Best of the Archives: The Seven Deadly Sins--They're all EMOTIONS

This post by Mary Connealy first appeared in Seekerville on 

October 1, 2014. Comments are closed today so we can catch up 

on our reading and writing!

This post is part 3 of a 3 part series on Emotion.

Part One-Putting Emotion on the Page

Part Two-The Medium is the Message


And now today, in part three I want to talk about the power of emotions and how God made us a list of the things that can either provide a motive for your bad guy in your books or it can challenge your good characters, because we all wrestle with sin.

It’s what keeps your romance from settling in easily.

It’s what haunts your characters in their backstory.

It’s what drives the plot.

We don’t have to go digging for these emotional hot spots. God has done the work for you.


All seven of these sins can be used in different degrees.

• 1. Lust

• 2. Gluttony

• 3. Greed

• 4. Sloth

• 5. Wrath

• 6. Envy

• 7. Pride

Lust is a sin but desiring your spouse or even desiring your beloved isn’t a sin. It’s what you do with it, it’s when it tips over from perfectly God-blessed desire to lust. Usually for someone you’re not in an honorable relationship with.

Do you remember the movie Wall Street when Michael Douglas says, “Greed is good.”

Well, that’s a little disturbing to us because greed is one of the seven deadly sins. But think of it another way. Not Greed is Good, but rather, it’s human nature to try and better yourself, provide for your family, earn enough to create a good life. That’s why capitalism works because it’s so basic, so normal to work for your own betterment.

 Don’t call that greed.

And envy, where is that line, where you see something and want it, or something sinful awakens in your heart because they have something you don’t.

You can see how each of these sins can be used in a powerful blatant way, or in a subtle way…driving your hero and heroine in a certain direction or keeping them apart.

I remember once, early on in my writing, telling one of my daughters I needed a crime.

I had the story and the characters and it was flowing along but I needed a bad guy and a crime. My daughter sat there and gave it some thought and said, “How about cattle rustling?”

For some reason that makes me laugh. It was a great idea and I used it. It might have been Montana Rose.

But note that my CRIME is an actual physical act. Stealing, like in the Ten Commandments. What we're talking about with the seven deadly sins ... did you notice that they are all EMOTIONS? They are all INTERNAL. 


After all, Murder didn't make the list. Lying. Stealing. Even sexual sin isn't there. It's the emotional life that is all listed...separate from what you do about it. My rustlers no doubt suffered from greed, probably sloth, envy, maybe pride in some twisted version. But those are all internal. That they followed up with stealing is separate from their sinful internal life.

Sometimes we need a crime, a motivation, a barrier to love. So use this list. Use the seven deadly sins and slap one on your hero and heroine in a mild way, or onto your villains in a powerful version.


Tell me about the conflict in your book and whether it fits into the Seven Deadly Sins.

Mary Connealy writes suspenseful romantic comedy with cowboys. She is a two-time Carol Award winner and a Rita, Christy and Inspirational Reader's Choice finalist. She is the bestselling, award-winning author of 50 plus books and novellas.

Find Mary online at:

maryconnealy.com 

And 

DRUMROLL!!!

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When an explosion kills men and damages the CR Mining Company, the Bodens realize their troubles are not behind them as they thought. Shadowy forces are still working against them.

Cole Boden finds himself caught between missing his time back East and all that New Mexico offers. Sure he fights with his siblings now and then, but he does care for them. He enjoys running the mine and, when he's honest, he admits that Melanie Blake captures his interest in a way no other woman ever has.

Melanie has been a friend to the Bodens forever. A cowgirl who is more comfortable with horses and lassoes than people, she never expected to find herself falling for someone. Particularly for refined Cole Boden, a Harvard graduate who may not stay long at the ranch. She's determined, however, to help the Bodens finally put an end to the danger that's threatened all of them. But will putting herself in harm's way be more dangerous than anyone expected?

The Seven Deadly Sins--They are all EMOTIONS

The Seven Deadly Sins

Part Three of my series on Emotion

Part one-Putting Emotion on the Page

Part two-The Medium is the Message

And now today, in part three I want to talk about the power of emotions and how God made us a list of the things that can either provide a motive for your bad guy in your books or it can challenge your good characters, because we all wrestle with sin.

It’s what keeps your romance from settling in easily.

It’s what haunts your characters in their backstory.

It’s what drives the plot.

We don’t have to go digging for these emotional hot spots. God has done the work for you.

What I want to comment on is that all seven of these sins, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride can be used in different degrees.

Lust is a sin but desiring your spouse or even desiring your beloved isn’t a sin. It’s what you do with it, it’s when it tips over from perfectly God-blessed desire to lust. Usually for someone you’re not in an honorable relationship with.

Do you remember the movie Wall Street when Michael Douglas says, “Greed is good.”

Well, that’s a little disturbing to us because greed is one of the seven deadly sins. But think of it another way. Not Greed is Good, but rather, it’s human nature to try and better yourself, provide for your family, earn enough to create a good life. That’s why capitalism works because it’s so basic, so normal to work for your own betterment.

CLICK TO BUY

Don’t call that greed.

And envy, where is that line, where you see something and want it, or something sinful awakens in your heart because they have something you don’t.

You can see how each of these sins can be used in a powerful blatant way, or in a subtle way…driving your hero and heroine in a certain direction or keeping them apart.

I remember once, early on in my writing, telling one of my daughters I needed a crime.

I had the story and the characters and it was flowing along but I needed a bad guy and a crime. My daughter sat there and gave it some thought and said, “How about cattle rustling?”

For some reason that makes me laugh. It was a great idea and I used it. It might have been Montana Rose.

But note that my CRIME is an actual physical act. Stealing, like in the Ten Commandments. What we're talking about with the seven deadly sins ... did you notice that they are all EMOTIONS. They are all INTERNAL. After all Murder didn't make the list. Lying. Stealing. Even sexual sin isn't there. It's the emotional life that is all listed...separate from what you do about it. My rustlers no doubt suffered with greed, probably sloth, envy, maybe pride in some twisted version. But those are all internal. That they followed up with stealing is separate from their sinful internal life.

Sometimes we need a crime, a motivation, a barrier to love. So use this list. Use the seven deadly sins and slap one on your hero and heroine in a mild way, or onto your villains in a powerful version.

CLICK TO BUY FOR $0.99-EBOOK ONLY

Come back to the list God already made for you. The Seven Deadly Sins. 

Tell me about the conflict in your book and whether it fits into the Seven Deadly Sins.

Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for a drawing. Today, because it’s BIRTHDAY MONTH!!! We have THREE giveaways. (It should have been seven, I apologize!)

A signed copy of Tried and True (if you have another book of mine you’d prefer, let me know and we can substitute it)

Writing with Emotion, Tension and Conflict by Cheryl St.John

And a $25 Amazon gift card.

Three prizes, three winners, seven sins. My whole post is about numbers, huh?

 

The Medium is the Message - Are your books running hot or cold?



Tried and True-In Bookstores Now! Or Click to buy online

Welcome to a very special POST LABOR DAY edition of SEEKERVILLE.

Read all the way to the bottom for a chance to win two DIFFERENT BOOKS by two DIFFERENT WINNERS.

and find out how to sign up to get your name in a contest with a prize, a Kindle HDX.

Now, welcome to Part 2 of my series on emotion.

Find Part 1 here: Putting Emotion on the Page

I’m going to talk about a book I studied in college.

(No the books were NOT printed on papyrus scrolls, shut up)

I studied a book by Marshall McLuhan and, well, this was long ago, so I’m not going to go look at what he actually said and wrote about, instead I’m going to talk about what I remember, what I took away. I wonder now if I completely missed the point, but I’m doing it anyway.

What I remember from that book is that he described different types of information delivery. He called it the Medium. And he talked about Movies and TV and Radio and Books.

I was a broadcast journalism major so that figures, right?

And what he said was the fewer of our senses required to be involved with gathering information, the hotter the experience.

So by that standard, a movie or television is supplying the sight, supplying the sound. It requires very little from the viewer.

Something on radio is supplying the sound so it’s a little hotter than television.

And books supply nothing. A reader has to supply it all.

Because of this reading is an extremely hot medium.
We have to conjure the image.
We have to hear.
We have to taste and smell.

I can’t encourage an author enough to include the five senses and that’s for a very good reason. These things touch a reader, who is in a very hot environment while reading. All their mental energy engaged to be in the book. And senses are familiar. They are touch stones.

