Writing tips: Love and Hate

with No Comments

Writing Tips: Love and Hate Here we are it’s  Valentine’s Day.

Are you writing about love?

Aren’t we all?

 

Writing Tips: Love and Hate

There needs to be passion and love, and even hate in a good story. But you don’t need to live in the hate.  Actors are always inhabiting the heart and mind of someone else. I had a conversation with an actress one night. She was sad that she couldn’t continue in class at that time because she was pregnant. I said, “Why is that a thing?” She replied, “I think my own group of emotions is enough for any child growing inside me. I don’t need to inflict make believe ones too.” When you act you feel. I think if an actor was hooked up to monitors while doing a passionate monologue you would see heart rate and blood pressure rise. It may be make believe but the body doesn’t know the difference.

The last job I did before retiring was terrific. I played a woman who ended the show happy. She went through things, fear and frustration in the course of the show but ended being successful. I got to go home every night feeling good. I always wondered how it would be to do a run of Hedda Gabler for a year. In case you don’t know (spoiler alert) she walks off stage and kill herself by gunshot in the last moment of the show.

One needs to let go of negative emotions.

Sometimes we take these on when we write. Maybe not to the extent of an actor inhabiting a role but still they live in us to a certain extent.

I thought I would give some writing tips…not about love or hate but about how to enter and leave your writing when you are dealing with negative emotions, scenes or people

If you are writing about joy and love you are in clover but if you aren’t…

So how do you write negative emotions without letting them get all over yourself?

Here are a few tips:

  • let your psyche know you are entering someone else’s life. Actually say it out loud if you have to.
  • Let your psyche know when you leave that negative space.
  • Create a ritual for writing–some people light a candle or play certain music. I don’t but I do have my space and as long as the keyboard is clear I write.
  • Makes some space for you around the time you write… 10 minutes before and afterward to enter and leave that mindset can do a world of good before you inflict your writer mind on your family.

What do you do when you write scary, upsetting, negative scenes or people?

 

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.