How to Craft an Emotional Payoff, Part 1 (Writing Emotion: Joy)

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: Joy
Story: The Young Victoria

Joy: a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.

Scene from the story:

Lesson 1: Relieve the tension

Tension is a useful tool as a writer. Build it long and hard and then let the emotion explode when that tension finally breaks.

This is definitely happening in this scene.

We know Albert wants to marry Victoria, but he cannot make a move—he needs to wait for her to give the okay. But she’s had some growing up to do and some ropes to learn as the new queen.

When the tension finally breaks, we can feel both Victoria and Albert’s emotions spilling out like a dam burst. In this case, it’s their emotions are not only joy, but I like to focus on the most prevalent emotion in a scene for the most amount of people (reader/viewer included).

Check out the other posts in the 3-part series on tension-relieving emotions (romantic and non-romantic) here and here.

Lesson 2: Upend convention

The use of the unexpected is a great way to deepen the emotionality of a scene.

“Unexpected” might come in the form of a plot twist or a surprising reaction, or it might look like upending a conventional situation. In this case, a woman proposing to a man.

This twist on convention—Albert having to wait for Victoria’s marriage proposal—helps the emotion to build in the scene. As a viewer, we experience a slightly different and deeper set of emotions than we might normally in a proposal scene because of the unique power dynamic and reversal of roles here.

There are many ways to upend convention in romantic and non-romantic situations (for example, twisting a conventional trope); this is just one great example.

Lesson 3: Vulnerability, vulnerability, vulnerability

I could probably cite vulnerability as a lesson to be gleaned from nearly every emotional scene in every emotional story.

In fact, vulnerability is an emotion in and of itself. But it’s usually a precursor for a scene's escalating (and therefore more defining) emotion.

In this case, both Victoria and Albert feel very vulnerable. Their emotions are at the mercy of one another, and you can feel that in the tension that leads up to the proposal at the end of this scene.

If you believe in checklists when writing, ensuring that your main characters are experiencing/expressing (whether internally, externally, or both) some form of vulnerability in the most climactic scenes is a good one to check off.