You talk about smelling and tasting a chocolate cake and your reader knows what that means. They are there with you, smelling and tasting.

And here’s where emotion comes in, because a reader isn’t a distant, detached, cold participant in your book. They are running hot. They are in your world.

They aren’t watching a fist fight on TV, they are in there swinging, they smell the dust of the frontier town street as your hero is slammed face down on the ground.

They feel the pain of a blow. They taste the blood.

That’s one of the reasons we talk about writing that stops the action dead. Or author intrusion.
These things draw the reader out of the world they are so engrossed in. It's like throwing a bucket of cold water on someone.

You don’t want your reader to see the heroine kissing the hero. You want them to feel his lips on theirs, feel his arms go around her, feel her own hands slide up his chest, hesitantly because she knows she shouldn’t but she can’t resist. Feel her reluctance, her desire, her love. 

One of the things I revise for is emotion words that leave me cold.

I hunted around for a scene in Tried and True that shows Kylie, who climbed on the roof to fix a lose shingle and now is caught in a rainstorm and frightened and struggling to get down to safety.

Tried and True

She had to get down off this roof.

One more inch. Still no toehold. Her weight shifted and she slipped. A screamed ripped from her throat and she clutched the pipe with only her fingertips. The pipe groaned under her weight and began to bend.

Finally her toes touched the chair, but her feet skidded on the wet back-ladders. She flailed with her feet to get her balance and managed to kick the chair. She heard it fall to the ground.

Her fingers loosen . She lost her grip with one hand and felt her nails scraping on the other and lost her hold and fell.

Hard arms closed around her legs. “I’ve got you, Miss.”

She slid over the edge.

The rock solid hold on her legs stopped her. Whoever had her rapidly lowered her to her feet. Her knees buckled. She sank toward the muddy ground. He swooped her into his arms and carried her up onto the porch out of the icy rain.

Shining blue eyes met hers and echoed with strength and kindness. Looking into those clear, brilliant blue eyes, she felt safer in that moment than she had since she was eighteen and had put on her britches, sworn her oath and picked up a musket with her fellow soldiers. Fellow being a particularly important word.

She threw her arms around his neck. The only solid thing in the whole wide world. And she cried.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s so easy to just tell what’s happening, much more difficult to make Kylie come alive on the page. While Kylie is struggling I want the reader to be on that roof with her, clinging, frightened, so alone. I want them to be screaming (well, maybe internally, we don't want to frighten the children or cause the neighbors to phone 911).
I want her tears to burn your eyes. I want her rescue to be a wave of relief, gratitude and glory.

 
No escape.
No excuse.
No cooling off.
Give the reader no excuse for being allowed to escape from the hot medium of your book.

TWO GIVEAWAYS TODAY
Leave a comment to get your name in a drawing for a copy of Cheryl St. John’s Writing with Emotion, Tension and Conflict.
And winners choice of any one of my books (that I have a copy of!)
All except Tried and True. I'd really appreciate it if you bought that one, which you can do by clicking HERE.

AND
Go HERE to send an RSVP to a Facebook party, September 23rd for the launch of Tried and True.
Prizes include copies of Tried and True, gift cards and the grand prize, a Kindle Fire HDX.

Lots of fun. Lots of prizes. And judging from the word WEBCAST,

I'm supposed to record myself again.

(May God Have Mercy!)

 

 

Putting Emotion on the Page - Part #1

Emotion—is it too late to learn a new trick???

Here’s the thing.

I have a reading habit….I mean the kind of reading habit a person might turn to a 12 Step Program to fix.

And I have insomnia…I mean the kind of insomnia a person might turn to a doctor to fix.

And though I read new books ALL THE TIME, I have a problem with reading new books because THEY KEEP ME AWAKE AT NIGHT.

(Yeah, as if EVERYTHING doesn’t keep me awake at night) But books do, too

I just need to see how it ends, you know???

So I have developed this trick for getting to sleep which works somewhat. Nothing really works! And it is that I re-read an old book that I love.

I enjoy them enough to read them, but the book doesn’t have that ‘what happens next’ quality of a new book. So, though I do read cover to cover, every word, sometimes, mostly, when re-reading, I skim. I skim from scene to scene, pausing over scenes I especially loved.

