The ONE Writing Trick That Will Instantly Make Your Story More Emotional

You took it? No I didn't, yes you did, no I didn't and then Wham, they collide, they collide and suddenly everything is like intense hiding, crushing, slapping, this scene just didn't have as much

emotional

impact as it could have. Because the writer did not focus on the

emotional

dynamics of the roller coaster up and down scene, why do some scenes in movies leave us breathless with anticipation wondering what is going to happen next and other scenes simply fall flat? ? be as simple as two characters having a conversation with nothing else and depending on the way it is written and expressed, it can leave us on the edge of our seat with anticipation or bore us to sleep, but what if I told you that there is an exact scientific formula To

make

your

viewer or reader care deeply about

your

characters, emotionally involving them in what is happening, what if I told you that there is a simple

trick

that, if you know how to take advantage of it, you can

make

your

writing

easier by instant?

It's dynamic,

more

emotional and turns a mediocre scene into something spectacular and for those who know me, no, it's not an internal conflict, what is it? This technique is actually something I've never talked about before, something I've never heard anyone talk about before, but me. I guarantee you've seen it thousands of times in your favorite books and movies, you just didn't know the words to describe what this is. I'm not kidding when I say this

trick

has literally saved my life as a writer, it's helped me. to see the

story

in a completely new way and every great writer uses this, so today in this video I

will

also show you how to use this technique and to do this we are going to split two scenes from the same

story

. one next to the other that takes advantage of this technique and one that does not take advantage of this technique and I

will

show you what this difference looks like little women versus Little Women.

The Ultimate Showdown will look at the same scene from two different versions and demystify the reason why one is emotionally superior and the other fails before we get into this Showdown story case study. I want to ask you very quickly to take a second to hit the Subscribe button below this video, not only does it help bring quality content like this to the surface. in your feed, but it also helps my videos rise to the top, which will help other writers like you make their author dreams come true, so hit that Subscribe button and let's get into it.

Okay, I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I'm just going to tell you what this simple trick is that will make your

writing

instantly

more

emotional. I like to call it emotional. Dynamic change in orchestral composition there is a term called dynamic change which is a tool that composers use to add depth. and complexity of his music dynamic change refers to the variation in volume and intensity between notes or movements that allows a composer to convey a wide range of emotions and reach climactic moments. This change in volume can make a piece more expressive and impactful. you feel a wide range of different emotions throughout a piece of music it's one of those things that you don't even notice with well-composed music you're not supposed to notice it it's supposed to blend into the background it becomes emotional it's an expressive journey to listen to this music because you don't even realize how the composer has woven this tapestry of different notes, tempos and expressions and the whole dynamics of the music has created an atmosphere and you feel immersed in the mood and atmosphere of This music, when the music does not have many dynamic changes, you notice it, you notice it in a bad way because it arrives, it becomes somewhat monotonous to listen to, sometimes even abrasive, we need that roller coaster of emotions, we need the EB. and flow of mood, volume and intensity to feel something, otherwise it becomes predictable.

This is true for music and it is true for writing. There is a very similar dynamic at play with writing and that is why I call it emotional dynamics and no, not this. It doesn't just have to do with characters delivering lines of dialogue all at the same tone or volume, you obviously don't want that if everyone talks to each other at the same volume and emotional tone it will become quite monotonous and boring. and just don't feel realistic, don't let the sun go down on your anger, forgive her and start again tomorrow, but the emotional dynamic change goes beyond the delivery of the dialogue, it's about the storytelling itself, the interaction of what the character wants and what he wants.

I'm afraid to show you what this looks like in action. We have a case study of our two stories today Little Women and Little Women, one was made by BBC Masterpiece in 2017 and the other by Greta Gerwig in 2019. If you know me, you know which one. I prefer one, but we're not even going to get into that. I'm not even going to tell you right away because I want us to be totally unbiased as we watch these two clips of the same scene from two different places. adaptations and compare and contrast them and look for emotional dynamic changes.

How much do we feel what the characters feel and to what extent are we on a roller coaster with them? We will only see one scene from each of these. The adaptations are fine, the scene where Amy Burns, Joe's book, Every Writer's Worst Nightmare, Amy commits the fatal act because she's upset that Joe wouldn't let her go to the theater with her, so while Joe goes out That night, Amy takes revenge by stealing her sister's half. written novel and by throwing it into the fire you can understand why Joe wants to murder his sister when he realizes what he did right, so let's go back to the beginning and compare these two scenes side by side and look for the emotional dynamic shift we're in.

