Showing Complex Emotion

[tegeus-Cromis]

Here, if I may, are a couple of paragraphs from my novel (currently in final editing), where I tried to do something like this. I won't give the narrative context, but the emotion should be clear:

She made her way, past the dying grasses and the barren trees, along the plankway almost entirely covered in sand, down to the beach. The scent of the ocean, the grey of the clouds, the rolling of the waves, the crunch of sand under her boots: she told herself, how soothing! She took a few deep breaths, to relax. Instead, with no warning, tears sprang to her eyes. She didn’t know why. No specific thought had accompanied their arrival. It was the harsh beauty of the day, of the ash-green sea; something sharp in the light that pained not her eyes but her insides, her body from the inside out. She could feel it in her chest, in her shoulders; the skin on her back seemed to burn at the touch of her sweater.

A ship hovered on the horizon, fading into the mist, a grey ghost. A sob burst out of her like a sneeze. It didn’t segue into weeping, not quite; it might have, had someone been there on whose shoulder to cry. She bit her lip as hard as she could. She started shaking, but not from the cold. Her throat seized; it hurt as if all her innards below it were ripped out. She heard a whimper; she almost turned around to see where it came from before realizing it was hers.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Does that work better? I don't expect a definitive answer, just if I'm barking up the right tree or not.

Yes - your first part was fine actually, but adding the action makes it stronger.

 

[-K2-]

Jordan lifted the car keys quietly from the counter. She could be gone in flash. Her sister would take her in, or even Tracey. But then she would become a burden on someone else. Anyway, Mark would come looking and convince her that he was a mess without her. And he'd be right. So what was the point? She set the keys back down.

Perhaps I misunderstood your post, but who is abusing who here?

Jordan, to me, comes off as the one empowered. She can come or go as she pleases. She feels she has options, so much so that the thought of burdening others (blood kin no less) outweighs her need to go. She then worries that pathetic Mark would beg her to come back because he can't live without her. More so, she agrees with his assessment. So, with so little weighing on her, she opts to give him another chance by staying.

That's how your above post reads to me. So, perhaps my first post was wrong and it's really Jordan abusing Mark by regularly threatening to leave him. If it's the other way around, I don't see it. In fact, as noble and empowered as Jordan comes off, if I had to apply an emotion to her, it would be magnanimous indifference.

And you know what they say... "Hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is."

K2

 

[Margaret Note Spelling]

My little kitsune and her water sprite sidekick have smartphones and they have texted each other with some text speak.

Oh, well, dialogue is another matter entirely! You could even make their back-and-forth textspeak humorous that way, like P.G. Wodehouse would do with telegrams. No, I was talking about the author using textspeak. In narrative.

But, actually, you know what would be worse? The editor who lets the author do it.

But that's pretty off-topic by now. Sorry; I just wanted to make it clear I wasn't criticizing your little kitsune! (Good on you for letting them have smartphones. )

 

[ckatt]

I don't think people have complex emotions. They have complex motivations, certainly. Complexity comes in where there is a cerebral response. Emotions are more enveloping, involving mind and body both, and if they are strong there is only room for one at a time.

This makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks. I think what I need is an adjustment in my approach and this helps.

I think that, for the POV character, this is best done with interior monologue. This is different from "telling."

I'm not sure I totaly agree. I think some times it's hard to tell the difference between the inner monologue and narration, particularly in a first-person POV. Maybe I'm wrong. But if one is following the rule that you can't describe anything the character is not aware of, a close third person even, I think the line is often blurred. Thanks for sharing your excerpt. I think it does illustrate the point.

@-K2-
I know relationship abuse is a sensitive topic, one I think needs special care in dealing with. I feel like my example struck a nerve. So, I apologize if I caused any uncomfortable feelings. I'm looking for help here because I know that I need to improve. But the tone you have taken with me is rather discouraging. I'm uncertain if you are trying to help me write better or just show me how wrong I am about abusive relationships. I believe that one ought to understand something to write it well. Is that what you want me to take away?

 

[sknox]

Regardless of whether people feel conflicting emotions at the same time, you as an author can only describe them one at a time. As Teresa said, rapid shifts can come quickly, but you're the who who chooses in which order and how long to spend on each.

 

[-K2-]

@-K2-
I know relationship abuse is a sensitive topic, one I think needs special care in dealing with. I feel like my example struck a nerve. So, I apologize if I caused any uncomfortable feelings. I'm looking for help here because I know that I need to improve. But the tone you have taken with me is rather discouraging. I'm uncertain if you are trying to help me write better or just show me how wrong I am about abusive relationships. I believe that one ought to understand something to write it well. Is that what you want me to take away?

I took no offense nor was uncomfortable. Sorry if my responses made you feel that way.

In my first response, I perhaps wrongly assumed that Jordan was supposed to be the (I assume emotionally) abused person, and Mark was the aggressor. After rereading it struck me why the passage initially struck me as Jordan being so blase and I had even highlighted passages (in the quote of your post). My second response is exactly my gut on how Jordan feels when I reread it.

Personally, I've been fortunate in that the first 30 years of my life I kept myself emotionally unattached to people and then I met my spouse... and it has been 'happily ever after' since. That said, I have a number of friends now, and knew many people in the past due to the circles I ran in that suffered subtle to extreme abuse. I've seen it in action, heard the emotions, and seen the results. So, my first response is not hammering on you, yet explaining how it's a process of whittling someone down to the point they give up. They even give up to the point that they spend every moment trying to pacify their counter just to be left alone. Many dreaming of the day, that 'they-themselves' simply perish. It's crushing.

