CommentsWhat a lovely post. I write emotion from memories… er, not all that often, actually. I guess I should dredge up some memories, because sensory and other physical details really bring a scene to life. Thanks for the tip! You’re welcome, Barbara. I actually started to write the post using an incident invloving my daughter and a four-wheeler accident, but since it’s Christmas I decided to use a sugarplum memory. So this morning, I’m using the accident memory while writing heroine’s POV during fight scene between villian and hero. Drawing from memories will different add the extra sensory details to the scene. Thanks so much for stopping your and commenting. (((HUGS)) AJ I think any decent author does, Autumn. A character’s memories are his or her backstory. The only backstory that really belongs in a novel are events that shaped the character as an individual and those incidents can’t help but be emotional. Otherwise they wouldn’t have had a lasting impact on him or her. BTW, I loved your scene. The senses in it were very evocative. Thanks, Laurie. I think drawing from your own memories (recalling the sensory details of the moment, the physical reaction you were experiencing at the time and your fleeting thoughts) and presenting them through characters will make the character memorable. I use so many memories in my stories as well as actual family history, bent to fit with the action. Good girl, P.L. I bet it shows in your writing too! Do you have a specific example you’d like to share? HI, Autumn! Great post with an excellent example. Drawing from memories is really how we write and create. Exposure is the fuel behind innovation, especially in worldbuilding. Even if it’s just recalling how we feel watching scenes in a movie. But enough of that clinical stuff!!! Learning to get those memories on the page is another game in itself. So, that’s how I think I use my memories whether it’s an educated rationalization or not. Huge prize: a cache of Time Guardian treasure. To enter, join me at: Hi, Skhye. Happy to see you here. I never thought about feeling watching a movie. That is good. Thanks for sharing the idea.  Diana Layne says: I come from a family where emotions were frowned on, probably a reason I started writing (aside from being an only child/only grandchild and needing the company of characters). So I became really good at people watching. Eventually I realized there was a lot of emotions in the family, mostly anger, but hey, I can write killer fight scenes as a result. Mostly though, all the years of observation taught me to go beneath the surface, that what people show to the world often hide their true emotions so I try to tap into that when I’m writing. Loved your memory scene, tried to do that for my kids when they were little, create those special memories for them. I love to watch people too. I love the subtle emotional cues. Sometimes prople don’t have to tell you they are nervous, frightened, or angry. They don’t have to go to blows. Diana, it’s wonderful that you’ve taken what some would consider to be a stifling childhood and turned it into a valuable skill. Some people get therapy — other people write. (I’ve tried both. Writing’s cheaper and more effective!) Diana Layne says: Stifling? I suppose that’s one way to think of it, lol. (actually my extended family makes dysfunctional look normal). Yep, writing is definitely cheaper than therapy. Thanks, Diana. Kudos to you for taking a bad experience and making good come from it.  Shea Berkley says: I can’t imagine writing without tapping into the emotions that we all have buried deep in us. With writing, I don’t think those memories have to match exactly. Such as, even though I’ve never had anyone close to me murdered, I can dredge up memories of traumatic times that would certainly add to any scene I may write where a woman finds out someone close to her has been murdered. Your scene was beautiful. That’s for letting me peek inside your Christmas past and see “Santa” delivering gifts. Ah, Shea you’re welcome. I’m glad you liked it. And you’re exactly right. Digging deep into a memory, using the visceral responses can be used in so many scenrios. I can remember my heart breaking when an arson fire took my horse. Recalling those feelings now make me sick. Could they be used in the scene such as you described. I think so. Autumn, what a fulfilling scene. I use many of my old memories in my writing. I’m actually being reminded to add more emotion. Your post is a reminder for me to do just that. Although, sometimes I’m resistant which technically is a personality issue, not an emotion. Anyway, I appreciate your divinely time Blog post! Have a Happy Holiday, an opportunity to create new memories to write into a scene. Vicki, I’m so glad you got something from my post. Knowing I helped someone in a small way, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Thank you so much for the holiday greetings. I wish you and your family happy tidings too! Great post Autumn. All my books use recalled memories or stories told to me by family members based on their own experience. I think that’s when you’re able to resurect the real emotion and make your reader share it. Thanks, Mona. You’re stories are great. How do research other family members thoughts and feelings? Have they left journals behind?  