Sweet Emotion - Part II

Yesterday we talked about the importance of delving deeply into the emotional core of your script - of really going there yourself in order to make the pages truly transformative and resonant.

Writers go through identifiable, almost predictable stages of learning. Interestingly, new writers start off with a lot of what I’ve talked about the past couple of days – the emotion! The coolness of the scene! The coolness of writing a script! The coolness! But they need to dial that part back and get under the hood. The outline! The premise line! The idea testing! Not so much with the coolness.

But ironically, once you’ve put coolness on the back burner and do the hard work of learning about execution and outlining, guess what – you get to come back to the coolness. In fact – you have to.

All humans have very deep, hard-wired primal need for love, justice and safety, and very deep, primal fears of death, danger and betrayal. So tap into that most primal part of yourself when you write – if your pages don’t make YOU cry or flinch or laugh your ass off – they probably won’t make anybody else feel that way either.

Do any Wavers know any actors? I don’t mean celebrities – I mean actors. Yeah, they’re pretty weird. In a good way. You know I love you, actors that I know. But you’re odd. Because that’s what actors do for a living – they go into the deep well of universal emotions and archetypes and literally dwell in that space. No wonder so many famous actors have all number of emotional and substance issues – it takes a lot to live in that space as often as they do.

My personal trick? Music. I literally choose a playlist of songs that ping the emotions in what I’m writing. Songs that make me sad or put me in the mood that I want to establish on the page.

I believe that music is one of the single most powerful tools for opening up your emotional pipes – ever. I don’t care who you are, you drive down the street and Springsteen comes on the radio – say Dancing in the Dark – and you turn up the music, and for three minutes, you are right there with The Boss and you don’t mind the light you just missed. You just don’t. Because the music flows through your veins and life is good in that moment. Music literally changes your brain waves.

Maybe you like to listen to Tibetan monks droning, maybe you can get into the white noise at a café (I really can) – whatever it is for you – whatever transports you into the emotional core of your story – go there. Do it. Because it will transport you into the right-brain reverie that we writers are addicted to and moreso – it will transport your audience too. What you feel deeply – they will also feel. There’s magik at work in truly great writing.

After you’ve outlined, after you’ve written a great premise line – when you are ready to start pages, tell your left brain sayonara, turn on some tunes and get into your deepest place of feeling and being. Don’t be afraid of it – it’s what makes us writers.

In my experience working with writers, the ability to be fearless and go into the emotional core of what you are writing is what separates mediocre writers from great ones. If writing your script isn’t an emotional journey for you, it won’t be an emotional journey for anybody else. When I open your script to page one, I just bought a ticket. Take me with you.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.