🥑 in your feelings

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Do you care how your readers feel?

Of course you do! Because your story is designed to manipulate their emotions.

All stories do this. Great stories do it on purpose.

Emotions aren’t static. They’re finicky and unbalanced, which gives us plenty of leeway to push ‘em around.

Take any scene in your WIP and compare the opening and closing paragraphs. Then ask yourself: how should the reader’s emotions change between those moments?

(Here’s a big wheel of emotions to help you out.)

Use your opening lines to set up the change.

If you want your reader to be surprised, start the scene with something unsurprising (more on that when we get to misdirection).

If you want your reader to be angry, start from complacency (or better yet, something in the happy spectrum).

If you want your reader to be thrilled, don’t start maxed out at 11. Start at 1 or 2 (if the actions starts during the scene) or something in the 6-8 range (if the scene starts during the action).

And so on.

Like almost everything I write about, this isn’t a rule—it’s a tool. Some scenes will use this particular tool. Many will not. Practice, adapt, and improve.

So what about your POV character’s emotions? We’ll tackle that next time.

Want feedback on your own scene starters? Reply to this email with an opening line from one of your scenes and I may use it in a future Bite.

Thanks for reading Avocado Bites!

^{Avocado Bites is a publication of Avocado Tree Press, LLC, that helps you revise your stories one bite at a time. We love working with indie and traditionally published authors on fiction manuscripts—and if that’s you, welcome to our target audience.}

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^{Addison Horner is the chief editor of Avocado Tree Press. Here’s his newsletter. It’s different but still pretty good.}