Writers Tricks of the Trade Volume 5, Issue 5 | Page 28

PRESS “CONTROL” THEN CLICK “BUY” TO PURCHASE THE BOOK 8. MAKE YOUR NOTEBOOK YOUR PERSONAL DATABANK To grasp those feelings, forget about how to relate your memory to the scene in your manuscript. Instead, as you picture it, enter what happened to you or what you experienced in an “Experiences” section of your notebook. While you are writing down your own feelings, let your mind roam free. Capture the emotions that surge back as the memories take hold. Now you have a record of what that emotion feels like. Surprisingly, it can be applied to a multitude of manuscripts, because the basics are the same. Let’s say the reaction was surging thoughts. The only difference, is they become the thoughts that apply to that particular situation and will vary with the storyline. But, the thoughts still surge. BUY EXAMPLE: SHOWING COMPASSION Think about how you would describe this act of kindness. A woman stops to help a blind man and changes the words on his sign. What is her body language when she does this. What makes her stop? Think about what both of them are feeling—how would you describe to make the reader feel it, too? BUY BUY SEPT - OCTOBER 2015 PAGE 18 WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE