A Writer’s Greatest Crime

by Shannon Donnelly

There are a lot of crimes a writer can commit—the torture of sentences, the mangling of meaning, the wrecking of words through using the wrong one at the wrong time. However, the greatest of these is the crime of lack—to forget to put in the emotion.

Now, emotions come in lots of ways and there are lots of opportunities to layer them in, but you have to remember you’re not just putting down words. You are constructing a believable scene with what should be memorable characters (people in other words). And people come with emotions.

Let’s look at the ways to make sure you get the emotion into your scenes.

1. Add emotion through actions.

This goes back to the old ‘show, don’t tell’ advice. You want to show your characters in action so the reader sees who your characters are. Does a character slam a…