WRITING CRAFT: HOW TO STOP WRITING ON-THE-NOSE
Practicing emotinal indirection
Your story or scene makes sense. It conveys all the information that it needs to. But it feels a bit flat. Or too melodramatic. The reason for either of those can be that it’s written too on-the-nose.
Meaning, it spells out exactly what a character feels, thinks, or means. There’s no room for subtext. It tells the reader what to feel, instead of letting them feel it. And in doing so, it flattens the emotional truth that could be suggested, implied, or shown instead.
It can feel forced, melodramatic, or unbelievable.
It robs the reader of the pleasure of discovery.
It closes down emotional ambiguity (which is often more truthful to real life).
WHAT THIS LESSON COVERS
Emotion by indirection. We focus on conveying emotional truth implicitly rather than explicitly. We’ll cover four professional techniques for writing emotion indirectly:
Deflection
Displacement
Physical detail over label
Subtext via dialogue & gesture
Each technique will be explained, along with its definition, how it’s taught in creative writing, why it’s effective, an example from literature or media, and a quick exercise to practice it.