We'll be tracking that throughout this entire study here and we'll use a very official scoring system with emojis to keep track so we can see in real time which scene best takes advantage of this technique of taking us on an emotional rollercoaster. which scene makes us feel the widest range of emotions so let's jump on the computer and watch them so our scene starts here with Joe hiding her book because she already knows she has to keep it safe right Jo where are? I didn't find my other glove. General March's sister, Mayhem, was invited there, you're going somewhere with Lori.

I know, yeah, now we'll stop bothering each other, okay, so right away we have Joe, who's like he immediately shuts down Amy, like he'll stop bothering us, yeah, we. you're going to the theater, you're not coming, like that's something unspoken here, before it's even talked about, so we have Joe's already defensive and Amy's already starting to complain, you've got the ticket, yeah, hurry up , you go. to the theater with Lori, please, can I go? Please, can I? I'm sorry, honey, but you didn't go, you can't go, Amy, so don't be a baby and complain. Joe's on the defensive, you can't come, so. don't be a baby about it Amy is already complaining that she's already being a baby about it and she's begging Meg to take her, but she doesn't really seem to have that much expectation of that actually happening.

I've been locked up here and I can never go anywhere Beth it's her piano and I'm so lonely I can teach you ropes I don't want ropes Beth I want to go to the theater I think you'd hate to go where you're not wanted, okay, so again abrasiveness, right , we have Amy who says, "I don't want to, I want to go to the theater," and then we have Joe, who says no, again, so this is like the third push of her, you can't. Come on, we already have to deal with boring Mr. Brooke. I like him, he's nice, but I can pay for it myself.

You will not come. Sorry, my sweet Joe is right, no, next time he stops petting her, please, no, you'll be sorry, Joe. Mar, you'll be fine, so this is like the crescendo moment of the scene, but as we've been building, Amy's mood hasn't really changed since the beginning of the scene, she was whiny and upset at the beginning, she's still complaining and mad now she gets so mad she throws something I don't know, a shoe, something at Joe when he leaves and they both turn around and Meg goes all Amy with this little surprise laugh, she doesn't see that Amy isn't hurt for nobody.

Look, she sees that Amy is hurt and is Amy really hurt or is she just complaining? I don't know, okay, so we have Joe and we go to the play, they have a good time while Amy investigates for revenge and Joe's book. and she finally finds him and psychotically wins him over one page at a time, so evil, okay, now we have the comeback moment, we have Amy, who is sitting there being passive aggressive and brooding and silent. M, you are a million times better than her, although she was. it's fantastic so J goes to look for the book he can't find it oh no something happened Beth what's your favorite what happened purple Mr.

Brooke has blue eyes and an old soul, which is a lot Bor well, so now Joe comes in the room, she already knows something is going on, she's suspicious of Amy, she's thinking that only one person in this room could have taken this book, but I mean, look at her face, I can't tell if she's angry or if she's afraid of Let the money take her. Has someone taken my novel? Has someone taken my novel? novel, okay, little passive-aggression, aggression there and of course we have Amy being passive-aggressive and waving the pages of her book bitterly Amy, you got it right, no, no, that's a lie, no, I don't Yes, I don't have it.

I don't know where she is and I'm not sorry for being teased all the time, so it went from being passive aggressive and pretty calm, pretty calm, to Joe flying around with his claws attacking her screaming and Amy screaming back, burn, sh upy, I got burned. your book i told you i would make you pay, yeah ok that escalated real quick, not a huge build up honestly not much excitement. The dynamic change happened that we just had, you took it, no I didn't, yes you did, no. No, that's a lie and then Wham, they collide, they collide and suddenly everything is like an intense fight, smashing, slapping.

When I first saw this, I was honestly surprised by how sudden it is because I felt like there needed to be more emotional buildup. It's more of a rollercoaster here, more intimacy to feel not only what Joe was feeling but also what Amy was feeling in this scene, so in conclusion, I feel like this scene just didn't have as much emotional impact as it could have . because the writer didn't focus on the emotional dynamics of the scene that goes up and down on a roller coaster and many writers fail to do this and one of the reasons is because they don't take advantage of another really important tool that goes hand in hand. inand with d damc change and that is expectation versus reality we go through life constantly experiencing this conflict of expectation versus reality we all have different motives objectives fears and erroneous beliefs that drive us every day we live our lives with certain expectations and when we don't we get what we expect, we are often forced to face obstacles that we have to overcome or end up being victims, which creates conflict and this can be as simple as the expectation that I am going to get in my car and drive to the supermarket. and buy waffles reality, I break down on the side of the road now it sucks to break down on the side of the road no matter what you were going to do, but what if we made the expectation a little more meaningful than going to buy waffles?

