Tearjerking and you

I don't try to write pathos very often in my works. Besides the pathological fear of narm I apparently share with some others in this thread, I don't actually approve of authors trying to tug the heartstrings - I'm a decidedly unsentimental person and I don't really care for sentimentality. A lot of what people on this site list as actual Tear Jerkers didn't affect me that much, and in fact I can't remember crying at a fictional work for as long as my age has been in the double-digits.

Edit: This probably goes for Crowning Moments Of Heartwarming as well. I expect that, in the extremely unlikely event that I am ever published and have a page written about my works on TV Tropes, the "Heartwarming" namespace for my work(s) would be considerably smaller then the "Funny" and "Awesome".

edited 28th Jun '11 1:31:13 PM by nrjxll

I am one of the few people I know who immensely disliked Titanic for that very reason, I just kept imagining a bunch of writers in a room with a checklist going, 'OK, now what do we do to make 'em cry?' It was all very manipulative to me.

edited 28th Jun '11 1:12:35 PM by maglorius

I wrote a story and it has pictures! Adorable Desolation

as opposed to trying to make them laugh or make them scared?

Easy to pull off. There are some things that evoke an instant tear. Say, POV character being forced to Mercy Kill a too-mangled-for-repair brother in arms after a battle. Or carefully presented relationship breakdowns. Loss, grief, and general misery. Seeing somebody's life crumbling...

If you are sorta terse but brutally honest when describing such scenes with their grit'n'grime, you get good Tear Jerkers.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Usually if I want a tearjerking scene in a plot, I make sure that enough of the plot is structured around it that it's very significant. Otherwise, I really don't know how to make a tearjerk scene, as in, it might be sad but if it's not important I don't think the reader will empathise enough.

I find that it is very unreliable if you purposefully try to write Tear Jerker ' s. What to one is a tearjerker is another (wo)mans narm.

Although that all might have to do with me not caring about my audience at all and just writing what I like.

'It's gonna rain!'

what if what i like is tearjerkers/

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

What I think is a good method is making it a fridge Tear Jerker, For example, make one character a Jerk Jock, so much of a jerk that the audience is supposed to cheers when he gets a horribly killed. Then, reveal that he was in fact a Jerkass Woobie, and that they were happy when the woobie died.

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

^ I disagree. I don't like being tricked into a tearjerker. I resent being tricked by an author, 97 times out of 100.

Which is really what makes the question in the second post so difficult to answer; different people find different things effective and satisfying as tearjerkers.

edited 3rd Jul '11 7:49:56 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

And then there are readers that a Tearjerker can't be sprung on for some reason, like me. At best, I felt a feeling of dread in such a situation, but a book never brought me to tears—yet.

^^ Agreed. There is nothing more obvious a cop out than pulling the "He was actually a pretty good guy roughed up by the cruelty of the world" Retcon. It cheapens everything.

Better to have a character die an asshole than try to Retcon him that way.

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

Is it really a Retcon if it's planned from the start?

edited 3rd Jul '11 8:49:52 PM by dontcallmewave

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

If it reads like a retcon, the reader is likely to treat it like one.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

The best tearjerkers, I think, are when the reader wants to shout "that's just not fair!" while maintaining their immersion. It's when a loved character dies too soon, when two lovers are separated, or when someone's forced to break their morals. But the writer can't show his hand - it needs to be completely organic, and the forces leading up to those events must be completely character-driven. Death isn't sad because it's death. Death is sad because the dying person's friends, lovers, and family will never see them again: and if it's done right, the reader is sad because ze will never see the character again.

It's hard to do that kind of thing effectively, without having the reader call the author out. I prefer to imply my tearjerking moments, and when I include them I use as much subtlety as possible. Telling the reader "feel sad now" will always collapse your tearjerker moment.

"Ze"?

^^ That's pretty much how I feel, as well. Don't trick me into it. Don't force me into it. Don't tell me "Cry now, you heartless bitch." Lead me into it.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

That's what I meant, as well. I don't approve of obvious tugs on the heartstrings or deliberate pathos: just give the readers the facts, and let them decide whether or not they're going to cry. As I said, I personally don't even aim for that much - but if you want to write something genuinely sad, that's the way to do it.

@nrjxll: "Ze" and "hir" are gender-neutral pronouns. They aren't in common usage yet, but they're pretty useful.

Hadn't heard of "ze" before. I just write s/he normally (I also like "e" from Orion's Arm, but it always looks weird in practice).

I've had a number of instances in my writing where I've burst into tears because it's sad or moving. I don't go all out to make tearjerkers or put in situations where something tragic happens and more often than not the characters make the moments themselves - and it's usually something beautiful - like an epiphany or the character having a crowning moment of something.

I do like my stories to get to the point that they evoke emotional responses - I feel we're supposed to get so enmeshed in the characters that we feel their joys, triumphs, disappointments and sorrows etc.

Nuh uh. I've read/watched more narmy Mercy Kills than I can shake a stick at. I've also read some very effective ones. It's all in the execution; the more you treat it like a surefire tearjerker formula, the less likely it will actually work that way.

^ Bingo.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.