When your story makes you emotional

[AchtungNight]

Every single one of my stories has put me on an emotional roller coaster of one sort or another. The same is true of my readers.

For stories that made me emotionally react like the OP describes, I’d pick Passion 4 for the emotional reconciliation and then death of Zeck Metz. Also, Counseling for Erika vs the Legion of Problems. She and her allies defeat as many as they can but they can’t and don’t get them all. These stories still put me through the wringer every time I read them. Same for The Rendezvous- which is Sex in the City meets Breakfast Club while femslashing four characters on the set of The Upside of Anger. I still feel for my reluctant diplomat Keri, career-minded bitter Alicia, overeager marriage minded narcissist Evan, and overly obsessed reckless Erika every time I read their first joint encounter today. Still can’t believe I pulled it off like I did.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not cried, but I got that misty, could feel it in my throat feeling that's about as close as you can get without actually crying more than once when writing the chapters of Siblings with Benefits that focused on the sister's suicide attempt because she'd hit rock bottom in her addiction.

I've been fortunate to have never suffered from that plight, but grew up in a family riddled with it and lost a lot of cousins growing up. Megan from that story is based on my aunt(who was only a few years older than me) who died of a heroine over dose. Megan ultimately gets clean and the happy ending I wished for my aunt.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Definitely. I was gutted writing the Christmas break goodbye scene towards the end of my New Man series, and there have been more than a few books I published elsewhere that really got to me. Neighbors in particular was just me bleeding all over the damn page throughout its second story.

I would definitely show him. Although mine was unimpressed when I mentioned how I cried.

That said, I have never cried at anyone else's story that I've read on here, so I was entirely caught off guard when I started tearing up.

 

[stickygirl]

There’s a couple of my stories that I’m unable to read without sobbing. They’re still as fresh and raw years later… but then I’ve been known to cry at adverts on tv so …

 

[Cagivagurl]

Yes...
Every time I write my grocery list.... It's not so much the list, but the dollar signs at the bottom...
Yeah, that's when I cry..
Tears of woe...
Cagivagurl....

 

[Duleigh]

Yes...
Every time I write my grocery list.... It's not so much the list, but the dollar signs at the bottom...
Yeah, that's when I cry..
Tears of woe...
Cagivagurl....

 

[Duleigh]

I get too involved with my characters and I tend to tear up at emotional parts, some stories really get to me. Of course my readers don't care, I've only had one who mentioned the tear jerker that We're a Wonderful Wife is in parts and it was meant to be that way.

We're a Wonderful Wife Chapter 8 where Lanh, the military wife is excitedly waiting for her husband to return from a temporary duty assignment in Saudi Arabia. He just got promoted, his doctorate thesis was approved and the adoption agency just informed her that the child they've been fighting for will be theirs soon and she can't wait to tell him in person - so much awesome! Then someone knocks at her door at 1:00 AM, it's her husband's first sergeant, his commander, and the base chaplain. Lanh is a savvy enough military wife to know what that means and she breaks down in tears before they can say a word. I still cannot read that passage. Then later as she is in the hospital with him in Germany, knowing that the adoption agency is trying to reach them and she knows that they lost their chance to adopt forever...

Later in Chapter 11 where Lanh and Karole were run over by a drunk and Lanh's husband Don couldn't get to them because the cops and EMTs won't let anyone near the site. Don has Karole's child in his arms and the anguish he's going through tears me up every time.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I get too involved with my characters and I tend to tear up at emotional parts, some stories really get to me. Of course my readers don't care, I've only had one who mentioned the tear jerker that We're a Wonderful Wife is in parts and it was meant to be that way.

We're a Wonderful Wife Chapter 8 where Lanh, the military wife is excitedly waiting for her husband to return from a temporary duty assignment in Saudi Arabia. He just got promoted, his doctorate thesis was approved and the adoption agency just informed her that the child they've been fighting for will be theirs soon and she can't wait to tell him in person - so much awesome! Then someone knocks at her door at 1:00 AM, it's her husband's first sergeant, his commander, and the base chaplain. Lanh is a savvy enough military wife to know what that means and she breaks down in tears before they can say a word. I still cannot read that passage. Then later as she is in the hospital with him in Germany, knowing that the adoption agency is trying to reach them and she knows that they lost their chance to adopt forever...

