The Emotional Landscape: Creating Impact for Readers to Feel the Story

Whether it's done through paintings, novels and books, news and journalism, or music, different types of creative stories can be powerful works of art and have emotional impact on the seer, reader, or listener. Although writers use a pen, pencil, or computer instead of a paintbrush, writing can be similar to painting a portrait for readers to imagine and behold with their eyes when writers create imagery in their short stories and books. One episode from the 1960s western Bonanza called "The Artist," about a blind artist who reclaims his passion for creativity through writing is a good representation of how words can paint pictures too.

(For your entertainment, you can watch the episode below, if you want to see what I mean).

But anyway, when writers write; in essence, they create emotional landscapes that when done right impact readers and causes them to feel their stories. So, how do writers do this? Well, there are specific story elements and components that help writers add emotional depth and meaning to their writing, allowing them to pull their readers into their stories.

The following list are some of these literary elements:

1. IMAGERY

2. SETTINGS

3. SENSORY DETAILS

4. SYMBOLISM

5. THEMES

6. THEMATIC SIGNIFICANCE

7. CHARACTER EMOTION

8. EVOCATIVE LANGUAGE

Let's take a closer look and elaborate on all of these below.

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IMAGERY

Imagery is when writers create vivid images or pictures by using their words to spark their readers' imagination. It's how writers are able to get readers to see their characters and story worlds in their mind's eyes. For example, the centerpiece of ruby-red roses in a glass vase on restaurant table, the clear, glacier icicles dangling on the gnarled branches of an oak tree, or the multicolored, patterned quilt a grandmother is sewing while watching Julia Child. Could you literally see all of these things as I described them? That's essentially what imagery is, the pictures formed in readers' minds as they're reading a text or story.

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SETTINGS

As I discussed in one of the first blog post of my Brainstorm blog, setting is one of the most important story elements when it comes to writing stories. Settings help to create a sense of time and place and allow writers to have a foundation to develop the scenes of their stories. By using their settings, writers can make an illusion to real life while building story worlds in a manner that engrosses readers into the story experience of their fictional characters, making readers feel as though they themselves are the characters, and especially if they can relate and connect with the emotional inner journey of characters in stories. Hence, settings can be thought of as the canvas or stage where everything else happens and takes place.

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SENSORY DETAILS

If there is anything that can improve writers' abilities to create an emotional landscape while writing their stories and books, it's using sensory details. Using the five senses: sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch evoke readers' imagination and stimulates their senses. Sensory details are crucial and allow readers to visualize scenes and immerse themselves into their reading experience. These descriptions are things like the faded, yellow lights in the windows of an office building, the rancid odor of rotting trash in a dimly lit city alleyway, the crunch of frozen snow under a little girl's winter boots, or the itching texture of a wool sweater. They're the colorful and often subtle details that pull readers' attention into the scenes of stories.

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SYMBOLISM

Symbolism is a great literary device for writers to add emotional significance and represent thematic messages in their stories by using symbols or motifs that carry deeper meanings. Many of the most classic and well-known authors of American Literature have included this writing technique in their short stories, novels, or plays, such as Kate Chopin's short story, "The Story of an Hour," Stephen Crane's great American novel The Red Badge of Courage, and Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles. Many more modern authors have used symbolism as well, such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. If you want your stories to stand out from the crowd, consider including symbolism that is significant to the story. For example, maybe a blue balloon that flows into a mother's backyard that represents her long-lost son who went missing at a county fair, or a pretty wilted flower that represents a woman's depressed state. These are just two examples of how writers could use symbolism for more emotional impact.

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THEMES

Themes are the main and most basic ideas of stories. Many people confuse it with thematic significance and say they're the central messages of stories. However, themes are really the framework of which all the other story elements are built around that help guide everything about a particular story, including the creation of characters, the setup and structure of plot, use of colorful literary devices, and the actions and reactions of characters within scenes. Themes give stories depth and meaning to them. Overall, they're single-word, universal concepts, such as "love," "truth," "deception," or "faith," that like curtains over windows drapes over the entire stories of books or other literary works.

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THEMATIC SIGNIFICANCE

Thematic significance is the moral statement or universal truth that authors convey to their readers. Unlike themes, thematic significance is the central messages that stories' themes or main ideas are about that's often written in verbal quotes or phrases and adds emotional significance and depth to create memorable stories. For example, "The truth always wins in the end," "Good overcomes evil," or "True love never dies." This element also acts like a compass and plays an important role in the direction of the story elements in writers' stories, crafting a pattern of how to develop characters, structure plots, arrange settings, props, motifs, or symbolism, and guide the dialogue of characters' actions and interactions.

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CHARACTER EMOTION

Character emotion the vital key for writers to connect their readers to their characters. It also allows them to craft more authentic, three-dimensional, lifelike characters in their stories that pop off the page and come alive as close to real people. Describing the internal conflict of characters is a major way that writers can do this, as well as distinguishing between different types of emotions by increasing their emotional intensity, which I mentioned in my previous post about internal conflict, the emotions characters feel, and how to show them.

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EVOCATIVE LANGUAGE

Evocative language, as referred to as figurative language, adds strokes of color that set the tone and create mood within the settings and scenes of stories, which represent and reflect characters' emotions. This is the bread and butter of emotional landscape and combines a collection of literary devices, such as similes, allusions, metaphors, imagery, symbolism, personification, juxtaposition, and other creative literary devices. This element appeals to the senses, builds emotional connections, and attracts readers and captures their imagination through immersive writing. One good way to use evocative language is to open chapters or scenes with vivid images of items or objects. For example, a ragdoll sitting on an unmade bed, the neon-green flickering open sign of a street bar, a birthday cake lit with candles, or the red, glowing numbers on an alarm clock. This element is also what really allows writers' originality and creativity to shine through the pages of their short stories, novels, or books.

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CLOSING REMARKS:

Grabbing the attention of readers in stories isn't always easy, but it's possible when using this list of story elements and in the right ways. To create an emotional landscape that shows and conveys your fictional story's overall message and the undertones of your characters' emotions, consider implementing them in your own writing to hone your craft, impressive your readers, and draw them into your stories and books. For more writing videos or tutorials, subscribe to my channel Journey of a Christian Writer series. All right, that's it for this post. If you liked it and found it informative, please, give it a (heart❤️), take part in the poll 🤔, and share your thoughts or comments 💬 below.) 

Happy Writing! 😊✍🏽💻

🤔 Hey, writers, have you ever heard of the concept of creating an emotional landscape in stories before?

• 👍Yes, I've heard of it before.
• 👎No, this is new to me.