Core Emotional Truth

 

…Emotional truth is elusive and difficult to capture. No standard definition exists. Here’s my crack at it: Emotional truth allows readers to feel a certain way about the experiences of people who may live different lives from them. It’s the lens that allows us to see ourselves in a story that results in a heartfelt connection in a fictional narrative. Emotional truth transcends facts...Writer's Digest. 

Writing fiction? Have you ever pulled back from what you are writing and asked, what does this…my writing…mean? It it making sense to me? Will it make sense to a reader? 

To answer that question, I’d like you to think about the Core Emotional Truth of your writing. This is something that grows with the creation of a story. In other words, you might not recognise such a truth when you start writing––in fact such a truth might not be present when you start writing––but as the story comes into itself (often around the point you might finish a first rough draft), it is something you should think about. 

This core emotional truth (CET for short), is like a golden thread running all the way through a piece of fabric, and like beautiful embroidery it is usually bound up with the passion behind it.

Being passionate about your work will help tighten and bind it. But to create a narrative that really pulls the reader into the text and along the entirety of it, you have to believe yourself in its need to be released out there into the world; to be appealing to readers. Searching for the ‘point’ of what you are writing, so that the reader can understand why they should continue to read, suggests working towards fully understanding what has developed in your story (be it a short story or a longer novel). . You can, if you like, call it your  'Vision', 'Thesis' or 'The Premise'  (and even, perhaps wrongly 'your Theme')…the CET is a central, single concept that sums up your work; your ‘Core Emotional Truth’.

Don't get confused by my used of the word 'truth' here. Novels are inventions, made up in the writer's head, at least in part an invented narrative...a lie. Finding a core truth in such a fabrication is an emotional experience, not rooted in facts––for readers and their writers alike. To gain the readers empathy, there must be some sort of true thing that you are attempting to commnunicate, and that emotional truth will engender empathy and help hook the reader into the story. Most great classics of literature do this perfectly, and it is what they are loved for. 

Most of those great classics can have their core emotion truth summed up in a phrase––at most a couple of objective sentences, preferably in an abstract style, such as an aphorism. This phrase won't necessarily tell us about the contents of the story, or its subject, but about some fundamental truth of life, something that makes us all human. It doesn’t have to be a statement that everyone would agree with, but it must make sense to anyone reading it. Here' we're thinking about a summary of what a story is truly about – the deep core of what it is saying to its readers.

As an example let us think about a book we all probably know in some way; A Christmas Carol. The CET of this Dickens' small masterpiece would not be, for instance,

…Scrooge learns to be a better person when he’s visited by the ghost of his partner…

That’s more of a ‘blurb’ really.  What about...

Financial wealth never makes you happy?

This is separate and slightly different from any themes you've been thinking belong to your work. The themes that run through a short story or novel can be reflected in symbolism within the story. They can usually be summed up in a word or phrase. In A Christmas Carol, the themes might be; ghosts, meanness, poverty––poverty of emotion…These probably will  link with the CET, but can be thought of as far more observable, something that the reader will ‘see’ as they read, and be able to isolate after reader, so, easier to explain to friends or use in a review. The CET is often ‘felt’ rather than discerned. 

I can recall the first CET I 'got' after reading a book. I was hanging out some washing and why ever the book came into my mind at that point, I dont know––hanging out washing is a pretty mindless task, after all. I'd just finished The Inheritors by William Golding, and though I'd enjoyed it and understood its themes of a doomed species, of violence and pacifity, I'd not thought further. Suddenly, as I pulled a peg out of the bag to pin up a sock, I realised how the entire story was explaining to me how people are; how humanity always behaves. In the book, Neanderthals are portrayed in the novel as peaceful, in contrast to the more aggressive Homo sapiens and are at the point of dying out. Now I could see how true that was; over and over, we've killed each other just as the new speces kills out the old. 

Exercise; Find your CET.

What do you believe your own CET might be? Remeber, the truth will grow with the writing of the story, so if you are still planning it out, don’t allow any attempt to be written in stone–– the time to finalize what your story is deeply about is when you have finished at least a single draft. But you can still have a go at developing something, because sometimes, isolating the emotional truth in your story can make the writing of it really zing; once you know what this story means to the world, you can drive towards a satisfying conclusion.

