How do you write about love? Follow your heart – and read this exclusive advice for WM readers from the great romance writer Jojo Moyes
When I started writing, there was one piece of advice I’d hear over and over again: Show, Don’t Tell. Eighteen books and twenty years later, there’s a different tip I want to share with you: Focus on Feelings. Not just the feelings between your characters, but the far more exciting thrill of making your readers feel something. Each time I start working on a new idea, the first thing I focus on is the different emotions I want capture. I find sketching out what I’m trying to elicit in each chapter, before getting into the nitty-gritty of sentences and descriptions, works a lot better. Because ultimately, if you – as my reader – don’t feel anything during the book, then I’ve failed.
Something I really like to do is act my way into each character, if that doesn’t sound horribly pretentious. I basically think, what would they be seeing right now, what would they be smelling, what would be the feeling in their stomach? Because if you can put your reader in the shoes of your character, they’re much more likely to feel what the character is feeling. Sometimes, if I’m doing this well, I actually have to take a short break between characters to shed one skin and put another one on. That’s always a good sign for me because it means I’m really experiencing what that character is experiencing. It’s a bit like method acting except you’re writing, so let’s call it method writing.
Over the years, I’ve realised that what works best for me is writing through the senses. Most of us experience love through our senses. We have very strong physical reactions to the people that we love. So, what is love for you? How do you experience it? For example, say you’re writing as a young man who has finally come face-to-face with the woman he’s been writing to for years. What is he feeling at that moment? He’s likely experiencing butterflies in his stomach. Perhaps he’s exhausted because he hasn’t been able to sleep the night before. Are his palms clammy? Has he shoved them in his pockets so she won’t see? Is he able to form the words that he wants to say or is there a whole internal monologue of things that he’s unable to say going through his head? What is he fixated on with her? Has she got one blond eyelash? Is the sun moving through her hair? Just think about how you experienced that level of love or desire and translate it onto the page. If a character is someone who’s a similar emotional build to you, use