What if I was on my way to a job interview that I had worked months, maybe years, of my life to prepare and secure and this was the most incredible opportunity of all time and you knew how much I cared and how much I cared? deeply that I cared? about getting this job now when I break down on the side of the road it's suddenly a lot more meaningful it matters more why because you can see why it's more important to me suddenly you, the viewer, care a lot more about my character than if I just I was going to get waffles and this is a little inconvenient because now I'm not going to eat waffles.

If you want your characters to feel like real people, they also have to face this constant encounter with expectations versus reality and that's it. Your job as a writer is to set up this conflict to intimately show us this conflict, which is one of the ways that, in my opinion, Greta's Little Women fails to make an emotional impact in this scene because Amy complains and moans before Joe even close your order. By going to the theater we can see that Amy doesn't really expect Joe to take her seriously and no one expects to change her plans to include Amy because we don't see this expectation versus reality at play, we don't really feel Amy's involvement.

A crushing disappointment when Joe denies her, which makes it harder for us to sympathize with his reasons for being resentful and burning the book and it's harder to even feel sympathy for Amy in this scene because it's so awful and out of character, right? can? feel sympathy for a character who does something like this I think it's possible Maybe not sympathy but empathy at least empathy like we should at least be able to see where this is coming from we should be able to feel their pain that being said, let's look at another version of Little Women, the version of the BBC and compare and contrast the scene we just saw, we are going to track the emotional progress and the emotional dynamic change and we are going to see howThese two scenes are compared to each other, okay?

So we have a very similar setup here with the sisters getting ready to go to the theater and Amy ambushes them. Are you going out. I can smell Oda cologne right on the landing and Hannah has been polishing her opera glasses. Yes, she did it because we. you go to the theater to see the seven Princesses of Diamond Lake, yes, Lori invited us both to go with him and Mr. Brooke, so I'll go too, so right away we have an emotional dynamic in that play, we have Amy come in and says: What is happening? Joe tells him that you can tell. she's not going to invite Amy, she's not going to be welcome, but Amy immediately has this reaction that I'm going too and she has this giddy face expression, like she really thinks there's hope for her to be invited and she's excited about it.

No, you're not because you haven't been asked. Oh Joe, couldn't we buy him a ticket? It was my turn to have the rag money this month and I haven't spent it yet, thank you, okay? From afar you can see all the emotional dynamics at play. Jo was like, no, no, no, no, no, that's not happening, this can't happen, and meanwhile Meg is saying, oh, can't we buy her ticket? ? Can't we let her come? trying to be forgiving, she is the sweetest person in the whole family and of course Amy is very excited because she thinks again there is hope, there is hope that she can go, so she is excited and I get her a ticket.

She can't sit alone and neither you nor I can. sit alone, that means Lori or Mr. Brooke would have to do it. You're supposed to be the one with feminine manners. Meg, okay, now we see Amy's soul crushing disappointment. The look on her face is like she already hates you. We've already seen the Here there are ups and downs, Joe won't budge, but she's almost taking it from this logical point of view, like she can't sit up on her own, this isn't going to work, none of this is practical and you know, call Meg like you're supposed to do it. be the one with ladylike manners, which only adds insult to injury here and we can see on her face that she says: I want to do something, but I can't do anything.

I hate you, Josephine March, you alone will pay for this. wait for the subtlety of Amy's reaction, it's not this big reaction where she screams and throws things, you can see the pain in her face, but she's more subdued, it's okay, meanwhile, Joe is at the theater having a good time and Amy is going to sneak away. in Garrett, she takes the book and burns it, including this whole scene. I like how it's interspersed. They spend a little more time going back and forth and showing you the dynamics that are playing. Here we have Joe and Meg having a good time at the theater. and her laughter and joy contrast with Amy's misery and her revenge here as she burns the book it's so painful to watch it's so painful just the making of the movie alone in this version is so good so good okay now we have the scene in the that return.

Girls, did you enjoy the play if you're lucky after dinner? Megan and I will repeat the entire swan ballet. Joe bought this for them in the lobby. Chocolate. Let's go to the candy again. Expectation versus reality. Before we had the expectation. Amy had the expectation. She was going to go with them to the play and that was closed, the reality is that she was not allowed, her feelings were hurt so now we have this expectation of Joe, so Joe comes home, she is in a good mood now that she is. Sorry for what he said and how she acted earlier, she even brought Amy a gift to apologize because I was a sucker and I'm sorry, thank you, so the expectation of her here that we can see is that I'm going to say I'm sorry.

