How to Unsettle Readers (Writing Emotion: Unsettledness)

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: Unsettledness
Story: Bunny by Mona Awad

Unsettledness: lacking stability
• worried and uneasy
• liable to change; unpredictable

A few weeks ago I did a post on the emotion of Unease. This emotion was centered around a scene from the 2019 film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.

Unsettled is a very similar emotion to uneasy, so I wanted to figure out the biggest differences (and similarities) between these two emotions in these two very different stories.

What’s similar?

Both of the scenes involving unease and unsettledness have a goal of putting the audience on edge.

They utilize writing tools that prick the senses of the audience uncomfortably, raising red flags and making them feel as though something dangerous or volatile might happen.

What’s different?

In Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, Cliff (Brad Pitt) has control throughout the scene. While the world around him is unsettled, he is not. He feels unease because he senses that something is off in his surroundings, and if that’s the case, he wants to wade through the discomfort and right a potential wrong.

On the other hand, Samantha, in the scene below, has no control, authority, or confidence in her current environment. She feels the unsettledness of the world around her, and she wants it to go away. She doesn’t want to understand it or right any potential wrongs. She just wants to get back a semblance of the normality she had before.

As you can see, the biggest difference is found in the characterization.

Yes, these stories have different settings and trajectories, but Cliff’s self-assurance—his belief in his own ability to conquer whatever potential threats he is facing—versus Samantha’s paranoia and discomfort, is what creates the biggest differences in the overall emotionalities of the two separate scenes.

All this to say, your protagonist’s internal landscape matters.

How are they feeling in a given scene? This may not make a huge impact on the emotionality in that moment for the audience (as you can see in these two different scenes, we’re feeling uneasy and unsettled in both), but it will make a huge difference in the trajectory of the story and in the characterization of the protagonists.

And characterization/character transformation is what makes a good story.

With that said, let’s check out the scene on Unsettledness and learn some lessons on writing emotions!

Note: This scene is meant to unsettle both the character and the reader, so it is a tad disturbing. However, there are no graphic depictions.

Passage from the story:

“Every day they dog me, little furred shadows. One afternoon on the bench, I look up from my reading to find one, two, four bunnies. Sort of surrounding me in a little fuzzy circle like I’m their leader, about to give a speech. I even find myself opening my mouth. Then I close it again. Get up and leave. Walk hurriedly away toward the library. Don’t follow me. Okay?

A couple of Wes Anderson-type girls stare at me through their hipster frames. Little silky French shifts with an understated pattern. Little smirks to match. Because I’m a grown woman talking to rabbits. I remember the man I saw on my walk to school, screaming at a tree. What did it ever do to you? I wanted to ask him. Now I’m not so sure it’s a fair question.

“Don’t follow me!” I hiss at the rabbits under my breath.

“Samantha?” Jonah in his parka, cigarette burning between his fingers. Wheat-colored hair in his eyes. Grinning at me like I’m Christmas.

“Hey, Jonah. Sorry I was—”

“Hey, were you just talking to those rabbits?”

“No.”

“It’s cool if you were. Sometimes I talk to things too.” He nods as if to reassure me. “And they are staring at you pretty hard. Weird.”

“They are?” Even though I know they are.

“Oh yeah. Definitely. Wow. I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s almost like they want to talk to you or something. Are you freaked out by it?”

“No,” I lie.

“You shouldn’t be. One time in Alaska, this bear followed me home from a bar and we ended up talking for a long time. He was telling me all these things. I guess because he knew I was a poet and he needed someone, you know, to tell his story.”

We look back at the rabbits, who are still looking at me.

“Maybe you’re part rabbit and you don’t know it.” He smiles at me. “Hey, you want to go for a drink or something? I just got out of class. We could go to the ale house?”

“I thought you didn’t drink.”

“Yeah. But I could watch you drink? I like doing that.”

Over his shoulder, I look at the bunnies. They are f***ing staring at me.

“I can’t right now, Jonah. I’m sorry. Maybe some other time, though, okay?”

I rush off and nearly trip on a shaggy gray one crossing the road. It gets hit by a car that doesn’t even break and I scream.”

Lesson 1: Obvious foreshadowing

In the post on Unease, I talked a lot about very subtle tactics for unsettling the audience.

