How to Start a Book, Part 1 (Writing Emotion: Dread)

The Writing Emotion series observes one emotion at a time in a story that does it well. This is so that we can understand better how to do our most important job as storytellers (no matter the genre): make readers feel.

The objective of these posts is less about learning to convey a specific emotion (joy, sorrow, anxiousness, etc.) and more about studying what is going on underneath a scene that makes the emotionality of it more compelling for the characters and the reader alike—

It’s about learning to write emotion.

Emotion: Dread
Story: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Dread: great fear or apprehension.

Passage from the story (yes, it’s long—but it’s worth it):

“The details may change from book to book, but there’s nothing truly new under the sun.

Take, for example, the small-town love story.

The kind where a cynical hotshot from New York or Los Angeles gets shipped off to Smalltown, USA—to, like, run a family-owned Christmas tree farm out of business to make room for a soulless corporation.

But while said City Person is in town, things don’t go to plan. Because, of course, the Christmas tree farm—or bakery, or whatever the hero’s been sent to destroy—is owned and operated by someone ridiculously attractive and suitably available for wooing.

Back in the city, the lead has a romantic partner. Someone ruthless who encourages him to do what he’s sent out to do and ruin some lives in exchange for that big promotion. He fields calls from her, during which she interrupts him, barking heartless advice from the seat of her Peloton bike.

You can tell she’s evil because her hair is unnatural blond, slicked back a la Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, and also, she hates Christmas decorations.

As the hero spends more time with the charming baker/seamstress/tree farm…person, things change for him. He learns the true meaning of life!

He returns home, transformed by the love of a good woman. There he asks his ice-queen girlfriend to take a walk with him. She gapes, says something like, In these Manalos?

It will be fun, he tells her. On the walk, he might ask her to look up at the stars.

She snaps, You know I can’t look up right now! I just got Botox!

And then he realizes: he can’t go back to his old life. He doesn’t want to! He ends his cold, unsatisfying relationship and proposes to his new sweetheart. (Who needs dating?)

At this point, you find yourself screaming at the book, You don’t even know her! What’s her middle name, bitch? From across the room, your sister, Libby, hushes you, throws popcorn at your head without lifting her gaze from her own crinkly-covered library book.

And that’s why I’m running late to this lunch meeting.

Because that’s my life. The trope that governs my days. The archetype over which my details are superimposed.

I’m the city person. Not the one who meets the hot farmer. The other one.

The uptight, manicured literary agent, reading manuscripts from atop her Peloton while a serene beach scene screen saver drifts, unnoticed, across her computer screen.

I’m the one who gets dumped.

I’ve read this story, and lived it, enough to know it’s happening again right now, as I’m weaving through late-afternoon foot traffic in Midtown, my phone clutched to my ear.

He hasn’t said it yet, but the hairs on the back of my neck are rising, the pit opening in my stomach as he maneuvers the conversation toward a cartoon-style drop off a cliff.

Grant was only supposed to be in Texas for two weeks, just long enough to help close a deal between his company and the boutique hotel they were trying to acquire outside San Antonio. Having already experienced two post-work trip breakups, I reacted to the news of his trip as if he’d announced he’d joined the navy and was shipping out in the morning.

Libby tried to convince me I was overreacting, but I wasn’t surprised when Grant missed our nightly phone call three times in a row, or when he cut two others short. I knew how this ended.

And then, three days ago, hours before his return flight, it happened.”

Lesson 1: Increase the tension

As a story goes along, it’s important to consistently increase both the stakes (potential negative consequences if something goes wrong) and the tension (mental or emotional strain as we wait for the other shoe to drop).

Of course, we’re not just talking about overall plot here. You can (and often should), also increase the stakes and tension in any given scene.

That’s exactly what Emily Henry is achieving in the scene above.

The scene starts out lighthearted. Our narrator is talking about romance tropes—what could be lighter than that? And yet, as the scene unfolds, our tension increases. We subtly grow more worried. We think there may be something she’s not telling us. Some unannounced stakes.

We sense a perceived threat. This is because audience are smart. They know, based on experience from countless other stories, that the other shoe has to drop sometime. Let’s watch the tension increase:

The narrator describes a typical small town love story.
She interrupts this narrative with her own interiority: “At this point, you find yourself screaming at the book, You don’t even know her!” Wait a second, I thought this was on its way to a happy ending. We is she screaming?
She provides her real-world stakes: “Because that’s my life. The trope that governs my days. The archetype over which my details are superimposed.” Uh-oh. This isn’t a theoretical love story. This is our narrator’s (Nora’s) life.
She reveals her own positioning, giving us both a twist, and insight into her reaction to the story: “I’m the city person. Not the one who meets the hot farmer. The other one…I’m the one who gets dumped.” This has happened before? We feel for her now. This poor girl has experienced heartbreak.
She brings us into the present, explaining why this is applicable to her now: “I’ve read this story, and lived it, enough to know it’s happening again right now, as I’m weaving through late-afternoon foot traffic in Midtown, my phone clutched to my ear.” No! Not only has Nora experienced this type of dumping before—it’s about to happen again.

I love the way Henry writes this scene. It reminds me of the quote from The Fault in Our Stars: “I fell in love like you fall asleep: slowly and then all at once.”

That metaphor is directly applicable for increasing tension. Tap into the intuition (more on this below) of a reader by subtly communicating that something’s not quite right. Sooner or later, it’s all going to go wrong. Then drop the hammer. Once, twice, three times, increasing the stakes with each blow.

Lesson 2: Play on tropes we love

Romance, especially, relies heavily on tropes. In fact, many romance books use the mere presence of tropes to sell books:

If you love forced proximity romance…if you love enemies to lovers…if you love fake dating…if you love “there’s only one bed!”

All this to show that tropes, if used intentionally, can excite the reader.

This is particularly useful because of a trope’s ability to pack a punch in as little as one line: “Take, for example, the small-town love story.”

In that single line, our imagination explodes with color and detail. We picture handsome bookstore owners and picturesque Main Streets. If story is meant to suck us into another world, using a trope can be just the thing to get it done quickly and efficiently.

Then, of course, you gotta flip it on its head. Because we don’t want our story to be only predictable. We want to draw the reader in with something familiar, and then catch them off guard. In this case, this flip/twist happens when we learn who we’re actually rooting for.

Because when we read small-town love stories, we don’t root for the high-maintenance girlfriend back in the city. But we will in this story.

Check out the posts on Unease, Amazement, and Joy to see other stories that have used tropes and conventions to engage an audience’s brains and emotions in surprising ways.

How can you use a trope in your story? How can you then flip it on its head? See if you, like Henry in this example, can summon vivid images in your reader’s mind with a single sentence calling on familiar tropes.

Lesson 3: Highlight their intuition

Isn’t the idea of intuition fascinating? I know I’m not the only one who is intrigued. We, as humans, love the concept of being in tune with our gut. Of just…knowing.

Using intuition in your protagonist can be a fantastic way to engage emotion. In this case, Nora knows what’s going to happen with her boyfriend before it actually occurs. That gut-feeling builds dread. It stretches taut with anticipation until her intuition is proved right.

Of course, it didn’t have to go that way.

Think about a scene where your protagonist could sense something is about to happen before it does. How could you use that tool to build anticipation or tension (or even dread)?

Remember, just because they had a gut-feeling doesn’t mean they have to be right. You could get equal bang for your buck if your protagonist was absolutely certain something was about to happen, only to discover the truth is the opposite of what she originally thought.