rita says: Do you add emotion through memories? You betcha. My woman’s fiction is loaded with them. Rita, Do you have an example you’d like to sahre with us? Rita Henuber says: August 1958 “Relax.” I used to be able to fly. Not in a plane, though I could do that, too, but on my own power. No wings. No jetpack. Just me and the wind soaring over the long, dry grass of a California summer. At least, that’s what I thought when I was a little kid. I’d zip around my backyard and into the fields beyond under the bright sun. I was like a bird, only better, because no one could see me. I could float on the wind like a seagull, and dive like a falcon. I moved away from that home — from California, from my birthplace — and I never flew again. The memories of flight faded. It was only because I learned, through experience, that humans didn’t fly that I remembered how I once did. The remembrance came in a rush, and I endured several days of quiet panic — surely I had flown! My memories couldn’t be so faulty. I was special, the only human who could fly — but then the dullness of life convinced me that I was wrong. Those soaring memories were just dreams. I couldn’t fly. I never had flown. I was shocked that I’d never realized it before. But the memory of flight has stayed with me. I swear I’ll write a story one day about a girl who could fly, and it won’t be a fantasy. Thanks, Autumn, for making me recall this!  Elisa Beatty says: What a lovely description…. I remember dreaming I could fly when I was little–taking off from the roof of the porch just outside my bedroom window. I’d wake up deeply convinced I could really do it. And the sense memory of it is absolutely convincing. How sad to lose that “power”! Diana Layne says: we still have that power, we can still fly! We’re writers after all… LOL, Jamie, we had the same dream. I manage taking run starts and hopping across roof tops and the tips of pine trees. Good gosh, that memory came back to me like a warm wave. Have you ever gone into second life? There you can fly when ever you want. It’s so cool. Elisa Beatty says: Oooh… say more about “second life.” I was invited there by Brenda Novak for her Christmas party last year. I had a ball becoming an avaitar and dressing mmyslef. So cool. I had blast at the party meeting others, iceskating (without falling on my rump) and flying above watching all the other avaitars. After Brenda’s party I continued to met another author in a coffe shop. It was like being there while sitting in your own room. Then my old computer had major problems and I bought. I really need to get back there. It was so much fun. Have you ever been there? Diana Layne says: oh, man, a place like that would be dangerous for me. I don’t need anything else to tempt me to become addicted to it. ha. It is. MY DH watched me though. I had male or what seemed to be male avaitars approach my avaitar. Even in a fanasty world he was jealous. LOl. Hi Autumn. Your writing is beautiful. Thanks for sharing that scene..it made me want to go back in time myself to when I believed in Santa. I don’t write much from memories, except in my journal. However, the emotions I tackle in my fiction require some mining of memory and that can be scary, since my memory seems to be growing faultier with every passing day. LOL. Ah, Misty you humble me. Thank you for the compliment. And LOL on the faulty memory. I too know the feeling at times. Have you ever smelled something and the memories rush back at you? I have a old avon bottle. When I open it, I see my grandmother. Elisa Beatty says: Thanks for the post, Autumn! They say “write what you know”…. so you have to draw from your engagement with real life. It’s funny, though–since I write historicals, very little of my actual experience of life is directly usable in my stories. Almost everything about the physical environment (the rooms, the clothes, the transport), the behavior and rules of conduct, even the mode of speech, has to come more out of other books than out of direct experience. And yet, the understanding of human motivation, personality, and emotion I have from real life still applies. People are people, even if their surfaces change. You got, Elisa. Our enviroment might be different but the human emotions haven’t change. Love is the greatest power followed by what? Does anyone know? Hi, A.J. You really do write the most thought-provoking posts! I’d never really given much thought to this but suspect that now that I have, it will add a whole new dimension to my writing. I love the way the learning never ends in this profession… Hope your Christmas this year is as bright as the one you’ve recalled for us! Hi Autumn, Beautiful example of a memory. Yes, I’ve used memories in writing. It’s a good way to evoke emotion in the character and reader. Thank you for a wonderful post. Hey, Lynne. Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting. Love your blog contest too. Great picture. He could make a lot of memories. Hi, Linda. Do you really think so? That makes me feel great, knowing I can come up with a topic of interest. My sisters here are so talented and have posted wonderful posts I wonder about myself sometimes. I’m glad you found my blog helpful. (((HUGS))) AJ  Addison Fox says: Autumn: What a great scene and a great post. I think memories are really a huge part of the writers toolkit. Obviously the story we’re writing is unique to our characters, but the emotions we invest them with are coming from inside of us. Drawing on memories is a huge way to do that! Addison Beautiful scene and I did feel it! I wrote an entire book drawing on the loss of both parents in less than a year to write about the hero and heroine’s losses, Writing that story had me in tears a lot. One book I started wrung me out so much I couldn’t finish it. maybe one day I’ll go back to it. I’m so sorry, Mary. I bet the story you wrote was beautiful and your parents are proud of you for writing it. Thanks for sharing with me. (((HUGS)))  Patrice Wilton says: Autumn, Hi, Patrice. See, you knew what to do to really pack the story with emotion. Good for you. I love that title BTW! I probably add more then I should!  