When your story makes you emotional

It wasn't an erotic fiction, but I wrote a fanfiction once in which I recast the main character as an autistic savant. That one was actually received fairly well, but the part where I had to go into detail about the main character's mother and the struggles she's had to overcome just raising him made me set the project down for a while and work on something a bit more lighthearted.
 
It wasn't an erotic fiction, but I wrote a fanfiction once in which I recast the main character as an autistic savant. That one was actually received fairly well, but the part where I had to go into detail about the main character's mother and the struggles she's had to overcome just raising him made me set the project down for a while and work on something a bit more lighthearted.
One of my fanfics about did me in. It was the first Peanuts fic I wrote. It was a high school reunion story, Peppermint Patty had still been pining for Charlie, they got together and her dad gave her gift from her mom to see her off to her new life; a dvd. If you know enough, you know canonically her moms dead, actually died between child birth and the first year or two she was born.

"I hurt myself that day." -Johnny Cash or somebody
 
One of my fanfics about did me in. It was the first Peanuts fic I wrote. It was a high school reunion story, Peppermint Patty had still been pining for Charlie, they got together and her dad gave her gift from her mom to see her off to her new life; a dvd. If you know enough, you know canonically her moms dead, actually died between child birth and the first year or two she was born.

"I hurt myself that day." -Johnny Cash or somebody
*Today. NIN. Then Cash covered it.
 
Yep, as @TarnishedPenny noted, if you aren't emotionally invested enough in the story and characters to show a bit of emotion, it's probably not ripe for release. I might have proof-read that last chapter I posted on Sunday a dozen times, but it still hit the feels every time. Then you hit Publish, and then you get this comment, and it's mission accomplished:

"I definitely teared up when she says 'I want them to know what you meant to me'"
So very true. It's comments like that that are our reward for the time and emotion that we poured into our story.
 
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.
So very... very true. It's one of the big reasons why we write. The sense of satisfaction. Putting our heart to 'paper' so to speak.
 
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