Love, War, and the Dramatic: How and Why to Avoid Sentimentality in Writing

Emotion is at the heart of all fiction. That is a cliché. It is a sentimental statement that utilizes an overused metaphor—the heart—to draw a conclusion for the reader. It lacks context and it doesn’t allow for judgement or deliberation. It assumes what is true for the writer is true for everyone.

As a novice writer, I was often tempted to over dramatize scenes of love, hate, death, and tragedy. After all, it is easy to tell the reader what a character feels. It is easy to hype a scene that involves a passionate response or action. A battle, a bomb, a birth, a death, an argument, a divorce, a marriage, heartbreak, joy . . . all of these events and circumstances are dramatic. But to write that a bomb is loud or that a death is tragic, does not effectively immerse readers in the drama of a story or the feelings of its characters. Writers, indeed, want their readers to be immersed in dramatic scenes—to feel the joy and the heartache along with their characters. But, to do that, the writer must avoid sentimentality. 

Something is sentimental when it exaggerates a feeling and becomes falsely emotional or inauthentic. This often happens when a writer relies on an assumed emotional response from a reader by, for instance, describing a marriage as happy or a funeral as sad. Not all marriages are happy and not all funerals are sad, and each will be viewed differently from different perspectives. 

To say you love someone and that you always want to be with them and that their eyes shine like the moon and their smile glows like the sun, does not elicit an emotional response from readers. It does not provide a context for understanding how or why you love that person. It doesn’t allow the reader to draw their own conclusion.   

William Shakespeare, as noted by Alice LaPlante in The Making of a Story, provides an excellent example of the frivolousness of overly sentimental writing in Sonnet 130. 

William Shakespeare was a master at avoiding the sentimental. Image from Wikimedia Commons

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Writing dramatic scenes requires hard work and the response must be earned. The writer must not tell the reader what to feel or even what the character feels. Instead, the writer must provide the necessary details and context to immerse the reader, allowing the reader to decipher for him/herself what she/he feels. And, if the writer has effectively developed their character, the reader will feel what the character feels. 

Therefore, if your character is getting married, it is not enough to say he’d never felt so happy in all his life. First, the writer must have developed the character by showing the reader the dozens of break-ups he’d experienced, all of his best-friends' weddings when he was the best man, and the time he was left at the altar . . . you get the point. Then, in describing the wedding, the writer must provide the details, not the emotions. The writer must describe the pride in the face of the character’s parents, the abundance of flowers, the overcrowded chapel, the moment when everyone’s heads turn while the organist starts playing “Here Comes the Bride”, and so on. If the writer provides all of this context and detail, the reader will be there with the character and will feel what the character feels.   

A fantastic example of writing a dramatic scene while avoiding sentimentality, can be seen in the prologue to Amy Harmon’s Where the Lost Wonder. In these opening scenes, the main character Naomi and her family are traveling to California along the Oregon Trail in 1853. While Naomi is holding her baby brother, and waiting for her family to fix a broken wagon wheel, the party is attacked and killed by what are described as Indians. Naomi and her baby brother survive, but are taken captive. I can think of nothing more dramatic. Read the scene, observing how the author provides contextual details without explicitly describing what the main character feels. Notice how the experience is clear without relying on clichés or overly dramatic writing. 

Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon

Pa pounds Mr. Bingham on the back, whooping, clearly relieved for him, relieved for poor Elsie. Someone whoops, and I am not alarmed, rapt as I am in the wriggling babe in my lap and thoughts of the babe just come into the world. I assume it’s Webb or Will celebrating too. As quickly as my thoughts provide an explanation, my eyes swing, discarding it. My brothers don’t sound like that. The land rolls and the rocks jut, creating a thousand places to hide, and from the nearest rise, horses and Indians, speared and feathered, spill down upon us. One is clutching an arrow buried in his belly, his hands crimson with blood, and I wonder in dazed disbelief if Will accidentally shot him.

Gert pulls away, and I note the way her teat streams, watering the dry earth as she flees. The oxen bolt too, and I am frozen, watching the Indians fall upon Pa, Warren, and Mr. Bingham, who stare at them in rumpled confusion, their sleeves rolled and their faces slicked with sweat and grime. Pa falls without even crying out, and Warren staggers back, his arms outstretched in protest. Mr. Bingham swings his arms but doesn’t succeed in shielding his head. The club against his face makes an odd plunk, and his knees buckle, tipping him face-first into the brush.

I clutch Wolfe to my chest, frozen and gaping, and I am confronted by a warrior, his hair streaming, his torso bare, and a club in his hand. I want to close my eyes and cover my ears, but the cold in my limbs and lids prevents it. I can only stare at him. He shrieks and raises his club, and I hear my mother scream my name. Naomi. NAY OH ME. But the final syllable is cut short. 

I am ice, but my ears are fire, and every scream of pain and triumph finds the soft drums in my head, echoing over and over. The warrior tries to take Wolfe from my arms, and it is not my strength but my horror that locks my grip. I cannot look away from him. He says something to me, but the sounds are gibberish, and my gaze does not fall. He swings his club at my head, and I turn my face into Wolfe’s curls as the blow connects, a dull, painless thud that stuns and blinds.

Time rushes and slows. I hear my breath in my ears and feel Wolfe against my chest, but I am floating above myself, seeing the slaughter below. Pa and Warren. Mr. Bingham. The Indian with the arrow in his belly is dead too. The colorful bits of feather wave at the placid blue sky. It is Will’s arrow. I am sure of it now, but I do not see Will or Webb.

The dead Indian is hoisted onto his horse, and his companions’ faces are grim and streaked with outrage at the loss. They do not take anything from the wagons. No flour or sugar or bacon. They don’t take the oxen, who are as docile in war as they were in peace. But they take the rest of the animals. And they take me. They take me and baby Wolfe.

It takes time and practice to develop this kind of skill as a writer and it is difficult to accomplish in the first draft of any story or novel. But, to truly immerse and engage a reader, the writer must avoid telling the reader what or how to feel about a dramatic scene. It must be shown through detail and context. It must be left for the reader to decide how he/she feels. 

Sources: 

Amy Harmon, Where the Lost Wander, (Seattle: Lake Union Publishing, 2020)

Alice LaPlante, The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007)

“Create Sentiment; Avoid Sentimentality”, Storm Writing School, Accessed June 3, 2020,  https://blog.stormwritingschool.com/avoid-sentimentality/

Colin Mustful is the founder and editor of History Through Fiction. He is the author of four historical novels about the settlement and Native history of the Upper Midwest. His books combine elements of fiction and nonfiction to tell compelling and educational stories. You can learn more about Colin and his work at https://www.colinmustful.com.