This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 600th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode, How to Write Emotional Scenes Without Making

them Cringy. scenes without making them cringing.

Learning how to write emotional scenes is one of the single most important feats any writer must rise to. We want fiction to make us feel something.

And I'm not talking about a little twinge of satisfaction here or there. I'm talking full on emotional experiences. Tears, laughter, cheers, even

rage on occasion. Scenes in which characters feel these powerful emotions should usually inspire the same feelings from readers.

When done well, these powerhouse scenes become the cornerstones of the entire story.

They are the moments audiences are likely to remember long after they may have forgotten beautiful prose or the specifics of the plot.

However, there are emotions you don't want readers to feel. You don't want them feeling icky or awkward.

When they start reading what should be your story's most powerful emotional moments, you don't want them to cringe in response.

You know what I'm talking about.

These emotional missteps happen in scenes that are

obviously intended to make you feel a certain way about the characters and their

actions, but you don't. We've all read or watched the proclamation of love, complete with singing violins

that was supposed to turn us into sighing mush puddles, but instead had us wringing out our t-shirts to try to escape the soppiness.

Or the religious conversion scene that was intended to offer us the feeling of redemptive catharsis, but instead had us stonily resenting

the thinly disguised sermon.

Or the backstory reveal that was designed to get a sniffling when the emotionally

repressed protagonist put it all out there and shared a vulnerable secret but

instead had us responding with skepticism and irritation because his quick

turnabout made the confession feel phony and the list goes on. In a recent email, reader Jessica commented to me about how when deeply emotional scenes are

executed poorly, the audience just wants to run and hide.

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