Craft :: Translating Feelings into Writing
“Nobody wants to feel everything, just as nobody wants to read work by a writer who is emotionally incontinent. In real life, I may be strung out on anxiety, or aching from bad news, or jubilant, or missing someone I love. However, I know that my job is not to directly transmit those emotions to the reader. My job is to live my life, feel my feelings, and then learn to translate what I’m feeling without making it about me.”
From “Emotion is Not Plot: Using Detachment to Create Powerful Fiction” a craft essay by Claire Rudy Foster in the online journal Cleaver Magazine.