It’s important to inspire an emotional response from people reading your screenplay for several reasons.
First and foremost, emotional engagement leads to overall engagement, and readers are more likely to continue reading your script if their emotions have been stirred. Secondly, whenever emotions are involved, an impression is made: the reader is more likely to think about and remember your script.
Thirdly, most mediums — whether it’s books, movies, TV shows, web content, or commercials — rely heavily on emotional content to engage people. As a result, a script that’s emotionally-charged will seem more marketable to industry professionals. They know if your script connected with them on an emotional level, it’s likely to do the same for other people and, as a result, they’ll be more inclined to champion it and maybe even help you sell it.
This idea of using emotional content in art to connect with an audience dates back to Ancient Greek culture. Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to popularize the term pathos, which he considered to be one of three artistic “modes of persuasion.” Pathos, making an emotional appeal to an audience, is arguably the most potent method. This is why it’s still frequently used today by everyone from politicians to advertisers to storytellers.
People are more likely to respond to something on an emotional level than on an intellectual one. For better or worse, our emotions can have a powerful hold on us — so much so that if something merely makes us recall a past emotional state, we’ll experience those feelings again in the present. This is why certain scenes in movies or TV shows have the ability to make us cry: even though our cerebral side of our brain knows it’s a fictional narrative, the emotions the scene is evoking feel real and take hold of us.
But what kind of emotions are we talking about exactly? Are there some to be avoided?
Human beings have a wide range of emotions, including broader feelings (joy, sorrow, shock, fear, disgust) and more nuanced (intrigue, nostalgia, envy, anxiety, uncertainty). Naturally, the broader feelings will resonate with more people, but nuanced feelings shouldn’t be discounted. Ideally, your script should be stirring broad and nuanced feelings, resulting in greater engagement and impact.
And just because a certain feeling might be considered negative, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make use of it. For example, in our day-to-day lives we try to avoid being afraid or in a scary situation. However, stirring fear and anxiety is one of the main goals when writing a Horror/Thriller. Of course in the context of a narrative work, there’s the safety to experience these darker feelings and it often leads to a cathartic release, which in turn leads to elation (why so many people feel charged and might even laugh after a jump scare). This is one of the reasons the Horror/Thriller genre still thrives to this day.
Even shock and disgust, which are some feelings people might think it best to avoid, can sometimes be utilized in a successful way. I, myself, broke into the screenwriting business thanks to a dark comedy spec that had a lot of shocking and subversive moments. Audacity results in a lot of strong feelings and it definitely makes an impression on the reader. This is one of the reasons why the Joker is such a prevailing character in comic books and cinema: people are constantly engaged by his character and want to see what he’ll say and do next because it’s so outside of our social norms. Like when fear is safely ignited in us, there’s a cathartic rush in watching anarchy unfold.
I’d argue that it’s better to inspire even anger or disgust than no emotions whatsoever. A script that has no emotional engagement will have no impact or lasting impression on the reader, so it’ll most likely be lost in the shuffle. This doesn't mean you should just write a bunch of crazy and outrageous stuff just to get attention, but at the same time, you shouldn’t avoid it if it works for the story.
Besides shocking and scaring your reader, are there other effective ways to inspire an emotional response? How do you do it for various film and television genres?
One of the most effective ways to elicit an emotional response in readers — regardless of the genre — is through your main characters and especially your protagonist (often the point-of-view character).
If we care about a character and connect with them, we’ll feel the things they feel as they’re experiencing it: their fear becomes our fear, their joy becomes our joy. This is why you should establish an emotionally-charged backstory for your protagonist and make sure they’re constantly wrestling with their emotions throughout your script.
In past articles, I’ve written about the importance of tracking the emotional through line of your main characters and making sure there’s internal conflict intertwined with the external conflict in your story. In other words, a writer should make sure the emotional stakes are just as prominent as the plot-oriented goals. For example, in the first two Star Wars trilogies, Luke Skywalker’s personal conflict with Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s with Anakin Skywalker are given just as much focus as the larger galactic battles raging on.
Similarly in the Rocky and Creed films, the protagonists are often boxing with their own demons alongside their athletic opponents. And whether it’s an earthbound sports drama, an intergalactic fantasy or superhero film, oftentimes our heroes suffer the loss of a loved one at their “low point.” In fact, one of the reasons the low point is such a vital component of the classic three-act structure is because it makes the resolution more emotionally satisfying. The greater the low, the greater the high when our hero is triumphant.
So when you’re trying to inspire an emotional response, think of your characters and what they’re feeling in the situation you’ve placed them into and track those feelings (via dialogue or occasionally telegraphing it in your description). Most importantly, make sure you feel something when reading your script.
If you feel what your characters are feeling, others might as well.
That’s when you’ve written a screenplay that’s emotionally resonating and will connect with people.