Buzz, Balls & Hype : The Doctor is In

Friday + Dr. S O'D = Writer's Therapy

I occasionally give workshops and seminars in my Brooklyn Heights office on topics of interest to writers. If you would like to be notified about upcoming events, email me at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Dear Dr.Sue:

I've written a couple of stories that include scary moments, or at least I hope they are scary. That's the problem. I can't really tell. It's not scary to me because I made it up; I knew it was coming. Do you have any tips on writing scary?

Sincerely,
Bill Ectric

Dear Bill:

As we discussed when I emailed you for clarification, I’m a psychologist and not a writing coach, so although I wish I could comment with authority on the issue of “writing scary,” it’s way out of my area of expertise.

I’m fascinated, though, with what seems to be the “question behind the question”—that is, does emotional authenticity demand that we experience the feelings we wish to evoke in our readers?

In a previous lifetime, I was an actress. (Well, a chronic acting student and professional auditioner, mostly, with a few acting credits that are probably best forgotten. But I called myself an actress, and who are you to argue with me?) Most of the actors I knew fell loosely into one of two camps, known as “the British school” and “the Stanislavski method,” or simply “the Method.” Proponents of the British school took an intellectualized approach to their craft, building a character from the outside in—deciding on the gait a particular character would use, for example; working on perfecting speech patterns and dialects; finding physical and vocal ways to express the playwright’s ideas as embodied in the character. Method actors started with the inside, delving into their own experiences to comprehend, on a visceral level, the character’s feelings and motivations, and moving on from there. Laurence Olivier was probably the best known representative of the British school, while Marlon Brando may have been the most famous Method actor. Each “side” thought the other was misguided and possibly crazy. “If you want to learn to hate your mother,” one teacher told me, “go to the Actors Studio. If you want to learn how to act, study here.” Method actors, on the other hand, characterized British-style actors as remote, anal-retentive, and boring.

I worked with teachers, actors, and directors on both “sides,” and ultimately, I found the mutual antagonism unfounded. When cast in an actual play, rather than a scene for an exploratory class, Method actors paid meticulous attention to external details; and British-school actors came to inhabit their characters with complete commitment. The main difference in the two approaches was the order in which the characters were explored and developed; if the actors were competent and serious, their methods were opaque to the audience, which saw only a fully realized character.

I believe that writing works much the same way. In composing a suspenseful scene, some writers will let their imaginations loose and scare themselves silly, attempting to capture their raw feelings and sensations on the page. Later, they will shape their rantings into a coherent narrative. Others will analyze the requirements of the scene and construct the components to fit, most likely working their way into the experiential core of the story through layers of telling detail. Many will use some combination of these approaches, or will use different approaches at different times. And if the writer is skilled and lucky, the result will be a terrifying scene that rings true and draws the reader in.

As for knowing whether an attempt to frighten the reader is successful, my only advice is to test it out—show the scene to a trusted friend and ask for an honest response.

Susan O’Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Buzz, Balls & Hype

Because there are over 750,000 self-pubbed and 250,000 books published a year and they won't all get reviews in the NYTBR. Authored by M.J. Rose

July 21, 2006

The Doctor is In

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