It’s just an old, old habit. I own … yeesh … 300-400 books that I love. And I’ll have one of them flicker though my brain, and that’s it. I have picked the book I will re-read.

Click to Buy

So my point, beyond just giving you a glimpse into my own personal mad sleeplessness is, I’ve been PONDERING why some scenes have impact like that. Why do they haunt me, come to me, stay with me?

And I’ve decided lately that, of course, some scenes are just so well done on all levels that to dissect it is a disservice to a talented author. But ultimately I think it’s emotion.

It’s a POW of emotion that makes a scene, an exchange, a chapter…a whole book even…stick with me.

Now I like comedy and I like action but comedy…well, that’s an emotion. And action is full of MOVEMENT but if it’s well done you are FEELING what those characters are living.

So I don’t think it’s the action scene that has the impact so much as the emotion of the action scene.

So emotion. Let your characters feel.

And here’s something I try and get to in my own writing.

Poorly done emotion, a reader will see the character is sad.

Well done emotion, a reader will BE sad.

Can you see the difference in that? To know a character is sad is … distancing. It’s you on the outside, reading, looking in.

To BE SAD YOURSELF, then you’re in the book. You’re sad, you’re living the character’s life.

You’re gone-and I think a well done book takes you into the world, takes you on an adventure, to another world. And I think that’s what most of us read fiction for, to get away for a while.

I’m going to write more about emotion in the next month or two. How to drag your reader into your book. Today, to kick off what I hope will be a new series on putting emotion into your work, I’m going to have the FIRST EVER IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE GIVEAWAY OF TRIED AND TRUE.

You may have to wait a week or two to get it. I’ve got my single, only, sole author’s copy. YAY. It’s a beautiful book.

But once I get this usually the author’s copies come soon. So, if I can get my act together! I will get the winner their copy LONG BEFORE THE BOOK RELEASES AT THE BEGINNING OF SEPTEMBER.

