Emotion and writing
I need help big time! I wrote a portfolio piece in school and gave the second draft to my teacher.Well, she gave it back to me and said my writing was pedantic and unemotional. THat's the problem. I usually don't show or recognize my emotions (it's possibly common among aspies!), so I don't know how to put any emotions into the writing. How do I show emotion into my writing? Also, is showing emotions into your writing hard for you?
gina-ghettoprincess
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Letting emotions out through writing and music have always been fluent for me (maybe the only thing too lol). Of course you still feel emotions, you just might express them differently than most people (I'm like that too). When you feel emotional about something focus on that one feeling, and let it out in words. Even if it's abstract writing, or maybe a short poem. Remember in poems, good ones don't have to have rhyming.
v0lume worte:
I do show my emotions differently than most people. I usually get overexcited if I read a book or manga or watch an anime show about a fight, dramatic scene, or even dialogue. I also get overemotional when it comes to music. But when it comes to people my emotions usually never show.
I don't know. Maybe it's just the way how NTs and Aspies write their papers. I heard that while NTs care more about their characters and their character's emotions, aspies and auties care about objects, settings, ideas, and events. I know that's definately true for me. I'm overly detailed on those things that aspies and auties care about. I guess the emotions come from the object, places, and events. Then again, now that I think about it, my teacher is NT (not to say that's a bad thing.)
Do you show more detail to settings, objects, ideas, and events more than characters?
gina-ghettoprincess
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Joined: 8 Nov 2008
Age: 31
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,669
Location: The Town That Time Forgot (UK)
If you find objects, settings, etc easier to describe than characters, try using that to help show what the character is like. For example, if a character is compulsively organised, describing their home could put that point forward.
_________________
'El reloj, no avanza
y yo quiero ir a verte,
La clase, no acaba
y es como un semestre"
Ditto. That's the closest that I have been able to come.
I hope you like a long detailed piece of work:
Ride to Illogical World
By
DeUndrae Perry
I hate vacations. Every day I go on a vacation, I have to do something illogical for the family. Besides, I hate leaving my house; it is my sanctuary. Along these trips was the one to Disney World. Disney World, while huge is divided up into sections. Wherever section you want to go is up to you, but the section I will tell you about is the MGM Studios, otherwise known as the movie section.
Their pride exalting them, my family—some people in MGM Studios would tell you that my family grinned and the hearts beat fervently— treaded along the path to the Tower of Terror one of the rides of the MGM Studios. As I gazed at them flailing their arms with joy, gazed at them singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” my lips dropped into a frown, and my eyebrows descended in an inward angle. Heat surfaced to my cheeks progressively, and I huffed while my hands and body shook from the air, chilly yet relaxing to the skin.
Why am I always stuck with the stupid rides? I will admit: I hate rides. Especially the fast ones. To start, the way the crowd amuses itself to these beasts and dinosaurs seem illogical to me. How can they find that entertaining whether if the ride is fast of slow or whether if the ride is wooden or metal? I usually do not go on rides, but my family. My Cousin? Sometimes, I loathe this world for the events it bestows to me and for the farcical yet paltry activities, it provides for humanity.
“Come on DeUndrae! Are you too scared to go in?” said a voice.
I broke away from my trance and turned my head towards the direction of the voice, only seeing Charlie in the middle of the path, his shirt—green and blue—flowing with the wind. He frowned at me. Whatever expression he tries to make I could not identify; however, by the tone of his voice, one could describe him as a worrying youth, but to me, he seemed annoyed for being delayed. What an annoying face he made, scrunched like a prune and all. I hate that face.
Irked by Charlie, I gave a cold stare at him, my eyes dialing to his. My hands—frigid because of the cold yet numb because of the nerves having no feeling—clenched into a fist, the acrimonious words fomenting them. My eyebrows formed and inward angle the instant my cheeks puffed and my teeth clamped together. “No I’m not!
”
“Then come on!” Charlie demanded. “I want to go before the Fantasmic show tonight. You know how I feel when I’m late for an event.”
What he said stunned me. Why does he always has the advantage over me as if he strategized the events three—no, four—steps ahead of me? How he does that annoys me; however, I admire him for it. I can at least tell you that.
I—you could probably notice my anger building up against him—glanced at the Tower of Terror then back at him. I hate rides; however, the way he said it, the way those words poked my brain forced me to hang my head down. The force of the words lifted my eyebrows, once descending inwardly, and my eyes rolled downwards, so the only thing I could see was the top part of my shoes. Yet, no one expected me (it may have taken a few minutes) to move, to lift my head, to unclench my fist, and to do one action: smile.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go with you for you. But don’t think I’ll do this again.”
Charlie flailed his arms in the air and jumped up cheering himself. “Well, then lets go! We don’t want Aunt Brenda and Uncle Henry waiting.”
We ambled along the path for the ride. As we went closer to the Tower of Terror, its gate, black yet arch-like, engulfed us.
“Mom! Dad!” I yelled. “Where are you?” I looked to the left, then to the right, but both mom and dad were not there.
“DeUndrae, Charlie, we’re over here!” said a deep voice. By the tone of the voice I could tell it belonged to dad, so Charlie and I ran towards the next room (I followed the light towards the next room.)
The instant we entered the room I gazed at the infrastructure. Railing trailed down from where we were to the end of the next door across from us. Rusting-like for special effects, the pipes clanged onto the walls. Many people—tall and short, large and then—lined up for the ride. Among them were my parents.
Charlie and I politely passed through the people, eventually getting to mom and dad, who were the sixth and seventh people in line.
“Where have you both been?” asked mom.
“Sorry,” I said, “but we had a little affair.”
