Kiminitodokestuff - C's Blog

How to Give Your Story “Heart”

Here’s where things get fluffy. This is the moment you unleash your feelings, tap into your inner light, and weep onto the page, using your sparkling tears as ink. Ready?

Edna would never allow us to do that. And that’s good, because contrary to conventional wisdom, that’s not how you give your story heart. We’re going to do it the real way.

So if it isn’t raw emotion, what is “heart”?

1) It’s what your character NEEDS (not wants).

2) It’s the HIDDEN STORYLINE.

3) It’s what you want to TEACH.

Those sound intimidating, I know. But if you don’t treat it like a mystical magic, it’s very doable.

So, what do those mean?

1) NEED =

Your character has flaws that are ruining their life and future, right? Flaws in their heads that only hurt themselves, flaws in their characters that hurt other people. Something is missing within them, something they don’t understand, something they need to learn. Once they realize their flaws, and learn the thing that will overcome those flaws, their lives will be saved.

Take Mr Fredrickson from Up. He’s so grumpy and stubbornly stuck in the past, he’s willing to leave a small child clinging to the porch of his flying house, rather than let him into his life.

He needs to learn that in order to live a fulfilling life again, he must let go of the past, and go have another adventure. Which Ellie helps him learn.

Great. Now I’m crying.

2) HIDDEN STORYLINE =

It’s what the story is really about. The journey going on below the action-y surface. It’s your character’s inner change from one kind of person to a (hopefully) better kind. The reader believes the story is about the tangible goal, and the actions taken to reach it — the surface. Yet inwardly, they’re processing the hero’s inner journey too. It’s sneakily hidden from them.

On the surface, Hamilton is about a revolution and the founding of a nation.

Underneath all that, it’s about a guy learning what a worthwhile legacy really is, and how to build one.

3) TEACHING =

Storytelling is the most powerful teaching method ever devised. Scientifically speaking, teaching is the purpose of stories, whether we like it or not. This fact usually makes people react like Gollum when approached by nasty hobbitses.

“Moralizing, precious? We hates it!”

Which is a reflex aversion that I understand, and have shared in the past. Books and movies that teach something positive are scorned and mocked in the world of “high literature” too. But when I thought about what stories have done for me, and why they were capable of it, my opinion changed. 

Tangled saved my life. If I had never seen that movie, I would still be in a horrible cult-like situation which I’d been trapped in for twelve years.

Narnia helped me escape depression.

The Harry Potter books were my home and my friends when I didn’t have either.

And those are all stories with strong hearts.

Why wouldn’t I want to create stories that could possibly help someone, like I was helped? Why would I let “avoid teaching at all costs” become my ultimate goal? (When really, that’s another way of saying “be pretentious and egotistical”?)

Nope. I’m choosing to write things that people will call schmaltzy and childish – but maybe life saving for another kid.

(I said I wasn’t going to get emotional. Sorry Edna.)

So, how do you figure out the heart of your story?

Answer these questions: — What does your character need to learn, to stop ruining their own life? — What do YOU want to say?

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