(let’s all act super excited about that, shall we?)
Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing and today: Let's talk about scenes from our own work we love.
I'll kick things off by saying, one of my very, very favorite scenes/moments in my own work is when Seth appears in that cave and Rafe realizes his brother has come home.
Julia's shock and fear. Rafe's love and worry. Seth's vulnerable madness. There in that cave when Julia thinks they've found the man who trapped her in the cave and wants Seth arrested and Rafe says, "Not only can't we arrest him, we've got to take him home to live with us."
Seth steps out into the light and Rafe realizes who it is. One of my favorite scenes.
Let's hear yours and the EMOTION of the scene and why that helps make it one of your favorites.
~~~

Tried and True
Book #1 of the Wild at Heart Series
Releasing September 2nd
Saddle up for a wildly fun ride with the Wilde sisters! Kylie Wilde is the youngest sister--and the most civilized. Her older sisters might be happy dressing in trousers and posing as men, but Kylie has grown her hair long and wears skirts every chance she gets. It's a risk--they are homesteading using the special exemptions they earned serving in the Civil War as "boys"--but Kylie plans to make the most of the years before she can sell her property and return to the luxuries of life back East.

Local land agent Aaron Masterson is fascinated with Kylie from the moment her long hair falls from her cap. But now that he knows her secret, can he in good conscience defraud the U.S. government? And when someone tries to force Kylie off her land, does he have any hope of convincing her that marrying him and settling on the frontier is the better option for her future?
"Connealy’s (Stuck Together) view of the Idaho Territory in 1866 is a surprising delight in this inaugural novel of her Wild at Heart romance series." -Publisher's Weekly
"Connealy spins a Civil War-era romance with book one of the Wild at Heart series. Her feisty female characters win our hearts." -RT Book Reviews

LAYERING AS YOU GO - PART TWO: Revealing Emotion in Body Language & Facial Expression

In Part One (Click here) I shared how I personally like to layer my manuscript “as I go” — periodically pausing throughout the writing rather than facing the immensity of a bare bones manuscript after typing “The End.” I highlighted a number points that layering may involve, including providing body movement and facial expression, authenticating the setting, weaving in internal dialogue and “voice” for deep point of view, etc.
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So this month let’s take a deeper look at one of those points.
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LAYERING: Revealing Emotion in Body Language and Facial Expression
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Very few of us, even when talking on the phone, stand rigidly with our hands at our sides and our facial muscles immobile. This week when you’re at the airport, church, mall or in the grocery store line...pause and take a good look around you. Really observe. You’ll see a variety of expressions and body language that, for the most part, clearly communicate what’s going on in someone’s head.
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Stop and think...what is it about the man who sat down across from you that tells you he just received bad news?
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Or the teen standing in the checkout line at the discount store...what is it about her that clues you in that she wants to be anywhere but with her mom?
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Or the woman holding hands with her grade school twins as they cross the church’s parking lot...what communicates to you that things have not gone well that morning?
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Think about how you would describe their body movement and expressions. Did the man merely sit down in the vinyl chair? Or did he slowly lower himself, shoulders slumped? Did the teen simply stand beside her mother, or did she turn slightly away, eyes downcast, jaw clenched, arms crossed? Did the woman just walk across the parking lot with her children, or were her high heels clicking sharply on the pavement, her eyes focused ahead, the twins scampering to keep up as she marched along? 
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On a daily basis we “interpret” so much of what goes on around us based solely on body language and expressions. As writers, we want our readers to be able to “see” emotions, to “read” a character’s mind and not always name, label or explicitly state what is going on internally.
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- She looked angry.
- He felt afraid.
- She didn’t want to go.
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There is nothing inherently wrong with naming an emotion. There are times when it’s necessary and appropriate to do so. Anti-naming “purists” sometimes go crazy with the red pen on things like this when judging contests, but the important lesson here is to not always name the emotion, recognizing that the more you enable the reader to “see” inside a character, the more they will feel and be drawn deeper into the story.
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In Myra Johnson’s “Whisper Goodbye,” she could have said “Mary was afraid to open the slip of paper. But instead she wrote: Fingers trembling, Mary unfolded the slip of paper.
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In Pam Hillman’s “Claiming Mariah,” she could have said “She looked nervously at the angry man.” But instead, she wrote: She moistened her lips, her gaze drawn to the clenched tightness of his jaw.
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In Sandra Leesmith’s “The Price of Victory,” she could said “Ralph was happy to get the money.”  But she wrote: Ralph whisked the envelope of cash out of her hands and danced a jig around the van.
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In my “Pine Country Cowboy” I could have said “He looked amused,” but I wrote: He briefly dipped his head in acknowledgment, a smile twitching at his lips.
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So...today please pick one of the situations highlighted below and, in the comments section, see how you can take a bare bones description and briefly layer it with body language and facial expressions--without “naming” the emotion or resorting to dialogue or internal dialogue.
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- A little boy appeared in the doorway. (Let’s make him...afraid.)
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- The little boy appeared in the doorway. (This time he’s...overjoyed.)
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- The woman looked up at the man. (Let’s make her...in love with him!)
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- The woman looked up at the man. (He’s said something that offended her.)
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- The man opened the door. (He’s late for a date.)
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- The man opened the door. (He doesn’t want to go where he’s having to go.)
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So, please pick a few of these “prompts” and have some fun today!
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Next month we’ll take a closer look at another element of layering.
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Glynna
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If you’d like to be entered in a drawing for a copy of my April Love Inspired release, “Pine Country Cowboy,” please mention it in the comments section, then check our Weekend Edition for the winner announcement!
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Glynna Kaye’s debut book “Dreaming of Home” was a finalist in the ACFW Carol and Maggie awards, as well as a first place winner of the “Booksellers Best” and “Beacon” awards. Her 4 1/2 star “At Home In His Heart” was chosen as a Reviewers Choice finalist by national magazine RT Book Reviews. “Pine Country Cowboy,” her seventh Love Inspired book (and the sixth set in the mountain country of Arizona), is available now—and “High Country Holiday” releases in November!
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No Place Like Home. Abby Diaz longs to reestablish a relationship with her father, so she heads to Canyon Springs, her Arizona hometown, with a painful past she can’t share with anyone. But then she’s needed to care for her young nephew. The little boy takes a shine to a happy-go-lucky cowboy, a handsome man who’s everything Abby can never have. The more time she spends with Brett, the more she realizes he’s harboring a heartache of his own. As she works on repairing family ties with her father, Abby knows that opening up to Brett is key to forging a new future...together.