A Writer-Mama's Emotional Intelligence

My 20 month old daughter had her first nightmare two nights ago. She woke up at 2 a.m. crying in a way we never heard her cry before, so we went to check on her. When I picked her up she was trembling and couldn't stop crying. Finally after an hour of consoling her, she drifted back to sleep. But all day yesterday she was upset and during the night she tossed and turned and shouted out in her sleep "bye-bye" (something she says when she's upset).

I wish she could talk more, so she could explain to me what frightens her and so I could help her understand that it is just a dream. My daughter's emotions are easily read like any toddler, but understanding the source of them isn't as easy.

As a writer-mama learning about my daughter's emotions, I have begun to observe others for the source of their emotions. We often note the actions, dialogue, and body language of people around us to clue us in to how they are feeling, but the cause of their emotions isn't as easy to determine. The characters we create in our writing express their emotions in the same way, except we have an understanding of the source of their emotions. Whether or not we choose to inform the reader of the cause of certain emotions directly or indirectly is a decision each writer must make.

When we read books together, my daughter learns about emotions directly from the books. But as young adults and adults, our emotions become quite complex with many factors contributing to how we feel. Our books reflect this web of cause-effect relationship in regards to emotions. The writer takes this into account when writing about the characters as well as the plot and setting. Perhaps over time writers develop a higher level of emotional intelligence by observing and questioning the emotional cause-effect relationship of the people around us as well as our characters.

My observations have taught me that we certainly can't or shouldn't generalize a person's emotional response based on their personality type. The same holds true for the characters we write about in our stories. To avoid creating a character with a cliched emotional center, writers may consider how the character's emotions are influenced by the different stages of a person's life, unique interactions with people that occur each day, and the changes happening in the person's world on a personal level as well as in the community and society. How we respond to one stimulus today may differ from our response tomorrow.

I hope today will be a happier day for my daughter since she has many years ahead of her that hold in store different emotions and causes for these emotions. I wish I could protect her and eliminate all future nightmares, but hopefully she'll discover one day that reading books may help her to understand her emotions and those of others in her life.