Gwynlyn MacKenzie says: Sensory memory is so important to good writing. Almost everyone has felt the satiny edge of a blanket or experienced the smooth shift of a similar cloth. Thus, you take the reader with you into the comfort of that childhood memory and into your story. Nicely done, Autumn. Merry Christmas! That is an excellent point, Gwyn. Using universal sensory details is important. Like a cup of coffee in the morning. Yum. Or the smell of a fish market. LOL. Great advice! Hi Autumn, Merry Chrstimas Exactly, Margaret. It’s the little details we add that makes our writing stronger. Merru Christmas to you and your family too. I use emotion through memories when I write. Like Diana Layne who commented here I grew up in a home where emotions just weren’t talked about-weren’t handled. Not even the day I almost disappeared. I can close my eyes and inhale the wood smoke as I walked to school one drizzling November morning. I remember shivering in my thin little sweater, my six year old legs bared to the bite of the chill under my too short dress. I hear the slide of tires on the wet road as a car stopped in the middle of the road. The creak of the driver’s side door as the driver jumped out. I see his head swivel back and forth as he checked the road. His smile was overly bright and didn’t meet his eyes as he eagerly asked if my sister and I wanted a ride to school. I recall the innocence I still had then as I said yes and stepped forward. Then bruising pain gripped my forearm as my older sister yanked me back to her side and in her prim seven year old voice told the stranger ‘No thank you!’ His movements jerky and agitated, he took a step closer and my sister got louder, “I said no thank you!” In the distance behind us, another car approached. The stranger jumped back into his car and drove away, red taillights winking in the mist. Now I know that my sister along with that second car prevented my face and story from ending up a missing person. I see that scene when the leaves release their hold on the trees. I hear that scene when a tires slide to a stop on a rain slicked road. Oh my, Sonya. That is scary. Thank goodness you didn’t get into that car. I’m sure you can use those feelings in either the YA or Rs you’re working on. Thanks you for sharing. Great example. (((HUGS))) Beautiful post, Autumn. Yes, I felt I was right there with Emma. I too put little snippets of my memories into what I write. Good girl, Carolyn. I know you’re writing short stories. Do you think you can get that in-depth in your characters writing short? This scene came from my memories and more. Sarita stood beside an open grave. The sun had no business shining in the cloudless sky or reflecting off the church steeple. Workers waited to finish covering the pine casket made with love by her father, her brothers, and her beloved husband. She had sewn the liner and allowed her aunts and cousins to add small embroidered goodbye tokens. I’m grabbing a tissue here, Mary. Just wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing this. A great lesson for those reading this blog. (((HUGS)) Autumn, the scene combined old country church funerals and memories of some of my family members’ funerals and my own mama’s funeral service. Of course this was my heroine’s memory from her previous life. Some CPs thought i had too much detail but i wanted to evoke emotion. Made me cry as I typed it and every time I read it. Lovely post, Autumn. I always like to use actual events and memories–makes it much easier to write. Murders can become a bit difficult though lol. In reference to murders, lol, check out Shea’s post to me and my response. I’m glad you liked the blog, Bev. Wink. Wonderful post Autumn and it did bring back the magic of listening for Santa on Christmas Eve. Thanks for bringing back the memories. Oh, wow, AJ! What a beautiful, heartfelt story! I often draw on memories for inspiration or even feelings associated with a past event. High school for me was a series of embarrassments and it’s great to be able to use them in my YAs. It’s not always fun to look back, but I take comfort in rewriting history! Great tip Autumn! When you don’t write stories in the here and now, it’s very useful as you say to take parts of your memories. I’ll take things like how cool it was when someone said or did something, or what sort of things I noticed in certain situations. Then I have to transpose it to make it fit.  Darynda Jones says: Beautifully, written, Autumn!!!
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MERRIEST OF HOLIDAYS TO ALL! ~The anthropologist
Excellent Autumn! Loved your post. I too often write from memories or inherited memories. Sometimes I must reach deep inside to find and recover those old feelings, scents, tastes…sights. We had reindeer on the roof and sleighbells in the meadow at the old family homeplace where I spent wonderful Christmases. I now realize it was my uncle, but I well recall the near unbearable excitement.
~Beth
http://www.bethtrissel.com
Ah, I’m grinning, Beth. Thanks. Sounds like wonderful memories. I know using the cherish emotions shows in your writing.
Congrats on the release of your analogy. An American Christmas. Wonderful read!
(((HUGS))
AJ