Emotion in Writing

There are a few books that are perfect. Perfect. They have complex characters and uncontrived, clever plots, just the right pacing, and maybe most importantly, pitch-perfect prose. As I write book reviews, which forces me to give concrete reasons for liking or disliking a book, I’m starting to realize that there’s something else that’s needed for a book to make it onto my (short) Perfect list. It’s an extra something something tied up in the characters and the plot and the prose that makes me care. Something that gets me invested in the author’s world, that makes me hold onto that book instead of putting it down in favor of another.
I don’t know how to label that ingredient. I do know that I’ve read two books recently that had stellar plots and pitch-perfect prose that didn’t have it, or at least were missing it in parts. I think it’s an emotional resonance somehow bound into the prose, and I’d love to discuss that, which is why I’m making this post.

 

( Slight spoiler alert )

Lloyd Alexander

"Every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone." (The High King)

George Bernard Shaw

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

John Steinbeck

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is. (East of Eden)