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NEW PARIS BOOK IN PROGRESS IN 2024: GLAD, MAD AND SAD – Blog  27

My next book is in progress ...

MARTINA NICOLLS

Nov 23

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Glad, mad and sad – emotions, emotions, emotions! In every novel, there are characters full of emotions. How are characters’ emotions written on the page? What emotions does an author want readers to feel – blissfully happy and excited for a character, or seething and reeling that a character is not doing what is expected, or tearful in solidarity at a character’s demise?

Should a character’s emotions be in order, progressive, climactic? In my upcoming Paris book, will my main character be glad then mad then sad; or mad then sad then glad? Or maybe sad then mad then glad? Does mad mean angry, enraged, irate or does it mean depressed, crazy, off-the-wall?

Are there fictional role models for my glad, mad, and sad emotional characters? Like:–

Blind optimistic glad like Eleanor Porter’s Pollyanna, or cheerfully glad like Lucy Montgomery’s Ann of Green Gables, or stoically glad like Sally in Jon Brittain’s A Super Happy Story?

Crazy mad like Lady Macbeth in a Shakespearean drama, or traumatized mad like Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, or feigning mad like Randle McMurphy in Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest?

Volatile mad like Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones, or villainous mad like Darth Vader in Star Wars, or boiling mad like Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter?

Tormented sad like Leah Clearwater in the Twilight series, or loner sad like Lee Chandler in Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea, or profound sad like Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye?

Does there need to be a character with opposing emotions to balance the novel? What is the opposite of glad? Is sad the opposite of glad, or is it melancholic, dismayed, or broken-hearted? What is the opposite of sad? Is it joyous or jubilant or jocular? What is the opposite of mad? Is it friendly, affable, easy-going or rational, sane, and reasonable?

How much emotion should be conveyed to readers without a character being too emotional or over-emotional or not emotional enough or too bland? In reality, isn’t life a roller-coaster of emotions? Ups and downs, hairy and scary, bilious and bubbly, over-whelmed and under-whelmed, hey-ho and ho-hum, or as high as the Eiffel Tower and as low as the Rhone river delta. Yes, Paris is not all croissants and cassoulet. But that’s life! … c’est la vie!