Author to Author

The Unreality of Sentimentality

by Malcolm R. Campbell

Have you met the Absent-minded Professor, Bug-eyed Monster, Damsel in Distress, Mother-In-Law from Hell, Raw Recruit, and Rough Sergeant? If so, you probably recognized them as “stock characters.” While they have their uses, they are too one-dimensional for the protagonist, antagonist and major supporting cast in your novel.

Stock characters often live in a world of stock detail: “The raw recruit never knew what hit him as he called out for his mother and fought for his last breath before meeting the Grim Reaper beneath the clouds of war.”

How many times have you read the words never knew what hit him, called out for his mother, last breath, Grim Reaper, and clouds of war? You probably haven’t been keeping count, but often, right? Like stock characters, these hackneyed phrases are stale and one-dimensional.  Yes, they paint pictures quickly and leave little doubt in the reader’s mind about the author’s feelings. But, they also keep the reader at arm’s length or, perhaps I should say, “outside the story.”

We can say that authors who rely strongly on stock characters, stock phrases, and stock details are telling rather than showing. Unfortunately, telling rather than showing is also a stock phrase. Stock phrases, along with the emotionally assertive language that often accompanies them, can be found in the tool boxes of untrained and dishonest writers.

The Over-Urged Audience

Author Richard M. Eastman called the readers of sentimentality filled novels, “the over-urged audience.” What an apt phrase. Rather than reading dialogue and detail that might lead them to feel joy, sadness, anger or fear, the over-urged audience is told to feel whatever emotion the author wants to accompany the scene. In a television production, the director might shout “cue laugh track,” or “fade in sentimental music.”

Honest, well-crafted prose allows readers to feel emotion through the reality of original, three-dimensional characters and specific detail. Rather than saying, “Professor Jones was absent minded,” try “Professor Jones lost his car keys for the third time that day.” Now, the reader can start deciding who Professor Jones is.

As writers, we can avoid the unreality of sentimentality by first opening ourselves up to the emotions of our own characters so that we have something better to offer than emotional label language, stacked-up superlatives and expedient exaggeration. We don’t need to write, “Private Green never knew what hit him,” when we can experiment with something better such as “Private Green shouted, ‘What the hell was that?’ as he crumpled into the river.”

Allow Reader Participation

When writers rely on assertive language, especially when dealing with emotions, readers are cheated. Storytelling is more than one-way communication; it’s a shared experience that requires the writer’s open presentation of a scene as it really is and the reader’s freely chosen engagement. Sentimentality in writing represents the writer’s opinion, propped up by stock characters, stock details, boxes of adjectives and frequently applied tearjerker “Kodak moments.”

Just how the imagination works during the writing process is hard to describe. Prospective scenes come into an author’s thoughts as mental movies, as dream-like images or with a clarity similar to old memories. Whether these scenes are fully formed at the outset or built and re-built during multiple revisions, the actions taking place, the words being said, and the locations involved come together in the writer’s mind and—with no need whatsoever for his muse’s prodding—s/he feels anger, joy, frustration, horror, or happiness.

Readers long for fully formed characters, thought-provoking themes, captivating plots, and the true emotions that arise from participating in the experiences the story offers. They will not find what they long for in “Lucy Johnson, the mother in law from hell, had a really terrible attitude,” or “Having been to hell and back, Sergeant Smith recognized the clouds of war.”

Why is Lucy Johnson a “mother in law from hell,” and what makes is her attitude “really terrible”? What happens when a Smith goes “to hell and back,” and what do “the clouds of war” look like? As the author of the story about Johnson or Smith, something led you to these conclusions. Show your readers what that something smells like, looks like, and sounds like, and they’ll figure it out.

That’s what they wanted when they picked up your book.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of four novels, including  the recently released contemporary fantasy “Sarabande.”