In this scene, the writer is casting off subtle in favor for more about the obvious. I did a little compare and contrast in the introduction, but this is another way to pit these two scenes against each other (subtle versus obvious).

As you can see, both can be effective tools for unnerving the audience.

Obviously, something is going on with these rabbits. Up until this point in the story, we’ve mostly been grounded in reality. There have been only very subtle hints that something odd or unnatural is going on in Samantha’s world.

This is the scene where that idea really starts to turn on its head.

These rabbits are following Samantha, watching her, staring at her to the point that others notice. Why?

Something is clearly going to happen involving these rabbits, but what? The book itself is called Bunny, so it’s no surprise that bunnies have something to do with the plot, but that doesn’t make us any less interested in sticking around to figure out exactly what will happen.

After all, this is only foreshadowing. The rabbits are acting strange, but we won’t find out why unless we keep reading.

Do you want to put your readers on edge through the subtle building of something “not quite right?” How can you use obvious foreshadowing with a specific symbol or pattern in order to build to a moment where the protagonist has no choice but to take notice—and feel unnerved?

Lesson 2: Obscure symbolism

Speaking of bunnies—why? Why bunnies? Brains are beautiful things. Whether we like it or not, our minds are part of the collective consciousness. All this means is that symbolism plays into the universal lessons and knowledge we glean from living in our world.

For example, we dream in symbols because we recognize, subconsciously, what certain objects mean to us as individuals, as well as to society as a whole.

So what do bunnies mean?

Some authors are very intentional with their symbolism. They choose an object or a theme, they think about what that means to them, and they incorporate it into their story. But that doesn’t stop us from experiencing different interpretations based on our own experience.

If you’ve ever been in an English class, you know this to be true. “What did the whale in Moby Dick symbolize for you?” Now listen to 12 different interpretations from your classmates.

All this to say, don’t discredit yourself when it comes to symbolism.

I often find that I don’t fully understand why I put something into a story until much later in the process. Then I connect what that particular idea or object means for me. How it applied to my life. How it bound the story together in a way I couldn’t have planned. My beautiful subconscious brain did it.

And yours will, too.

This might happen intentionally, or it might happen subconsciously. Either way, symbols are powerful.

The symbol of the bunny means something to this author, as well as inside of this particular story. But we’re not completely sure what that meaning is quite yet.

In fact, we might not know until we finish the story and then have several discussions with other readers, or think about it and come to our own conclusion.

When you’re creating your own scene or story as a whole, don’t shy away from symbols.

And definitely use them in a way that creates emotion. Here, the innocent/playful/harmless bunnies are juxtaposed against the emotion of unsettledness, and it works beautifully to enhance that feeling in the reader.

If it was a jaguar, the emotion would be different. Less quiet unsettledness, and more full-on terror. Both of these are effective emotions, it just depends what you’re going for in your story.

What is a symbol you would like to use, or discover that you are already using in your story? How can you leverage that into more emotion? Could you juxtapose it against a seemingly disparate emotion? Could you play into it? Could you use an underwhelming scene in order to nail that symbol home (without hitting the reader over the head, of course)?

Lesson 3: Blur the lines

The primary definition for unsettledness is “lacking stability.” One way to make your reader feel as if they are lacking stability is to blur the lines of reality.

Make them unsure what is real and what isn’t.

In the passage above, Jonah says, “One time in Alaska, this bear followed me home from a bar and we ended up talking for a long time. He was telling me all these things. I guess because he knew I was a poet and he needed someone, you know, to tell his story.”

This is just one more step in our descent into feeling unsettled. Suddenly, we find ourselves asking:

Is he for real, or speaking metaphorically? And what is up with these rabbits? Is there something I’m not understanding? Does this story world have different rules that I’m unaware of?

Of course, you never want to unintentionally make your reader confused. If you are not giving enough information, overloading your story with too much information, or explaining things in a way that doesn’t make sense, that’s bad.

But if you want to strategically make them confused in order to heighten a desired emotion, that can be powerful.

Is there a scene in your story where you’re wanting the reader to feel uneasy, unsettled, or uncertain? What is a single line (of dialogue or narration) you can use to make them ask strategic questions that knock them off balance or take make them uneasy?