You can bear your themes, characters and plot structure in mind when you to sum up your novel, but be sure the CET is an entirely abstract sentence stating the core values of the book – something objective, not personal – it shouldn’t talk about characters or plot or be at all subjective. 

Writing your CET is amazingly revealing and can help whittle all those disparate thoughts down to a single essence. If often helps open and lift your narrative, so you can write from your heart. This is bound up with the ‘passion’ I spoke about above. Being passionate about your work will help tighten and bind it. But to create a narrative that really pulls the reader into the text and along the entirety of it, you need to let them see the ‘point’ of what you are writing, so that they understand why they should continue to read.

You can also read about the symbols that help form your themes in Kitchen Table Writers click on the links; 

Symbolism in Writing - The Tree

Symbolism in Writing - The Snake

Symbolism in Writing - The Chair

Symbolism in Writing - The Sea

Symbolism in Writing – The Sun

The Absent Heart by Ali Bacon

I've just finished the most marvellous book. What genre would I put it in? Victorian  fiction? Feminist historical novel? Historical romance? Biographical fiction? None of these bland categories do this wonderful book justice. 

The Absent Heart blends elements of fiction with the real-life events and experiences of historical figures. It's based on the lives of three real people, who were linked––in fact, glued––together; the mercurial Robert Louis Stevenson, the beautiful Frances Sitwell and the introverted literary critic, Sidney Colvin. 

Frances Sitwell was an author and article writer, a woman who earned her own living. In her time she was known as…a spirited and intellectual woman, a remarkable personality … the soul of honour, discretion and sympathy … with rare insight into the developments of life’s problems. But Frances was viewed  by Victorian era’s puritanical and ‘polite’ society as rather 'loose'; she had a circle of male friends, and a partner of 35 years whom she did not marry until she was 63.

She'd known Sidney Colvin since she was struggling to extracate herself from her brutal, abusive husband. He had promised himself to her, but divorce was out of the question, and Sidney had money worries. By the time she met Stevenson, she was separated from her vicar husband and staying with her two young boys at her friend's house. It was there she met the very young Stevenson, a raw but vital talent. Frances introduced him to Colvin, who helped him get his writing established and remained his friend until the end of Stevenson's short life. In fact, it's possible the Sidney Colvin was as in love with the flamboyant young writer as Frances was.

It is clear that RLS fell deeply in love with Frances, but she had already promised herself to Colvin. Even so, they met and corresponded throughout his life. She had asked him to burn her letters to him, but she kept all his to her. They are now housed in the National Library of Scotland.

Ali Bacon took those 100s of letters and poured through them, creating a novel out of previously disregarded possiblilities. She has used creative, poetic liberity to write narrative, dialogue, and characterization, filling in gaps and imagining the inner thoughts and emotions of these three lives. This has allowed her to provide a more intimate and nuanced portrait of the historical figures, allowing readers to gain a deeper understanding of the lives, motivationsof all three, and the impact on the world of Robert Louis Stevenson.  

Many biographies have been written about this extrordinary Scottish man of letters, but The Absent Heart offers a clarity which explains some of the hidden puzzlements the writer's life. However, there are three people in this book and Bacon has illuminated the human experience of all of them, searching behind the facts of history. The work she's achieved here is at the same time a massive academic feat, and a scintilating and absorbing piece of fiction.

Ali Bacon was born and brought up in Scotland, and gained her degree from St Andrews University. She now lives near Bristol, but her writing remains influenced by her Scottish roots. After publishing  In the Blink of an Eye ( listed in the ASLS best Scottish books), she turned her attention to The Absent Heart through a family connection to this bebuiling 19th century three-way relationship. She says, 'My maternal great great uncle, Charles Lowe, knew Robert Louis Stevenson at university.'

That was all the start she needed!

Read my interview with Ali Bacon here; https://kitchentablewriters.blogspot.com/2024/08/an-interview-with-author-ali-bacon.html