Your Reader Needs You to Dive Deep By Melanie Dickerson

Your Reader Needs You to Dive Deep

By Melanie Dickerson

As a writer, don’t save anything, don’t pull any punches, and don’t protect yourself or hold back your emotions. If you want your reader to remember your book, to fall in love with your story and your characters, you must leave everything on the page.

Go deeper until you feel like you’re writing your deepest thoughts and feelings—except you’re not. You’re writing your characters’ deepest fears, thoughts, hopes, and dreams. But if you don’t feel as if you’ve exposed something raw and real, then you may want to go deeper into your character’s backstory, mining for their emotional wounds and traumas.

We all have childhood trauma, or at least it helps our writing if we do. You can use those traumatic events and feelings to create similar wounds and backstory events for your characters. Without those traumatic experiences, your reader may see your characters as flat and inauthentic. And even comedic rom-com books that might seem like candy for the brain can benefit from a bit of trauma in the main character’s backstory and childhood. 

This is easier for some writers than others. Different personality types deal with emotional trauma in different ways, and you know this if you have studied the Enneagram, with which, if I am honest, I am slightly obsessed. And even for me as an Enneagram 4 who is fairly good at being emotive, transparent, and vulnerable, there are times when I am going through something in my personal life that makes me subconsciously self-protective. I don’t want to dive deep into emotional trauma in my characters, even though I know the trauma as well as the characters are fictional.

Ever hear that being aware of the problem is half the battle? This is one of those times. When you recognize that you’re pulling punches, holding back, and otherwise not letting yourself (or letting your characters) feel things deeply, then you can address it. Recognize that this is not your deep wound, it’s the character’s, and let them feel it, react to it, ruminate over the event or person who caused the deep wound. Because your reader may not remember all the plot points in your story, but they will remember how your story made them feel.

Consider that when your character is going deep, dealing with scars and wounds from their past, the reader will be feeling these emotions vicariously through them. Feeling something through someone else is far less painful than feeling your own trauma, but it can also be healing—for the reader as well as the writer.

You may think you are just writing a story to entertain people, to allow them to escape from their problems for a short time. I believe that is a noble goal in itself. But consider that you are also providing a context for them to experience and deal with difficult emotions through a fictional character. They will commiserate with your characters and not feel so alone, even if the characters’ situation is not the same as theirs. Anger is universal, and so is jealousy, heartbreak, rejection, loss, dread, and fear. Your reader will relate to your character’s raw, authentic emotions even if they’ve never experienced the character’s exact situation.

Studies show that repressed feelings such as rage or shame or fear can resurface later in the form of depression and anxiety, which can in turn lead to physical symptoms. Your story can be a safe place for your reader to experience and remember their own strong feelings concerning events from their past so that they are no longer repressing them. 

Other studies have shown that people who read fiction develop more empathy for other people. I believe this is, at least in part, because they see the characters experiencing the same kinds of problems that they themselves face and feeling all kinds of emotions as a result. This experience can also be very validating for the reader.

 And it’s the same with courage. If you make your character courageously face something dark and scary, it may give your reader a compass for navigating their next scary trial, whether it be waiting in line for hours and facing the rude employee at the DMV to renew their driver’s license, standing up to their pushy, critical boss, or dealing with the loss of a close friend or family member. So don’t be afraid to let your characters experience all kinds of negative emotions. They just may help your reader process some of their own repressed emotions, feel validated, and even release negative emotions in a healthy way.

So let yourself—and your characters—go deep into their emotions, whether it be love or loss, fear or confidence, joy or pain. Your readers need to not only read the story, they need to experience the story. And the way they experience the story is through their emotions. 

So go make your readers feel something.

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Melanie Dickerson is a New York Times bestselling author and two-time Christy Award winner. Melanie spends her time daydreaming, researching the most fascinating historical time periods, and writing and editing her happily-ever-afters. Visit her online at MelanieDickerson.com; Facebook: @MelanieDickersonBooks; Twitter: @MelanieAuthor; Instagram: @melaniedickerson123.

CLOAK OF SCARLET

She was an orphan of no importance . . .

He was an ordinary knight serving the baron . . .

Suddenly the kingdom depends on both of them.

Violet Lambton never imagined herself as anything but average. Adopted as a young child, she’s content with her comfortable life in her small medieval town with her faith, her books, and her baking . . . and the vivid red cloak her grandmother gifted her. Her one dream: to find a love that is pure and true. Then, her beloved grandmother is robbed by the villainous Baron Dunham. Outraged, Violet finds herself in the midst of the action and determines to put an end to the evil baron’s mis­treatment of the hardworking people.

Sir Merek, a knight in the service of Baron Dunham, has pledged his life to fighting injustice and defending the weak. But when he encounters the spirited and beautiful Violet and discovers the depths of the baron’s treachery, he realizes that serving his employer is not serving the kingdom—and so he sets out on a daring journey to go behind the baron’s back to expose his deceitfulness to the king.

But before Merek and Violet can act to bring the corruption to light, Violet is captured and brought directly to Dunham—where she shockingly discov­ers a secret that shakes her entire world . . . and the future she dreams of. Thrown together in the baron’s quarters in a race against time to save the lives of their loved ones and themselves, Violet and Merek must learn to trust each other to expose Dunham’s treachery to the king—all while suc­cumbing to their growing feelings for each other. Can the two find their happily ever after against all odds, or will the wolves amongst them drive them apart?

From New York Times bestselling author Melanie Dickerson comes a thrilling retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood,” where two hearts must learn to trust themselves and each other in order to save a kingdom.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips