I Love You, Jackass: Writing Complex Emotions

Evoking emotion is one of the biggest challenges we face as writers. We want our readers to cry, laugh, fear death, or feel alive the way we do while reading our favorite books. But how do you write emotionally without sounding sappy, sentimental, or—horrors!—melodramatic? The answer lies in complexity, in layering emotions to mimic our own complicated emotions. By invoking the interplay of emotional opposites, we’ll create new emotional writing and also look at examples from masters to guide us along. Open to all genres.