? Blind to the trail of sweat-soaked breadcrumbs he left behind? Not once, in all the arguments she’d rehearsed and stored away, ready for the final act, had she considered he might play such a gambit against her. It was all too unfair. But how could anything be unfair, when nothing was ever really fair?

Take it. Swallow it. Feel it writhing in your gut; acid-tongued, corrupting.. 

Then let it rise, glorious and liberating, up through your chest, burning your throat, and hear what comes out…

She laughed

…loud and clear and raucous. Belittling his moment; his choice to do this here and now; to grasp the dagger first. See how blunt his blade is; how dull the metal of his declaration. Let all these guests, these staff, the whole world see that it means nothing.

Let all be confusion and all confused for ever and ever Amen. A well-shaken bottle of champagne and worms. Let him wrestle and squirm the rest of his life. No discussion. No explanation. No more words. Just confusion. Just and pure.

“You’re laughing? That’s all?”

He’ll think he got off easy but tomorrow – in separate rooms, packing all we have left to emerge, blinking back misery, and walk among people who knew us as a pair – it won’t be my tears they talk about, but the look on his face when my laugh struck him.

Yes, tomorrow that will be the news. He’ll hear them talk and questions will take root: “What am I, then? The man I thought? Brought so low by simple sound?” They’ll scratch at his guts, venom burning. But he’ll never get answers. Never have closure. The perfect endgame: paralyse your opponent, cripple their mind, before the final piece is even played.

Obviously, everyone’s priorities for stories are as different as they are for anything else in life – if they weren’t, we wouldn’t have such diverse genres and media. But responding creatively to feedback isn’t a simple matter of bringing out what each reader wants more of, or lessening what they want less of. Otherwise your story would end up being an inconsistent mess – we’ve all seen what studio interference can do to AAA Hollywood movies, particularly those set in shared universes (but more on that another time!).

In fact, it’s not about responding directly to what the reader wants at all, but about what changes work best for the story. What feedback gives us, as writers, is the chance to dig deeper into all elements of our writing, to really pinpoint why this particular word or sentence or paragraph might be a problem, and understand how this mismatch of meaning and emotion, of plot and affect, has arisen – and hopefully resolve it in a way that makes the affect more affecting, and the meaning more meaningful.