Emotion: It Don’t Come Easy

My decision to layer in stronger, deeper emotion into Somebody Like You cost me more than I ever anticipated. Why? Because if I wanted my imaginary characters to express emotions that my readers connected with, I had to tap into very real emotions inside me.

While the story is a contemporary romance, it also examines themes of twins and family, widowhood and grief, loss, estrangement, brokenness … all wrapped around the Story Question: Can a young widow fall in love with her husband’s reflection?

Another question I had to answer? How honest was I going to be as I wove stronger, deeper emotion into my novel?

Rachel Hauck

And So She Climbed A Rock

Here at MBT we talk about the protagonist’s happiest and saddest moments.

These to elements are used to shape the deeper layers of emotion between the characters. Expressly the hero and the heroine.

Often use of symbolism or metaphor can deepen the emotional layer of sharing a raw, tender moment between the stars of your story.

But wow, it’s really easy to miss these moments. To kind of skip over them and wrap it all up in prose summation.

Okay, what do I mean?

Let’s create a scenario.

Your hero is wealthy, grew up in a good family. His whole life he had nice things, a nice car, great vacations. He’s a star athlete and student.

Your heroine grew up poor, without, never had anything nice. The old beater car she purchased for $200 had to be pushed all over town by her friends because the starter didn’t work right. She never went anywhere for vacation but a night at the country fair. She’s pretty, a good student but never ever did anything out of the ordinary.