I Want You to Make Me Feel Again

That's the phrase that keeps ringing in my head for this book. It's an old writing mantra writers use to remind themselves to make a book so moving, so inspirational and tragic and stunningly beautiful, that a reader can't help but be affected.

A Scene Like This Moves Viewers

Writing a realistic fiction is so different from fantasy. In fantasy book, your enemy is clear, especially in my novels. You know that the guy that's committing war crimes and tearing through the nation is your enemy. You know there's something that has to be done to stop him. There's a slow and steady plot as the enemy's plan is revealed and your characters must fight to prevent it from succeeding.

That is so not true with realistic fiction. Your enemy isn't ripping through the nation. He isn't plotting and planning your downfall - at least not proactively. In this story, you have a person with a damaged background suffering PTSD and struggling to survive while he fights to keep a dog shelter from going under. But there's no black and white in this novel. There's no true and clear antagonist or even protagonist. The characters are a host of flawed people with positives and substantial negatives.

The only way I'm charging through this is by reminding myself that I have to make the reader care for each of these characters in a way that will move them when the ending comes. I have to make the reader love them when they do something wise, hate them when they turn their backs on good, and sympathize with them when they stumble.

The healing a character has to go through in a realistic fiction novel is incredibly different from anything I've worked on before. But I'm learning the tricks. Ethan, my MC, must have flaws that keep him from succeeding. The enemy in this novel is not clearly an outside force. It's an inside force that the character must defeat.

At one point in the novel, Ethan speaks of his childhood and has this to say; "When I think about it, I shouldn't be so upset. It's not like getting hit as a kid destroys the world. I need to move on. But when I think about it, for that kid that I used to be, the day I was first hit was the day my world was destroyed."

That is the point of the 'feel' mantra. The writer must make the reader feel as if the story they are reading is the entire world. They have to pray for their heroes. They have to bite their nails and sit on the edge of the seat when they are caught in troublesome places. They have to quietly weep when they are hurt and betrayed. Because when that book ends that world has come to an end and the reader must feel wholly devoted and confident in the ending provided.