Later in Chapter 11 where Lanh and Karole were run over by a drunk and Lanh's husband Don couldn't get to them because the cops and EMTs won't let anyone near the site. Don has Karole's child in his arms and the anguish he's going through tears me up every time.

I'm at work, and just reading your description is heartbreaking. Don't do this to me Duleigh.

 

[oneagainst]

I'm very careful about playing the heartstrings. There needs to be only enough to add the spice to the story, without dominating the other flavours. While I've read stories that unashamedly go full Hallmark on the emotions, I think it's more piquant to keep it to-the-point, almost terse, and then drop the single sentence in that does the job, so the readers never see it coming. It's not the sad things that get to me, counterintuitively, it's the good things. When you get a resolution, when the MC finally puts their hero pants on and faces up to the hard thing, when there's a win, that's when I get emotional. The feeling of attagirl/boy, of the completion of the story arc. We endeavour to provide happy tears to the readership.

 

[32aa]

We all pour some of ourselves into each story; doubly so when it's deeply emotional.

So true. I enjoy rereading some of my stories where I know there are emotional parts. After many rereads... I still feel the pangs of emotion. It's what creative writing is all about...IMHO.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I write my stories to evoke emotions and if I didn't feel the emotion I'm trying to evoke, I'm not doing it right.

 

[Euphony]

so I have no idea where this huge flood of emotions came from).

A highly developed sense of empathy.

We all have our personal cry tolerances but I'm not surprised crafting fiction can hit our best nerve to illicit whatever response.

Good writing is pouring ourselves onto the page. We can use the cover of characters, outlier situations, scenarios, or setting but, end of the day, if we fully commit to the project we are IN our project.

The degree and ways to which we are are open to consideration but we are there.

I am convinced this honesty reads on the page. Not in a factual accounting of events but the inherent humanness/authenticity of our characters.

So sometimes you've really got to twist your insides into knots to unearth the real and transfer it to page.

My favorite stories have always needed a "recovery period" afterward.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I am convinced this honesty reads on the page. Not in a factual accounting of events but the inherent humanness/authenticity of our characters.

This.

It's one of the reasons I don't edit myself much. My "flow" content is always at its best when it's raw, streaming up from my subconscious like lava.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I would definitely show him. Although mine was unimpressed when I mentioned how I cried.

That said, I have never cried at anyone else's story that I've read on here, so I was entirely caught off guard when I started tearing up.

For the first time ever, I'm going to say to someone that I hope you haven't read any of my stories, because I take pride in getting my readers to cry.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

For the first time ever, I'm going to say to someone that I hope you haven't read any of my stories, because I take pride in getting my readers to cry.

I have not. I barely have time in the day for writing, so longer stories I can rarely find the time to start

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I'm very careful about playing the heartstrings. There needs to be only enough to add the spice to the story, without dominating the other flavours. While I've read stories that unashamedly go full Hallmark on the emotions, I think it's more piquant to keep it to-the-point, almost terse, and then drop the single sentence in that does the job, so the readers never see it coming. It's not the sad things that get to me, counterintuitively, it's the good things. When you get a resolution, when the MC finally puts their hero pants on and faces up to the hard thing, when there's a win, that's when I get emotional. The feeling of attagirl/boy, of the completion of the story arc. We endeavour to provide happy tears to the readership.

My writing is like this, but partly because I'm terrible at dealing with emotions myself so I don't want to write them more than necessary. People getting love and support - gets me every time, but I write that anyway. Wish fulfilment, I suppose.

So for example Laura in Meaningless Kisses has has been dumped, little detail given (it's also mentioned in Undergraduate Experiments, when she refused sex as an attempt to cheer her up) but then she has a fling, introduces a younger woman to lesbian sex, and is much happier afterwards. But it was hard to write her pain because I'd been too close to it. In contrast, After the Funeral was easy to write the grief parts as it was less close to home, though the rest of it spewed out as a rant, having had to sit through a religious funeral.

