Dominant Reader Emotion

What is your reader experiencing?

Creating a novel is a complicated endeavor, what with the characters, plots, setting, pacing and dozens of other concerns. Yet another consideration, one that gets little notice, is what does the author want the reader to experience when a major character is in a scene? This is not a trivial concern and it brings us to a topic I call the Dominant Reader Emotion or DRE for short.

In my novels, the DRE is the emotion the reader experiences whenever the character is front and center. The reader could be feeling hostility, or maybe empathy. It could be any one of dozens of other emotions. Whatever the emotion is, it’s one that I assign to a character early in the development stage because the DRE affects the way I develop the character. If for instance I want the reader to dislike a character, I have to give the character a nasty personality. If I want the DRE to be sympathetic, the character has to think and act in ways that the reader will like.

The character’s DRE also influences the way I write about the character. For example, if I wish the reader to like a character, I can’t have that character kicking puppies or pushing little old ladies in front of buses. I can have a character do these things if the DRE I’m striving for is anger or disgust.

In assembling a cast of characters I strive to provide an array of DRE’s and to ensure I don’t overuse one of them. This provides the reader with a variety of emotions. And let’s face it, readers love to experience emotions while they are reading.

Here is a list of Dominant Reader Emotions that I use in my stories.

• Affection: The reader develops a fondness or liking for the character.

• Anger: The reader feels displeasure with the character.

• Animosity: The character arouses anger in the reader.

• Delight: The reader takes pleasure in the character and his/her actions.

• Disgust: The reader is revolted by the character

• Empathy: The reader relates to the character and thinks the character is just like the reader; i.e. the character and the reader share common traits.

• Hostility: The reader is decidedly unfriendly toward the character.

• Irritation: The reader is annoyed by the character.

• Pity: The reader feels sorry for the character.

• Sympathy: The reader understands the character.

• Sadness: The reader feels sorry or unhappy for the character.

In my recent novel, a king has a group of bodyguards who initially all seemed bland to me. There was too much "sameness" to the group. To break that up, I took one bodyguard and gave him a DRE of annoyance. While writing the story, i had this character try to weasel out of work assignments, complain of illnesses and body aches and bad-mouth the other characters. In case that wasn’t enough, I also had him like to torture people and animals. I gave a second bodyguard a DRE of delight. This character acted humorously in her scenes. In effect, these characters eliminated my sameness problem.

A difficult, but not impossible feat, is to have the DRE change over the course of the story. In my novel Moxie’s Problem, the title character starts off as an obnoxious, whiny, teenage princess. The DRE here is annoyance. Over the course of the novel, Moxie realizes her situation, puts together a plan to change her life and begins to implement the plan. As the story progresses, the DRE gradually changes to sympathy. This involves the character’s actions changing, but not too fast. It was a case of two steps forward and one step backwards as Moxie gradually became less obnoxious and whiny. In the conclusion to Moxie’s story — a second novel called Moxie’s Decision — Moxie continues to grow into a decisive, strong woman and the reader’s DRE continues to change and finally becomes admiration. This type of character growth or change makes for a story that readers love.

Since I developed the Dominant Reader Emotion, my characters have become more complex and my stories more involved. I also get a kick out of writing about a character with an odd DRE like the annoying one mentioned above. I believe the stories are also more interesting and entertaining to the readers.

Fiction writers face numerous pain points in the process of creating a story. My Writers & Authors Resource Center has solutions for these pain points. You can find these solutions at https://beta.scrintal.com/b/fiction-writing-solutions--oaasf