But, I'm not slamming you when I corrected myself (second post). It was a genuine question as to "who is being abused," because from the passage, I'm not sensing rage, hopelessness, boiling hatred, or despair from the character. Even mild upset.

Again: Jordan lifted the car keys quietly from the counter. She could be gone in flash. Her sister would take her in, or even Tracey. But then she would become a burden on someone else. Anyway, Mark would come looking and convince her that he was a mess without her. And he'd be right. So what was the point? She set the keys back down.

She could be gone in a flash: to me reads like she knows she has an out, and doesn't feel trapped.
Her sister and Tracey: says to me she has options and knows it. More so, I read into that, she's previously considered her options.
burden on someone else: feels more like that is worse than what she is experiencing.
Mark's expected action: reads to me like 'he can't live without her...' but she can him.
And he'd be right: Jordan confirms that power within herself.

So, I changed my response. I've known men and women who constantly use the threat of leaving/divorce/kicking someone out as a form of abuse. That's why I asked, who is being abused here?

Anywho, my responses are meant to share my impressions based on my witnessed experiences to try and help. Sorry if you took offense.

K2



P.S.: Personally, I'm not as diplomatic as I should be, I suppose, but you've heard the expression 'it only takes five pounds of pressure to pull a trigger?' Well, I'm a believer in 'husband tamers,' otherwise known as iron skillets. Through their proper application, three pounds of swing weight pressure (cracker barrel brand optional) ensures a compression lobotomy and subsequent attitude adjustment.

Mark was raging again, "You lazy fat cow, get me a beer. Why should I have to take out the garbage after--"
*DOiIiiIiiiIinggggg*
"Yes dear. I'll take it out right now."

Naturally, I'm joking... maybe...

 

[tinkerdan]

When it comes to abusive relationships I think that Complex Emotions is not adequate as much as Conflicting Emotions would be.
However, if you haven't been in an abusive relationship it might be very difficult to understand how they develop.
If you know someone who has been in such a relationship and you can get them to talk about it, you will get some insight into it.
Ideally if you can get several to talk about it you might begin to see patterns.

The thing is that there are many ways for these relationships to develop. They have many of the same earmarks though not always in the same order.

Usually what drives it is insecurity and power.
A person who is insecure in the relationship might slip into power and controlling behavior.

This could show up in a progression of things that individually might be tiny red flags and might have a variety of order.

Strange casual references[often disguised as humor].

Don't ever do that, I'd have to hurt you.
If you ever ran away from me I could break your legs and make it look like an accident.
I know where your parents live.
If I ever had to get rid of a body, I could do it and no one would ever find it.

You love the person, or you wouldn't have married them. [Discounting that there are still some arranged marriages.] So you cringe and try not to say anything until it gets to be slightly creepy and you mention it and they casual slough it off 'I'm just messing with you'. You might be afraid of them and still love them(I remember times I was deeply afraid of my parents.)

This leads to violence sometimes and is triggered often by alcohol or other drug abuse and or just their own vicious nature.

They say:
Don't ever tell anyone about this, you already know what I can do. [Refer to the above.]

(Right now only you are suffering; however anything you do about it could leak over into other people you love. They have already demonstrated what they can do and already told you what they think they can get away with.) Regardless of certain realities about what they can get away with--there is no guarantee they won't try, and evidence that they will hurt someone that they keep insisting they love. You might still hold on to the fact that you love or at least loved them when this started. At the same time you are in fear not just of your life but everyone else you love.

--The above is an oversimplification of a complex process that germinates over time and for those having trouble getting out of the relationship it is because they can't quite remember how things got to where they are, mostly because they couldn't see the signs.

So complex relationship yes, however mostly conflicting emotions.

I think that context is important in that where they are in the relationship will establish the nature of the conflicting emotions.

The point is:
When the police showed up one day with my sister in tow and asking if we would take her in for a while(which we did)and her husband showed up the next day at the door, irate and confrontational, and we had to call the police and when they arrived they arrested him after finding a loaded weapon in the trunk--I could better understand why it took her so long to get out of the relationship.

But back to the OP--I don't really feel any of this from what you have posted so I'm not sure how bad this relationship really is.

 

[ckatt]

But back to the OP--I don't really feel any of this from what you have posted so I'm not sure how bad this relationship really is.

Thanks for your thoughtful response. The relationship I wanted to depict was meant to be one of emotional abuse, but I don’t think I used enough words to show that. The totality of a relationship would take up many pages. However, that wasn’t the purpose of the example. What I wanted to know was if there is a way to show the complexity of emotion without explanation.

As to my original question, I wasn't asking how to depict an abusive relationship, (though maybe I should be asking that)but how does one show the motivation behind a single action without explanation. I wasn't concerned if people could decode the depth of the relationship through a single paragraph. But how does one show, rather than tell, that complexity? So my example was about a character not taking an opportunity to change their situation, and how to show their motivation for that decision without explanation. And perhaps that is not something that can be shown in a single paragraph. But when writing short fiction one doesn’t have 100 pages to show the background, or even 10, so how do we show years of grief in a small space without saying "She had endured so many years of grief that she now lacked the self-confidence or esteem to change her situation, even though the act of walking out the door seems so simple on the surface." ?

You and a few others how pointed out that it's not complex emotion that I'm interested in but conflicting emotion. And I think framing it that way will be a big help in depicting my characters on the page.

 

[tinkerdan]

It's a private pain that cuts to the bone and leaves no physical evidence. Maybe a twitch and a distinctive silence where once there were words. An act of grinding teeth to bite the tongue and sever words that might lead to another tirade of condescension that he really doesn't want to release; but occasionally you slip up and then he has to. He has to. And its all your fault.

So you just disconnect.

Yeah, I kinda understand that one just a little: also.