Voice theory – Emotion. Part 3

AKA Why love triangles slay me….

What I'm reading: Lay That Trumpet in our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy AND Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder. (Our book club discussion of Poison Study is next Sunday, 2/10. I’m really enjoying it.)

What I'm working on: I’m back to the fight scene – the big one between Tara and a demon god. And then I’m off to read the 305 pages I printed. No, I won’t read it all tonight, but it needs to be read so I know what's still missing.

New words today: 505

If you recall, I’ve been posting a little series on voice. Today, I’m resuming it with part 3.
The big key to swept-away titles for me – be it books or movies – is a truly emotional story, a story where I feel deeply. I want that bone-deep, overpowering, soul-clutching emotional ride.

I frequently find that ride in stories with well-developed love triangles. Let me just list a few.

Bridges of Madison County
Sugar Daddy
The X-Men Movies
The Anita Blake series – okay, yes, there might be more than a triangle going on now
The Twilight Series

I realize some of these titles don’t have traditional love triangles, but there are triangles.

You see, the deal with love triangles is they require someone (the hero or heroine) to choose. Often the best choice is clear to a reader or watcher, but just as often it’s not any clearer to us than it is to the main character.

The best love triangles involve giving up something you really want regardless of the choice you make. They involve the deep understanding that you can’t have everything no matter how bad you want it all.

Let me give you some examples.
WARNING: THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS BELOW. If you don’t want to be spoiled stop reading when you see the title of a story you haven’t read.

First, let’s look at BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY. I loved the movie and the book, but to keep us all straight, let’s talk movie here. The love triangle is between Francesca, Robert, and Francesca’s husband. Immediately, one might think the choice should be obvious, but it’s not. And what’s more, at the end of the movie, you’re heart-broken when she makes the moral choice. Notice – I didn’t say right. There is no right choice. She loses a chunk of her soul and heart regardless of who she chooses. No matter how many times I watch the movie, I cry when the shot cuts to her hand on the door. The indecision is a heart-breaking, emotional ride.

In SUGAR DADDY by Lisa Kleypas, Liberty is just falling in love again when the man she’s always been in love with shows up. I won’t tell you want happens, but I love to watch how both men react – doing whatever it takes to keep her. Very dramatic stuff.

In the X-MEN trilogy (movies), Wolverine is in love, but he can’t have the object of his affection. She’s married to someone else – someone that doesn’t understand her troubled soul. In the end, the husband is out of the picture, but the conflict is still there. It becomes a love triangle between choosing her and choosing what’s right (saving the world). He can’t have both.

In the ANITA BLAKE series by Laurell K. Hamilton, I love the love triangle between Richard, Jean Claude, and Anita. The books with high tension between the three of them were my favorites in the series.

Finally, the series that got me thinking about love triangles: THE TWILIGHT SERIES by Stephanie Meyer.

I recently lay on the bed reading the last book so far in the series – ECLIPSE. Marcus lay next to me watching a sitcom. Suddenly I slammed the book and swung my legs over the edge of the bed to stand up. I dropped the book onto my pillow as if it burned my hands.

“What’s wrong?” Marcus asked, pulling his eyes away from the TV.

“Bella is so screwed.” I say clenching my teeth in anxiety over recent events in the book. “I can’t read anymore right now.”

I stare down at the book. Marcus returns to watching the sitcom.

I plop back down on the bed and pry the book open again, resuming my read.

“I thought you couldn’t read anymore of it right now.” He raises his eyebrows in amusement. He’s seen this side of me before.

“I can’t, but I can’t stop. She is so, so screwed. This will never turn out okay. No matter what happens.”

Bella has a choice to make. If she chooses Edward, there is a huge cost. If she chooses Jake, there is a huge cost. I hurt for her. If it was me, I'd want to stay in limbo -- or perhaps live in a vacuum where I didn't have to choose.

Angsty, emotional, riveting stuff. There’s just something about the emotional journey in a good love triangle, especially when to win, you also have to lose.

I want to write books like these.
(So, I guess it’s good that I have a couple of ideas for love triangles, eh?)

Macy

Hmm... A question: What good love triangles in books or movies can you think of?

Voice theory – Emotion. Part 2

What I'm reading: Lay That Trumpet in our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy AND Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder.

What I'm working on: A scene in the middle of Slayer, and I’m beginning to stress about a finding a dark, paranormal junkie who’s willing to be a beta reader. Are you out there?

New words today: 0 (Big F&$#ing 0. Did I mention that I worked from 8 to 9:30 today? That's 8am to 9:30pm. My head just bounced off the keyboard.)

Continuing with the emotion theme…..

It’s much easier for me to come up with swept away books than it is movies. I read more books than I watch movies or TV, so by default I just find it easier.

However, I can’t decide whether it’s easier to be swept away in a book or movie. Really, it probably depends on the writing in both.

I’ve already said that I need raw-edged, real, heart-dropping, soul-soaring emotion in order to be swept away.

I got all that and more in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in J.K. Rowling’s mind-blowing series.

I fell in love with Harry and his friends when I read the first book. I wanted to be a wizard, not a muggle, and I became fully involved in a willing suspension of disbelief as I read the first three books.