“Well, next time could you please go when we say go.”
I sulked in shame, but we moved up the line progressively, so I ceased my sulking. We were finally next in line.
“How many people are riding with you?” the ride conductor asked.
“Four,” said my dad.
“All right then! On to your seats!” Moreover, with that the ride conductor swung his arms towards the door, which I translated as “go on.”
Charlie walked towards the door first since he was the youngest. “We finally get to ride!” Charlie shouted.
I went in next. “The ride must not be that bad, I said to myself; however, when I entered the door I caught a glimpse of what the ride was. To start, eight rows of four chairs formed constituted the Tower of Terror. I saw bar handles, yes; however, glancing upwards to see a tall shaft (and I mean tall) intrigued me the most. “I wonder what it could be used for.”
“Stop talking to yourself DeUndrae and get up here,” Charlie demanded.
My curiosity waning, I glanced at Charlie, who sat on the sixth row. I climbed towards the seats and sat next to him. Eventually my parents came and sat next to us, and after them came the other people. They filled all the seats.
“Everyone, put down your bar handles,” the ride conductor announced. We put our bar handles down, but the conductor, tall and skinny, checked them to make sure we put the handlebars correctly. Then he went out and closed the door.
Slowly we went up. Eventually, the ride raised us to the apex. I, a person who usually show no emotions, started to analyze the situation. “Okay, it goes to the top then stops. What could possibly happen?”
Then it happened. To start, the ride went bam. As I lifted my head, I felt the pressure pressing against my body and saw the roof shrinking. The howls of the people—including my parents—tunneled through my ear hurting my head. Then I bounced forward as the seats jerked us. The ride came to a stop.
Wide-eyed, we sat at the bottom for a few seconds. As I had a chance to catch breath, the seats launched us into the air with great speed and force, great enough that my shirt flapped. The roof grew larger by the second, and the participants screamed again.
“Why do they scream?” I asked Charlie.
Charlie looked at me; however, he shrugged his shoulders. I guess he did not know either.
Suddenly the ride came to a stop. I thought the cessation would last for five seconds at least. Wrong was I, for just as soon as the ride stopped, it dropped again, making me felt the force and the speed of the ride. I could not take anymore of this illogical practice, but thank God it stooped after we dropped to the bottom.
“Have a nice day, and I hope you enjoyed the ride!” A voice from the announcer box said.
Our handlebars lifted like a sloth, which I found irritating, yet I showed my patience towards it. I pulled my shirt down, and following the other people, my family exited through the door and ended at the MGM Studios again.
Sure, I may never want to ride something illogical as that again, and I might hate them; however, for my family I will do anything for them. Even the most illogical activity.
gina-ghettoprincess
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Joined: 8 Nov 2008
Age: 31
Gender: Female
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Location: The Town That Time Forgot (UK)
I don't know what your teacher saw wrong with that, I thought it was good.
I've been to MGM Studios as well, but I didn't go on Terror Towers. I don't like that sort of ride. I wanted to go on the Aerosmith ride, but my brother wimped out.
_________________
'El reloj, no avanza
y yo quiero ir a verte,
La clase, no acaba
y es como un semestre"
I know it's good now. my friend told me that I shouldn't change my writing style just for the sake of impressing someone.
I don't know. My teacher is a hyperactive, feeling type of person. I did use emotions in it, but i guess it was autistic emotions. Neurotypicals want to feel neurotypical emotions. If they see a piece written by autistic and don't know it, they just see the piece as unemotional.
I think that we, on the other hand, just talk and write for the sake of information. We focus on the details but not the emotions; therefore our writing seems pedantic. We don't care about emotions as much as neurotypicals do, we focus on information and the way how it presents itself, if you know what I mean.
They say most people recognize characters the most. Not so with me. I remember the plot or setting or object after reading something. When I visualize something, I usually see an event happening. I see the character, but I'm more focused on the event and setting. When it comes to characters I just don't feel them. It's like their telling me their story in real life, and since I relate to objects, settings, and events more than characters I usually find them unappealing. I mean, I can read. it's just that I read for the plot, settings, and objects rather than characters.
I think autistic writing is just a different writing style.
Not that I'm an expert in any way, the only (minor) problem I saw was that you used a lot of half-dollar words, where a nickel one would do. Maybe something like this...
Your version
I hate vacations. Every day I go on a vacation, I have to do something illogical for the family. Besides, I hate leaving my house; it is my sanctuary. Along these trips was the one to Disney World. Disney World, while huge is divided up into sections. Wherever section you want to go is up to you, but the section I will tell you about is the MGM Studios, otherwise known as the movie section.
could be something like...
I hate vacations. I don't even like leaving the house, it's my home, and my castle. It seems I spend a lot of my time doing unnecessary work for my family, which is bad enough. But vacations are even worse.
One trip that comes to mind was Disney World. It's a huge theme park, divided into sections. Each section is different in it's own way, but my least favorite was the MGM studios, the movie section.
Now the English I was taught as a youth is probably a lot different than what you're being taught now, but here's how I was taught to do it.
A paragraph is an idea. The first sentence is the topic sentence. Each successive sentence elaborates on the first sentence.
Then if you have another idea, you create another paragraph. I used the last sentence to link to the next one. This creates a flow that pulls the reader along from one paragraph to the next.
Hopefully, the first reworked sentence conveys why you don't like vacations. The third leads to the next sentence. One problem I see in my own writing was using the same adverb more than once in a paragraph; it's a minor thing, but I wind up using a lot of synonyms to provide variety.
If you want, take this and show it to your teacher. He's welcome to boil, fry, or burn me to a crisp; because you're never to old to learn something.