I'd completed the Smoking Hot series apart from "insert justification for self-hatred, mental breakdown and alcoholic bender here" - in the end I described it as briefly as possible, and I think it worked pretty well given it's first person and the character wouldn't be thinking in much clear detail - I just put the bald sentences in his distinctive voice and left it. The rest of the chapter, where his friends get him through it, gets me every time I check it.

 

[RetroFan]

I always feel choked up like I have been watching a sad movie when I re-read my Romance story 'Learning to Love Louise'.

On the other hand, I was laughing all the way through and still laugh at my story 'Sexy Savannah From Number Nine' at the misfortunes suffered by the main character Dino, not least his overbearing Italian-Australian father always shouting at him and punishing him.

Other stories I laughed at while writing and still laugh while re-reading them are my 'PTA Queen Bee & Teen Rebel' stories, specifically the scenes with Todd, a fat bully who is so stupid that he thinks about himself in the third person.

My PTA Queen Bee stories also contain an allegedly haunted house, and while staying up late one night writing these scenes, I found myself feeling 'spooked' when it was time to finish, turn off the lights and go to bed approaching midnight ....

 

[Duleigh]

I'm at work, and just reading your description is heartbreaking. Don't do this to me Duleigh.

Then don't read the story... but then I was slammed by a reader for having a "Too Happy" ending

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Then don't read the story... but then I was slammed by a reader for having a "Too Happy" ending

I've been slammed for the same thing. Apparently some people don't like happy endings.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Nothing I ever wrote here. The end of a fanfic I wrote almost brought me to tears. I'm not one to cry easily, other than a mental breakdown I had a while ago. In my adult life only four things has made me cry, or got me close, as far as media(outside of depression being key); Meet The Robinson's, Marley & Me, Click, and A Silent Voice. Writing the end of that fanfic caught me by surprise, that it about made me cry. I didn't even cry when I read one, that reflects a very sad and depressing moment of my life.

 

[Constories]

Writing Range Cold made me cry, and I've never before cried when writing. I can't tell you the last time I cried over fiction. Maybe when I was a child? Like I said, I don't remember.

It's crazy, because Range Cold is not a particular sad story. It's a revenge plot, Burn The Bastard LW story, with an upbeat ending, imo.

But one particular (very short) scene had the tears flowing.

 

[BobbyLaker]

Yes. My first story is about a divorced woman who was sexually neglected for a long time. When her son's best friend shows up to help her pack, they sort of seduce each other and have a whirlwind romantic affair. In the end though, they have other lives to get to and stop short of falling for each other. Which they realize is just two steps away, if they aren't careful. It fits the story and I'm happy with it, but it makes me a little sad.

Dohhh ... you've told us what happens

 

[NoTalentHack]

Anyone who claims that they never cry or haven't cried since childhood is grossly lying, especially to themselves. Even a psychopath would be wise enough to say they cry sometimes.

I'm willing to bet everything I have that you cry at least once a week.

They said they didn't cry over fiction, not that they didn't cry at all.

 

[Constories]

Anyone who claims that they never cry or haven't cried since childhood is grossly lying, especially to themselves. Even a psychopath would be wise enough to say they cry sometimes.

I'm willing to bet everything I have that you cry at least once a week.

I said that I haven't cried over fiction since childhood. Before writing this story, I cried most recently a few months ago over a friend who died about a decade ago. I also cried reading The Hiding Place.

Neither of those involve fiction.

They lie.

You're literally lying yourself. You're making a baseless claim, and you happen to be wrong. You have no reason to doubt me, other than your own experiences, I guess?

FYI, I don't think that not crying somehow makes me cool or tough. I wish I cried more.

I think it ultimately my lack of tears is a sign that I'm emotionally stunted by my childhood... but regardless, the clams is true.

 

[Constories]

I guess this is the end of a beautiful friendship.

You accused me of lying, and I accused you of the same... Apart from thinking that you took an extra dose of grumpy-pills today, my feelings towards you have not changed.