The Difference Between Sad
Situations that Make a Reader Feel Bad and Those That Make A Reader Feel Good:
It’s Important to Know The
Difference
Yesterday, I commented about
reading a romance that has made me feel bad as I read it for almost all
the 70% of the book that I have read so far. Reading the book is hard going. After
I put the book down, I don’t really want to pick it up again to continuing
reading. I’m actually more likely to pick up another book instead. That’s very
easy to do on a Kindle. With just a click of a button, I can delve into a
different book.
And that is what is happening!
While I have been reading this ‘bad feeling’ book, I have started reading two
other books: “The Hound of the
Baskervilles” and “The Kiowa Trail”. I’m
25% into the Hound and 88% into Kiowa and both these books were started
after my beginning to read the ‘bad feeling’ book.
Can an Author Write About Sad Situations?
After I wrote yesterday’s
blog it occurred to me that some readers may believe that the need to make a
reader feel good precludes writing about sad situations. One might think that an author is thus
prevented from ever writing about real life situations. However, this is just
not the case.
Sad events can be written in
a way that will make the reader feel good and have sympathy for the character
who is suffering. Some sad situations are life affirming. Today I just started
reading one such book, “The Lawman’s
Second Chance” by Ruth Logan Herne.
This book starts with the hero feeling bad because of a situation that reminds
him that his wife died of breast cancer. He was deeply in love with her.
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| May First Release |
****
Lieutenant Alexander Steele
turned into the parking lot of Gardens & Greens Nursery and pulled up
short. Shades of pink surrounded him while huge banners proclaimed the garden
center's tribute to breast cancer awareness.
The Southern Tier investigator had three choices. Fight the bile rising in his throat, drive the car away and disappoint his ten-year-old daughter yet again, or man up and choose a parking spot.
He chose the latter and pretended to like it, but he'd been pretending for too long and the garden center's Pink Ribbon Campaign slam-dunked his already damaged heart. Why here? Why now? He'd made the move to Allegany County not only to get away from the city, but also to escape the grief breast cancer had left behind.
Realization hit home. Spring had arrived, finally. May loomed just around the corner. That meant Mother's Day.
Of course. He hadn't thought of that. Was it a deliberate mistake, like so many others of late? Or was he simply bogged down with work and the task of raising three motherless kids?
"Oh, Daddy." Emma's gray eyes rounded as she grasped his hand. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life?"
The crush of pinks wasn't beautiful. Not to him. Not when every ribbon, every banner, every rose-toned bloom and 5K run reminded him of what he'd lost two years before. His wife. His helpmate, appointed by God.
He'd believed that then.
The Southern Tier investigator had three choices. Fight the bile rising in his throat, drive the car away and disappoint his ten-year-old daughter yet again, or man up and choose a parking spot.
He chose the latter and pretended to like it, but he'd been pretending for too long and the garden center's Pink Ribbon Campaign slam-dunked his already damaged heart. Why here? Why now? He'd made the move to Allegany County not only to get away from the city, but also to escape the grief breast cancer had left behind.
Realization hit home. Spring had arrived, finally. May loomed just around the corner. That meant Mother's Day.
Of course. He hadn't thought of that. Was it a deliberate mistake, like so many others of late? Or was he simply bogged down with work and the task of raising three motherless kids?
"Oh, Daddy." Emma's gray eyes rounded as she grasped his hand. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful in your life?"
The crush of pinks wasn't beautiful. Not to him. Not when every ribbon, every banner, every rose-toned bloom and 5K run reminded him of what he'd lost two years before. His wife. His helpmate, appointed by God.
He'd believed that then.
****
This is indeed a sad situation. The
hero is heartbroken after losing his wife who he dearly loved. He finds it
painful to look at all the pink flowers. Little does he know that the heroine
has also suffered from breast cancer and that her husband has left her because
of her ‘missing parts’. OMG! I want a front row seat for this conflict!
While this is a totally sad situation, it is dealt with
a great deal of hope. The reader knows from the first page that help is on the way. The reader is rooting for the
hero. The hero and his child are very sympathetic characters. We want
them to find happiness and be comforted. And we know they will find happiness because this
is a romance with a guaranteed happy ending.
How to Write About Sad Situations
“The Lawman’s Second Chance” shows how
to write about a very sad situation without making the reader feel bad. Indeed,
such writing can even make the reader feel good -- even some warm fuzzies. Within a page things are
looking up. It seems the reader is joining the story just as the hero’s long
night of pain is coming to an end. This alone produces a feeling of hope and relief vicariously
in the reader.
The Bad Kind of Feeling Bad
A writer can also make the reader feel
bad by having bad things happen to people who are not sympathetic. Like the
husband who walks out on a wife who is a shrew and who no one could live with.
Besides the wife is not the heroine and we don’t feel much sympathy for her. We
just feel bad or uneasy. The abandoned wife also says things that make the
other characters in the story very uncomfortable.
A reader may well feel this unhappy wife deserves what
she is getting. That she brings it on herself. How about having a suicide that
is not directly related to the hero or
heroine but which serves to make those two feel bad (to say nothings of the
reader!) Then there are also
characters who are very unsympathetic and who you would not want to be around
in real life yet the author is making
you be ‘around them’ vicariously. What a difference between the two approaches.
One story is very sad but your feelings as
you read the story are of hope and the anticipation of relief; while the other
story is one of despair with little apparent relief in sight. These sad secondary characters
might not even be part of the guaranteed HEA.
Yet, there will be a happy ending to the 'bad feeling' book. Nevertheless, I feel that the happy ending is going to come too late and the reward will not be worth the price paid. Of course, the critics may love this book for making the pain seem so real. The critics could actually feel the pain. But then critics don't read for enjoyment. At least, not the way ordinary readers, who don't have a dog in the fight, read for enjoyment and for how their reading expeience makes them feel as they are reading the book.
Yet, there will be a happy ending to the 'bad feeling' book. Nevertheless, I feel that the happy ending is going to come too late and the reward will not be worth the price paid. Of course, the critics may love this book for making the pain seem so real. The critics could actually feel the pain. But then critics don't read for enjoyment. At least, not the way ordinary readers, who don't have a dog in the fight, read for enjoyment and for how their reading expeience makes them feel as they are reading the book.
Writers Should Be Aware Of What Their Readers Are Feeling
on Each Page.
