How To Make Readers Emotional

       Alright, let's get real for a minute. We've all been working on that insanely important chapter for a while, right? But, you know, something isn't feeling right. You're trying to make people upset, but for some unknown reason, everything feels flat. Nothing is pulling at your strings, nothing is in the mood you want it to be. The protagonist is crying, a main character is dying, but for some reason you aren't as upset as your readers. You just feel neutral, as if none of this concerns you. Somebody's dying!? Whatever, it doesn't matter. I'm not feeling it today. I'll let this slip, and I'll fix it later of whatever.
       Wrong!
       Umm, what? What do you mean, wrong? Well, it's plain and simple. If you aren't emotional, what makes you think readers will be? Chances are, if you aren't upset, neither are your readers. If you're heartless and could care less anyways, still beware. For real, you aren't Superman. You can't magically make your readers cry. So, how do you make a reader cry?
       Well, today that's what we'll be learning. In this lesson, we're going to make tears fall. People will punch walls with anger, jump for joy, bite their fingers off in tension, and more! Stick around for a multi-step lesson on how to evoke emotion in your readers. Remember, they need to cry. You hate those people, make them sad. Make that hater who hasn't been voting cry! Make them pay!

1. Creating Sadness

       Boo, hoo! Y/N lost her shoes, wow, I actually care! Just kidding, we don't.

       However, if Levi is dying, that's a different story. But why? Well, several reasons. We haven't taken the time to bond with Y/N's shoes, so why do we care if she loses them? On the contrary, we've taken a long time to get to know Levi, and we love him. Levi is important to us, he has a significance. That's something you need to keep in mind when evoking sadness. You need to use some that we actually like, and then destroy it. So, if you think killing off a character we met two chapters ago will make us sad, you're wrong. We're a lot tougher than we look.

       So, how else can you make us sad? Well, make yourself sad. If you, the author who knows what happens next, will cry about it, you bet your bottom dollar we will! For example, if you like Soul Eater and there's a scene where Crona is abused, it might tug the heart strings. Well, same for us. If it's powerful enough to crush you, it crushes us. Keep that in mind. If you mess with baby Crona, I will go ape on your butt! Don't mess with my baby. Chances are, the rest of your readers feel the same. If someone made Crona cry, I'd cry too.

       Sorry if I made you upset when I talked about Crona, it messes with me too. I know it actually is a touchy subject for a lot of people who like Soul Eater, and I like it too. It's alright, Crona can be happy inside of your heart. It's okay, the fandom's here for you!

2. Evoking Anger

       Making someone punch a wall. Sounds easy, right? I mean, you do it to your little brother/sister every day. Why would it be any different? We'll just make Levi get with Eren, and then Mikasa intervenes. There, boom! You're triggered!

       No? It's okay, that idea was very weak. But what was weak about it? Well, a lot. First of all, it happened too fast. When you agitate your younger sibling, it takes a minute before they threaten to tell Mom, doesn't it? Well, it takes a few chapters before your readers get agitated, too. So, take your time. Levi can get with Eren. Make them hug, kiss, other unmentionable things! Do this before we get Mikasa involved. That way, your readers get time to enjoy these scenes. Then, make it interesting. Now we can insert Mikasa. Now, you feel mad don't you? It's because you have had time to enjoy Levi and Eren's relationship. Everything you've enjoyed has just been ruined. See a difference? You ought' to, because the difference is big!

3. Making People Happy!

       Wow, people can be happy? Yeah they can, believe it or not. In fact, some of the best fanfictions out there are the ones that leave people happy and feeling satisfied. So, maybe in the end Y/N and Ciel live happily ever after in the Phantomhive Manor, right? In theory, that's happy, but I didn't mean that specifically. Yes, make people happy, do give them a good ending, but don't just hand it to them.

       It makes people happy when they get something after having it be hard-earned. If someone just handed you twenty-dollars, it'd be nice. Yeah, it'd be great. But what if you got a 4.0 GPA (straight A's) and were handed twenty dollars for doing so good? It'd feel better, wouldn't it? It would feel the best because you deserved it. You don't feel lucky, you feel genuinely amazing. Well, you want your readers to get the real feeling, not the artificial happiness a person gets when they're handed something on a silver platter.

       So, what's the main lesson for this section? Make your readers wait for their happiness. I want to make them feel as if they earned the ending of the story. Do you understand what I mean? It's hard to explain, but I'm trying.

4. Making Them Tense

       Are you worried yet? No? Good, you will be when I'm done! So, how worried are you when you're told that Y/N and Sebastian go to a room together and Ciel hears them outside of the door? Well, maybe you are worried, but if you're an open-minded person, you aren't. We don't know what room their in. Maybe they're cooking in the kitchen. You thought they were in a bedroom, right? For that reason, you were horrified. Go back and read that again, I never mentioned a bedroom. If you weren't worried, you paid attention to detail and noticed what I was trying to get you to notice.

       Now, let's discuss why this plan backfired. It was because of my lack in detail. If I said they were in a bedroom, we'd be biting off our fingernails. So, what do you keep in mind when making the readers tense up? Well, be specific. Write every detail out. Talk about how Ciel presses his ear to the door. Talk about how the muffled sounds are. Talk about how the characters feel. Detail! Use it!

That's it for this post!

       Thanks for reading, guys! I really hope that while you laughed, this was actually both helpful and educational. If you really liked this post, by sticking around this blog you can see a lot more like it. To get notified of when this blog is updated, just click the home button. To the right there's a blue "Follow" button. Click it! Now not only will your name show up as an enrolled student in FFU, but you'll also get these notifications.

       Alright, enough with marketing the blog. If you suffered this deep in, I'm sure you already followed with the two other people that stuck through. But really though, I believe in you. If you put your mind to it, you can write anything you want. Don't doubt yourself, it's really possible. No lie.

Spirit's sending good vibes! You can do it!