Hey, it's been a long time hasn't it? Sorry, I was gone for so long, but I'm back and I have some advice I wanted to share. Let me give you some background information. I've been working on a story for a while. I had been working on coming up with the outline of the whole story. I've been learning a lot from writing this story. Something that I recently came up with was the climax. I didn't necessarily mean to make an emotional climax, but after writing it out I realized it was actually pretty sad. I'll be using my story and my experience writing it as an example in this chapter. Since I'll be doing that, I kinda need to give a short summary of the story. You can skip this if you want, but you might not understand the rest of the chapter if you do. Go ahead and jump to the sub-heading "The Two Part Process", if you want to skip the summary.
The Story
My story doesn't have a name yet, I've just been calling it Wally's Story. The main character is a boy named Wally. Who would have guessed? Wally is thirteen and has lived in the foster care system his whole life. In present time he is living with his foster mom, Kelly. He had recently moved in with her after his previous foster family couldn't take care of him anymore. Presently, Wally and his foster mom have moved into a suburban house near a city. Here, Wally is encouraged to try to make friends at school. He hadn't really ever had friends, but deep down he really wants friends. Luckily Wally does manage to meet three friends at school. One of his friends is a sort of child genius and is good at engineering specifically. He has these ear buds that can actually give people powers. With these ear bud Wally's friends had been sort of like vigilantes in the nearby city that is kinda overrun by gangsters and monsters. That's not a typo, I mean actual monsters. Wally meets a raccoon who simply goes by, Raccoon, and other monsters who aren't as bad as they seem. However, a famous engineer, known as Xavier, who is local to the city is paid by some gangsters to steal the ear buds for them. Some random background info, Xavier has two sons. Well he has one son, his other "son" is a robot he made that calls him dad. Wally and his friends try to avoid the tricks Xavier uses to try to steal the ear buds. Unfortunately Xavier does eventually manage to steal them and then Wally and his friends need to get them back before he hands them over to the city gangsters. Near the end of the story the gangsters do get a hold of the buds and attempt to rob a mall.
The Two Part Process
Oof, that was a lot to write. Now that I'm done with the summary, it's time to talk about your stories. How can you make them emotional? Well, there's two parts to this process. The first part I'll call the tragedy, and the second part is the climax. For each part I'll use my story to give an example of how these things will help make your story emotional.
Part I: The tragedy
I was thinking about the climax of my story recently. I was trying to figure out what would happen, and how Wally would change at the climax. One day I was really thinking about it and I finally got an idea for how the climax would go. Wally gets to Xavier's tower with his friends. They are ready to try to get their power buds back. They all split up to try to locate the power buds. Wally manages to find them and radios his friends to let them know he had them. However, his friends had been caught by Xavier's robot son. He hears what Wally says over the radio and begins going after him. Wally looks for an exit where he can leave discreetly. However he is caught and cornered by Xavier's other son. Xavier arrived and threatens to get Wally's friends thrown in jail for multiple illegal activities. Wally is forced to give Xavier the power buds to protect his friends. Then, to ensure Wally and his friends go their separate ways, Xavier tells Wally to tell his friends that he accepted money in exchange for giving the power buds back to Xavier. This would make his friends think Wally had betrayed them. And that's exactly what happens, his friends meet him outside the tower having been kicked out. He is forced to tell them that he accepted money in exchange for the power buds. They are furious with him and leave him there on the street as they all go home, disheartened. Wally leaves too, going to his house before falling in bed and falling asleep in tears.
This is the low point for Wally. It's the part right before the climax, when everything seems terrible and hopeless. Honestly, by itself, it makes me super sad because Wally is such a good kid and has always tried to be a good person, but the villains have absolutely no concern for him. And even his friends leave him, leaving him almost completely alone.
This low point in the protagonist's life is the first part to making your audience emotional. It's when your protagonist is faced with a hopeless situation. An almost ironic tragedy that strikes right before the climax, near the end of the story. It almost makes people think that this is the end. Because everything is so horrible how could the characters come back from this? How could the ending be good?
So... you may be asking, "That was the first part of making my audience emotional. What's the second part?" Well, yes. This is only the beginning. The second part of making your audience emotional is the climax of your story. This is the part where things are put right. When the protagonist begins to resolve the conflict.
Part II: The Climax
The climax in my story starts with Wally waking up the following day. He still feels bad about yesterday and everything that happened. He hears a knock at his window and it's Raccoon. Raccoon doesn't talk throughout the story, but he still manages to communicate with Wally. He blows hot air on the window and draws a picture of two people talking. Wally doesn't quite understand at first, but then realizes he's telling him to go talk to his foster mom. So, that's what he does. He talks to his foster mom about what happened with him and his friends. She listens to him then tells him that some people come and go out of life, but people who really care about him will always be there for him. She then tells him all there is for him to do is apologize and see how his friends react. She then begins explaining how it's not like he can reverse the situation about the power buds being lost. Wally realizes his foster mom is very right, but she probably doesn't understand the entirety of the situation. Wally hugs his foster mom and then leaves the house. He rushes to stop the gangsters who are now in possession of the power buds. And prepares to meet his friends and apologize to them.
This is the climax. The conflict is about to be confronted and resolved. It is such a great contrast from what was going on just a day ago. Wally is full of optimism and knows that he's not alone. He's prepared to face the conflict. The story has turned in a full 360. It's just so awe-inspiring and almost tear jerking because of the way things changed and the way the character has grown. Now... the ending can finally be good. Yay.
I really wish I could go into further detail about my story, but I don't want to just advertise my story in this chapter. I want to help other people learn how to write. I'm sure I'll go into further detail about it later on as I work on more chapters of The Book Club. However, for today I'll leave you with this, one of the things I learned as I was working on my story.
Conclusion
Well, it's the end of this chapter. I hope you were able to get something out of this. Emotional stories are pretty hard to write. I find it especially hard to write stories similar to Pixar. Their stories are so well put together, and emotional, and I could only try to make a story just as good. Hopefully you can too! Try your best and work hard. I believe in you!
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