I'm going to give Amy this gift, we're going to take Amy to the same play next week and everything will be fine, but obviously that's not what's going to happen, why not, I'm Rapp, Amy, it's kind of gift that knows. so much better when shared I imagine all the deliciousness tastes better when shared I'm taking you to the play next week Amy so even the subtlety of the emotions here I love the way she is you know passive aggressively like I imagine all the deliciousness They know better when Shared pointed to Joe Joe rolls her eyes and Amy seems to look at her like there's still this anger boiling beneath the surface I'll take you to the play next week Amy we'll take you next week Look, everything's better, ladies, has been messing with my cook and stove, I leave the house for 1 hour looking for extra onions and come back to my kitchen to find the stove cold, smoky and choked with a bunch of scribbled papers and that's the moment Joe realizes count and now Amy has a smug, satisfied little look on her face as she approaches Joe like okay, here it is, here's the confrontation, yeah, I burned your book, this is mine, this is my writing, in a nutshell , what happened to the rest of you, that's all.

He turned to a certain black ash silently freaking out Amy is still a little smug and bitter Amy, did you burn my book? Joe is still in this state of disbelief where she says if this is really happening, but she gets angry, obviously the bomb is going. to explode I said I would make you pay for being so hateful and ha, you mean, evil girl, I will never ride again and I will never forgive you as long as I live. J stop, why should I? It's too late to stop her. We have a similar result here, but much more of a crescendo to this moment where Joe flies up to Amy, grabs her hair and tells her that she will never ride again, but you feel much more the intensity of the emotion of these . two characters and all the build up leading up to this moment also even the supporting characters in this scene are so well done oh my god Emily Watson is just amazing as Marmy.

I can feel everything she feels. Amy, how could you see what she did? You see what she did, yeah, and don't look to me for comfort, I don't blame her, she's like God help me, God help me with these girls, so even though it ends in this high intensity moment where they're both screaming each other. Amy is kind of freaking out at the end because she almost can't believe what just happened, but she also knows that what she did was wrong deep down and changing the tone like this makes the high intensity moments really stand out because this intense emotion contrasts with the rest of the dialogue and everything that came before it is fine, so now that we have compared these two scenes, side by side, we can take the Emoji data that we collected and compare the results and as you can see, it is It's quite easy to see at a glance which scene had better emotional dynamic change in the BBC version, we have a much wider range of emotions at play, which stimulates the viewer's brain more because we have more curiosity in the brain.

Studies have shown that curiosity triggers pleasure. and the reward centers in our brain are similar to the effect of using an addictive drug, meaning that curiosity literally makes someone addicted to a story if harnessed properly and one of the ways this can be harnessed is to through unpredictable outcomes that are the result of expectations versus emotional reality. Dynamic change, see how it all relates if you are a writer, you want to take your reader or viewer on an emotional roller coaster like this, you want them to feel many things, happiness, pain, anger, triumph, love, suspense, determination, etc. much more The BBC version of Little Women does all this for me.

I've seen it at least a dozen times and each time it never fails to make me cry, laugh, and fall more in love with the simple beauty of everyday life. Let's say that the BBC's Little Women is impeccable, but for me it is far superior to Greta Gerwig's adaptation for the simple fact that the quality of the script makes me feel more for the characters by seeing a more intimate vision of their internal conflict and by take us to an emotional level. riding a rollercoaster and harnessing this incredibly powerful tool of emotional dynamic change to help us feel like we're going on a journey with these characters, all of that to say, go see the BBC version of Little Women, what are you waiting for?

Also have a box of tissues. available because it will make you cry and not just the sad parts, let's quickly recap everything we learned today. Emotional dynamic shifting is crucial to ensuring your story doesn't feel monotonous or overly dramatic. The contrast in emotional tones makes it high. Moments of intensity highlighting the principle of expectation versus reality helps create a compelling conflict and makes the audience care more deeply about the characters. Curiosity stimulated by unpredictable outcomes and emotional dynamic changes can literally addict readers or viewers to your story, so if you want to make your stories more engaging, the goal is to take your audience on an emotional roller coaster with unexpected twists, but that's just what I believe.

I want to know what you think now, so comment below this video and join the discussion. Tell me which version of these two versions of Little. Do you prefer women or another complete adaptation? There are dozens out there. I know there are so many adaptations of this story for good reason because it is an incredible Timeless classic. You can learn a lot by studying your favorite stories, so join the discussion below. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this success, hit the like button if you liked this video and be sure to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already because I post writing videos every Wednesday and I'd love to have you here. in the community also be sure to check out my patreon because that's where we go beyond videos and take storytelling to the next level.

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