Lois’s answer to “I tear up when I read the last line of Cryoburn. (Before the Aftermaths.) But I always cry while re…” > Likes and Comments
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I rather liked a little scene in one of Barbara Hambly's Silicon Mage world, forget which book it is in. Magic is going a bit wonky in the Citadel of the Wizards, and there are patches of ground where anyone can work magic - and the Citadel cats are imagining mice which the magic is creating for them to pounce on. I would also say regarding "I love that character" in my case never ever means heart-throb response. I've got my own one and don't need another :)
It's something I wonder about, when I'm in a bio-evolutionary mood -- why do people's brains even do fiction?
My bet would be that the root of fiction is the ability to think hypothetically. Most mammals have to have the ability to consider consequences of alterative possible actions. Their own, and those of that wolf who's hungrily eyeing myself and my friend.
Whatever the sources, you do it very well -- may you be blessed with inspiration and the continued ability to create more wonderful stories for us, your readers. And happy 2023 to you!
I have this idea in the back of my mind that one day I might need to cry on cue, and when that day comes, my plan is to read the last line of Cryoburn. It never fails to set me off!
Lauren, Cryoburn wasn't out yet when my mother died, but Memory did the job when I found myself needing the release of tears.
I remember an old USENET thread on passages in stories that made people tear up. A passage has to hit the "tearing-up bone" just right, and what gets one reader leaking might not hit another.
There are also lines in stories that don't have me tearing up, but instead make me grin like a fool. ("It's Caz! It's Caz!")
From a very different sort of book, I can't read the final paragraph or two of The Incredible Journey without crying/tearing up. There are also places in Bujold's works, that have that impact, but I didn't discover them until I was full grown. I have been crying over that boy and his dog for more than 50 years.
I think empathy is the key. Shared experience with the situation surely adds to a mental process. Empathy may allow/encourage us to engage even if the event is something we have not directly experienced. A well written passage can engender emotion like music does. And just like music, not all people like the same stuff.
Storytelling may be a way to take your mind off the daily grind of killing mammoths and collecting sticks for the fire. Maybe it came from Og starting to embellish his recounting of the hunt. Or, because Norg was tired of Og telling the same story. Again...
“I suspect empathy, mirroring as recent psychology dubs it, came before speech, but speech taps into that as well”
I think empathy is the key. It seems to me that authors function like actors, empathically, except that they are simultaneously creating and playing all the roles! An amazing feat, and you do it so well, L.
Karla McLaren’s book The Art of Empathy is the best I’ve read so far on the subject, and it specifically addresses (though not in great detail - those 10k word essays are still needed!) how empathy is foundational for all the arts, and also how our storytelling capacity can run to the dark side.
That scene had me in tears too. Even thinking about it now, years after I first read it. So powerfully done.
I cried last night trying to tell my 23-year-old about how Miles always feared "Count Vorkosigan, sir?" - and dammit, I'm tearing up right now.
Hamlet: “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?”
How timely to come across this post again while my "emotionally attached to fictional characters" t-shirt is wending its way to me.
piperandivy.com (vendor info for the curious)
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Jan 01, 2023 11:18AM
I rather liked a little scene in one of Barbara Hambly's Silicon Mage world, forget which book it is in. Magic is going a bit wonky in the Citadel of the Wizards, and there are patches of ground where anyone can work magic - and the Citadel cats are imagining mice which the magic is creating for them to pounce on. I would also say regarding "I love that character" in my case never ever means heart-throb response. I've got my own one and don't need another :)
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It's something I wonder about, when I'm in a bio-evolutionary mood -- why do people's brains even do fiction?My bet would be that the root of fiction is the ability to think hypothetically. Most mammals have to have the ability to consider consequences of alterative possible actions. Their own, and those of that wolf who's hungrily eyeing myself and my friend.
Whatever the sources, you do it very well -- may you be blessed with inspiration and the continued ability to create more wonderful stories for us, your readers. And happy 2023 to you!
I have this idea in the back of my mind that one day I might need to cry on cue, and when that day comes, my plan is to read the last line of Cryoburn. It never fails to set me off!
Lauren, Cryoburn wasn't out yet when my mother died, but Memory did the job when I found myself needing the release of tears.
I remember an old USENET thread on passages in stories that made people tear up. A passage has to hit the "tearing-up bone" just right, and what gets one reader leaking might not hit another. There are also lines in stories that don't have me tearing up, but instead make me grin like a fool. ("It's Caz! It's Caz!")
From a very different sort of book, I can't read the final paragraph or two of The Incredible Journey without crying/tearing up. There are also places in Bujold's works, that have that impact, but I didn't discover them until I was full grown. I have been crying over that boy and his dog for more than 50 years.
I think empathy is the key. Shared experience with the situation surely adds to a mental process. Empathy may allow/encourage us to engage even if the event is something we have not directly experienced. A well written passage can engender emotion like music does. And just like music, not all people like the same stuff.Storytelling may be a way to take your mind off the daily grind of killing mammoths and collecting sticks for the fire. Maybe it came from Og starting to embellish his recounting of the hunt. Or, because Norg was tired of Og telling the same story. Again...
“I suspect empathy, mirroring as recent psychology dubs it, came before speech, but speech taps into that as well”I think empathy is the key. It seems to me that authors function like actors, empathically, except that they are simultaneously creating and playing all the roles! An amazing feat, and you do it so well, L.
Karla McLaren’s book The Art of Empathy is the best I’ve read so far on the subject, and it specifically addresses (though not in great detail - those 10k word essays are still needed!) how empathy is foundational for all the arts, and also how our storytelling capacity can run to the dark side.
That scene had me in tears too. Even thinking about it now, years after I first read it. So powerfully done.
I cried last night trying to tell my 23-year-old about how Miles always feared "Count Vorkosigan, sir?" - and dammit, I'm tearing up right now.
Hamlet: “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?”
How timely to come across this post again while my "emotionally attached to fictional characters" t-shirt is wending its way to me.
piperandivy.com (vendor info for the curious)
