I second that emotion
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A motion doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. When we as writers make a move, we are in effect making a motion. Thus, another way in which writers can move readers is by setting characters and events into motion on the page. One way to stir the reader is the technique Chekhov and Gardner suggest-for the writer to withhold her own emotional reaction to the events and characters she describes, allowing these elements to speak for themselves. If so, how does a writer, in particular a memoirist or other nonfiction writer, move the reader? For if the reader is the one being moved, the writer is the mover, the one who sets something into motion, who provokes, stirs, excites to action or feeling. For isn’t that what readers of literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction want the chance to do? To, in the words of that Smokey Robinson hit, “second that emotion”? That is, in great fiction, we are moved by characters and events, not by the emotion of the person who happens to be telling the story.” Certainly Chekhov and Gardner are not suggesting that the writer herself be unmoved by events and characters, but rather that she allow the reader the space to complete the transaction her words set into motion. “In great fiction,” Gardner writes, “we are moved by what happens, not by the whimpering or bawling of the writer’s presentation of what happens. As it is, your heroes weep and you sigh.” John Gardner has a similar take on this issue in The Art of Fiction. But it was as if the writer did not trust the work, or perhaps did not trust us to do our job as listeners: to bring our own emotional response to the work.Īs I listened, I kept thinking of Chekhov’s advice to a writer who had sent him a story: If you “want to touch the reader’s heart, try to be colder. The more emotional the reader’s performance became, the less effect it seemed to have, an unfortunate outcome, especially given that the work was potentially moving in and of itself. Some leaned back into their chairs, some crossed their arms. As she spoke, I sensed listeners growing more and more uncomfortable, as I was. Her introduction, followed by a tearful presentation, suggested either that the work was too new to share publicly or that she had planned her reaction and was intentionally manipulating us. Tears are not uncommon at readings, of course-I have cried at several-but in this case the tears came not from audience members but rather from one of the readers, who had warned us that she might “choke up” because of the emotional content of the autobiographical piece she was about to read. They were all accomplished writers, varied enough in their approaches to evoke laughter, sighs, nods of acknowledgment, a collective gasp at one point, and, toward the end of the evening, some tears as well. Featured Art: The Tower, Cathedral of Torcello by Cass GilbertĪ few years ago, I attended a literary gathering and heard four poets and memoirists read from their work.
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