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Writing

Do You and Your Characters Follow the Crowd’s Emotions?

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“Do You and Your Characters Follow the Crowd’s Emotions?” by Joan Y. Edwards

I heard a priest, Reverend Matthew J. Leonard, give a sermon today at St. Margaret Mary’s church in Swannanoa, NC about following the crowds of different emotions for prejudice, choosing sides for sports, politics, race, religion, or other differences – imagined or real. I thought it was an interesting perspective, not only personally, but also to consider as a way to learn more about your characters.

Perhaps choose three different emotions and why a particular character would follow the crowd. Would they follow the crowd for the whole book, or would something happen to change their mind? Perception is the key.

Here are negative emotions:

  1. Hate
  2. Anger
  3. Fear
  4. Lust
  5. Jealousy
  6. Apathy

Actions:

  1. Ridicule
  2. Bully
  3. Fight
  4. Kill
  5. Steal
  6. Torture
  7. Persecute
  8. Be stingy
  9. Condemn
  10. Judge

Following the crowd in a good way:

  1. Acceptance When one person does it, it’s easier for the others to follow the example.
  2. Grief
  3. Peace
  4. Pride can go in either direction, good or bad
  5. Love

Actions

  1. Celebrate
  2. Advertise
  3. Support
  4. Sympathize
  5. Show compassion
  6. Share what you have with others
  7. Praise
  8. Congratulate
  9. Give gifts
  10. Applaud
  11. Reward

I hope you enjoyed pondering these things. Most of the time, I believe we think for ourselves and are positive with other people. Occasionally, we are swept by the power of the crowd. If you’ve ever been at a baseball, football, or basketball game and experienced the power of the wave, where everyone stands up and waves their hands up high in the air. Then they stay seated until it comes around again. It’s very difficult to stay seated when they are doing the wave. Here’s a video to show you the fun of the wave at a USC vs. Arizona State football game. It’s fun to be in the wave and it’s also fun to see how excited the person was filming it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN0S_MNwkCA . Perhaps one of them will spark a new idea on how to make your writing more believable to your readers.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please leave a message. I enjoy hearing your opinions.

Celebrate you
Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards

Copyright © 2013 Joan Y. Edwards