Maximum Emotion
I have run into a little problem outlining an upcoming book. It is the fourth book in the series, and along the way, I have subjected the main character to every possible situation my bonkers mind can dream up.
The problem occurred when I got to a scene where the main character would be sparring with mixed martial arts fighters. The dialogue I envisioned went, “This is the most frightening thing ever!” But was it? The answer is a major no, because in the second chapter of the first book, I forced my character to murder an innocent person. That eleven out of eleven moment is so much worse than an event where the character can simply ask the MMA fighters to stop sparring. This logic made my bold boast read all wrong. Still, I need to give my readers something to show what the character was feeling.
The way I solve these kinds of problems is to take a walk. So, I went for a stroll around my neighborhood and came up with a plan. Since this is a first-person book, my character would have a chat with his readers. He would explain that while he had many scary prior experiences, at that moment, he was still as frightened as is humanly possible.
This solution opened a new door, requiring more thought. I concluded that a fictional character has a maximum emotional level. (Yes, there is the ultimate level where things get so bad that they faint, but I never liked using that literary technique.) This makes some sense because humans are analog. Meaning that our emotions do not have strictly defined numbers, and our events are not recorded in digital files. Plus, we spend most of our time at the normal level, with little extreme emotional experience. Thus, a minor out-of-the-ordinary experience feels like a major one. So, it would seem that from a written description perspective, humans also have a maximum emotional level.
However, from a writer’s perspective, I could have set everything up to make this scene work. “Wow, B was a lot worse than A.” Later, “Wow, C was a lot worse than B.” The necessary tools to explain the circumstances would come from a thesaurus. Meaning that A dialogue and descriptions would have words like “inconvenience” or “disappointing.” While B would have words like “troubling” or “harsh.” And C would have words like “deplorable” or sadistic.”
The problem is that A reads boring, and I did not set anything up. Readers want to be punched up from page one. Which is why, in the second chapter of my first book, I used every exciting word, feeling, and description my keyboard could jam into each sentence. And I upped my game as much as I could in the next books, which led to the fourth-book problem.
Does this matter? Readers are self-aware, meaning that they know that authors need to push the limits. So, it seems safe to ignore the fact that this is the hundredth instance of a frightened character. After all, comic book characters like Superman face world-ending problems on nearly every page.
The thing is that I am actually applying a trick. I want readers to know that I know this, and they know this, but I want them to ignore that I know what they know. And this is an open trick, which makes it honest. Plus, the character is going to be frightened a bunch of times after that point in the book. My goal is to give the reader a moment to ponder. The only issue is that I can use this trick only once because they catch on quickly.
Is it necessary to include this trick? When I got to this outline section, my inner voice was yelling, “You have done this over-the-top utterance too many times! You need a reset.”
I am describing something that I have touched on before, Whedonspeak, which is “hit the audience with everything you have in every scene.” The problem is that readers and moviegoers get tired of Whedonspeak, which was the source of my inner voice. Meaning I am aware that readers are getting more sophisticated. And saying “I am frightened to the max” over and over gets old. So, I listened to my inner voice and pivoted.
I am glad that I identified the issue at the outline stage, and hopefully, this side chat with readers will work. Unfortunately, at the pace I am going, releasing this trick into the wild is at least two years away.
You’re the best -Bill
January 14, 2026
The problem occurred when I got to a scene where the main character would be sparring with mixed martial arts fighters. The dialogue I envisioned went, “This is the most frightening thing ever!” But was it? The answer is a major no, because in the second chapter of the first book, I forced my character to murder an innocent person. That eleven out of eleven moment is so much worse than an event where the character can simply ask the MMA fighters to stop sparring. This logic made my bold boast read all wrong. Still, I need to give my readers something to show what the character was feeling.
The way I solve these kinds of problems is to take a walk. So, I went for a stroll around my neighborhood and came up with a plan. Since this is a first-person book, my character would have a chat with his readers. He would explain that while he had many scary prior experiences, at that moment, he was still as frightened as is humanly possible.
This solution opened a new door, requiring more thought. I concluded that a fictional character has a maximum emotional level. (Yes, there is the ultimate level where things get so bad that they faint, but I never liked using that literary technique.) This makes some sense because humans are analog. Meaning that our emotions do not have strictly defined numbers, and our events are not recorded in digital files. Plus, we spend most of our time at the normal level, with little extreme emotional experience. Thus, a minor out-of-the-ordinary experience feels like a major one. So, it would seem that from a written description perspective, humans also have a maximum emotional level.
However, from a writer’s perspective, I could have set everything up to make this scene work. “Wow, B was a lot worse than A.” Later, “Wow, C was a lot worse than B.” The necessary tools to explain the circumstances would come from a thesaurus. Meaning that A dialogue and descriptions would have words like “inconvenience” or “disappointing.” While B would have words like “troubling” or “harsh.” And C would have words like “deplorable” or sadistic.”
The problem is that A reads boring, and I did not set anything up. Readers want to be punched up from page one. Which is why, in the second chapter of my first book, I used every exciting word, feeling, and description my keyboard could jam into each sentence. And I upped my game as much as I could in the next books, which led to the fourth-book problem.
Does this matter? Readers are self-aware, meaning that they know that authors need to push the limits. So, it seems safe to ignore the fact that this is the hundredth instance of a frightened character. After all, comic book characters like Superman face world-ending problems on nearly every page.
The thing is that I am actually applying a trick. I want readers to know that I know this, and they know this, but I want them to ignore that I know what they know. And this is an open trick, which makes it honest. Plus, the character is going to be frightened a bunch of times after that point in the book. My goal is to give the reader a moment to ponder. The only issue is that I can use this trick only once because they catch on quickly.
Is it necessary to include this trick? When I got to this outline section, my inner voice was yelling, “You have done this over-the-top utterance too many times! You need a reset.”
I am describing something that I have touched on before, Whedonspeak, which is “hit the audience with everything you have in every scene.” The problem is that readers and moviegoers get tired of Whedonspeak, which was the source of my inner voice. Meaning I am aware that readers are getting more sophisticated. And saying “I am frightened to the max” over and over gets old. So, I listened to my inner voice and pivoted.
I am glad that I identified the issue at the outline stage, and hopefully, this side chat with readers will work. Unfortunately, at the pace I am going, releasing this trick into the wild is at least two years away.
You’re the best -Bill
January 14, 2026