However, it was the fourth one that I added to my swept away list. Those before and after were good, no, GREAT. But the fourth wove into my soul.

The fourth book is a demarcation between the innocence of childhood and the reality of adulthood. Don’t get me wrong, the monsters, evil and problems faced in the first three were real and terrible. I won’t deny that. But Rowling kicked it up with Goblet.

Not only is Harry thrust into a contest for which he is technically far too young, he’s also thrust fully into a world where the darkest threats of nightmares become real.

I think one of those demarcations of truly reaching adulthood – regardless of the age at which you do it – is coming to terms with the fragility of life. In Goblet, Harry witnesses Cedric’s cold-blooded death at the hands of Voldemort.

When I read the passage, the space around me became a vacuum and all the breathable air was suddenly gone. I remember lying on my bed one moment and springing to my knees the next with the book clutched tightly in my hands. I re-read. Surely, I had something wrong. You can’t just kill off the innocent.

But Rowling did. And that moment sealed the book as a swept away book for me. I’ve read that chapter again and again and each time the blow to my chest is just as hard.

Emotion. Rawness. Grief.

After the initial shock, I rocked myself on the bed as I cried. Not Cedric. Not evil like that – the real kind. The kind you can’t come back from.

It’s no secret that in addition to Rowling, I’m also a huge fan of J.R. Ward. (Yep, completely different genre.)

I liked her first books enough to eagerly purchase the sequels. But I liked the first ones from an intellectual standpoint – like I liked Ender’s Game. Great, unique premise. Masterful execution. Extraordinary imagination.

My favorite of Ward’s books, however, is Lover Awakened. It’s Bella and Zsadist’s story. In my opinion, Zsadist is the most tortured of her heroes. (That is compelling to me, too, on an emotional level. The dark, tortured hero will be my 4th or 5th installment of this series.)

While I loved Zsadist’s story (and it is Z’s story), the emotional grip for me had little to do with Zsadist and Bella. It was all about Wellsie. Such tragic, brutal loss. I won’t ruin it for you if you haven’t read, but I will say I re-read the scene about which I’m commenting four or five times. Surely, it would change on one of the passes. This really wasn’t what was happening.

But Ward’s stories, like Rowling’s, don’t shy away from the painful emotions of life. They throw the horrors our way as well as they throw the happily-ever-afters.

Emotion. Rawness. Grief.

I want to write stories like that.

Voice theory – Emotion. Part 1

What I'm reading: Lay That Trumpet in our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy AND Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder.

What I'm working on: A scene in the middle of Slayer.

New words today: 409

Awhile back, Alyson posted a list of “swept away” movies. I’ve been trying to think about my swept away movies. I’m not sure I can come up with a list like Alyson’s (click here and here and here), at least nothing so lofty and artistic and intellectual and important as hers.

I’m not a “thinky” movie sort of girl. Technically, I’m not a “thinky” book sort of girl, either; although, I did love Ender’s Game for the sheer cleverness of it. It embodied extraordinary concept with flawless execution. I remember thinking I needed an OSC alter so I could bow down. However, it was the end I read and re-read. Ender’s empathy for the Buggers was the emotional thread that catapulted the book over the top for me.

And there is the key to the books and movies that captivate me: Emotion.

I want a ride. I want to laugh, red-faced, as I feel a character’s embarrassment. I want to smile and giggle at the sheer joy of a character’s triumph. I want to cry – uncontrollably – with tragedy and loss.

I want to feel. Deeply.

Several years ago, the students at my favorite middle school embarked on a cross-curricular study of the Olympics. They studied the early games in Latin. They competed in Olympic events and measured distances in math. The looked at controversies in history that surrounded the games. They….well, you get the idea.

As a culminating activity, 200 seventh graders took a mid-morning field trip to a private showing of Miracle, the movie story of the 1980’s Gold Medal hockey team, a team consisting of unknown college players who felled the big dragon -- the ultimate professional team from the U.S.S.R.

It’s the story of a coach that bucked the system and a group of rival twenty-something, high-testosterone males. It’s the story of the underdog, good guys verses the fire-breathing, evil communists.

When the US hockey team scored the winning goal against the Russians, the entire packed-to-the-brim theater erupted into cheers and a standing ovation. I’d already seen the movie once, but I erupted with them, tears streaming down my face.

Pure, raw, elation. A truly emotional story.

I want to feel a gamut of human emotion. I think almost all of my swept away movies are brimming over with emotionally charged scenes.

Other movies that made me feel deeply:
Bridges of Madison County
The Notebook
The X-Men trilogy (Don’t laugh. I’ll explain)
The Bucket List
Titanic

I’m sure there are others, but we’ll leave those for part dos.

Tune in for part 2 tomorrow, where I’ll explain why Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (the book) falls under the category of swept away emotional reads.

Part 3 will be the emotional draw of the love triangle (at least its draw for me.)

Part 4, well, I’ll get to that later. (And, yes, yes, I’ll explain Saturday’s vampire thing, too – maybe as a part 4 or 5.)

For now, I’m too tired to continue. Tune in tomorrow. I promise – this really is going somewhere.

Macy