What Connects People to Anything, Anyway? A Deep Dive into Emotional Resonance

What establishes a connection when you read a story? Is it the characters, writing, or the author’s voice? Or is it the emotion that a story elicits that pulls at your heartstrings? There are multiple ways that writers establish that emotional connection with their audience, which is an integral aspect of what makes a piece powerful enough to resonate with readers. This week at Split Lip Magazine, we’ve gathered a variety of different perspectives on how emotional resonance is built in a story, including some insight into common things that appear in the stories we publish. We hope you enjoy taking a sneak peek into the thoughts of some of our staff!

Molly Andrea-Ryan, Assistant Fiction Editor: 

I think that character is always the driving force of emotional resonance. You can certainly evoke an emotional response through, say, the description of a meaningful location or the taste of a memory-provoking dish, but if those descriptions are disembodied (as in, not integrated into a character’s POV), I’m not going to experience those emotions full force. Even in a short piece, I try to give enough shape to a character’s beliefs and motivations (and at least a hint of where those things come from) that the reader will sense the impact of whatever “happens” in the story (plot) without my having to spell it out (lengthy exposition). As far as what resonates in the queue, it’s the pieces that anchor me as a reader in a specific character’s world and show me one way of experiencing life, rather than trying to universalize or appeal to some sort of archetypal theme. Like, a story that tries to tell me what we should all think about the meaning of love probably isn’t going to do it for me. A story that shows me one character’s experience of love just might.

Emily M Goldsmith, Poetry Reader:

As someone who writes poetry and non-fiction, I often think of my prior workshop instructors asking me, “What’s off the page?” Sometimes, we write what we think we want to say or what we think our readers want to read, but it is really what is left unsaid, or unwritten, that is the truth we need to tell. Exploring wants and fears, turning a light on dark places, and exposing inner thoughts (ours or our characters) is the exploration that will emotionally resonate. I think work that emotionally resonates is complex, sincere, and self-assured. The work that stands out in the queue isn’t trying to be someone else’s work or mimic, it is wholly itself: brave, authentic, and unshrinking.

Maureen Langloss, EIC:

For me, emotional resonance is not necessarily an ingredient I think about when drafting. I see it rather as a way to take the temperature of the whole piece after it is written. In other words, if your characters are complex and well-developed, if the piece has tension and stakes and movement, if the language elevates the mood, if the rhythm is working well, if the voice is rich and unique and captivating, if there are multiple layers of meaning, if there is an opening that draws you in and an ending that is satisfying, if the piece speaks not just to the individual characters in the story but also to the larger question of what it means to be human, then emotional resonance will naturally flow from all these elements. Strong emotional resonance is a sign of a very healthy piece of writing! Often in the queue, we see pieces that have brilliant concepts and unique premises but that fail to resonate on an emotional level because the author has not developed the characters or paid attention to language or story arc. If only one element of a story is doing the work,  you will not make your reader feel something. The piece will fall flat.

Michael Todd Cohen, Memoir Reader:

For me, in memoir, emotional resonance enters through rhythm—breathlessness in concision, solemnity through a surprise line break; the use of anaphora, the repetition a literal resonance.  In common with work that sticks with me from the queue is a fearlessness, a writing-close-to-the-quick of the self, a confidence in veil-making and when to pull them away, renewing curiosity.

Ruth LeFaive, Senior Flash Reader & Treasurer:

Writing that succeeds in creating emotional resonance in me is writing that appears to get out of its own way such that the author is able to provide an experience of not only immersion and tension, but also, surprise. The characters are whole, and at least one of them is simultaneously impressive and vulnerable. The prose is well-paced and clear and doesn’t withhold information needlessly. The author guides us towards meaning without explaining. The details are extremely specific, fresh, and purposeful. Any cliches are wielded with genius, and so are mostly nonexistent. My very favorite emotional resonance is when acts of grace are shown. This usually occurs in small gestures. I’m wowed by impactful, unnecessary kindness. 

brandon brown, Flash Reader:

The question is: what connects people to anything, anyway? Technique is going to aid in emotional resonance, but first, I think it’s important to remember what it means to connect to something deeply in the first place. Okay, example: why does my heart melt when I see a dog in public? That’s probably the response a lot of people have, but for me, it’s because I was a vet assistant once—for years, I only ever saw dogs when they were nervous or scared, bleeding or worse. They were often happy too, but there were no guarantees. Now, when I see a dog at a coffee shop, I feel immense relief. They’re okay, they are curious, eager, all of that. It is truly life-affirming to see a happy dog. I have that response because of my history—it’s in my brain, and it’s in my body too. I understand the response because I’m familiar with my own context. To finally bring it to writing, I think it is vital to have that kind of context for your characters—their personal history, the history of the world around them, and how all of that’s part of their body. That’s the kind of material you need to have on deck for resonance to occur. It is hard to do in flash too—my favorite stories in the queue manage to squeeze the weight of a lifetime into something tangible: they know what it feels like to wade through the characters’ world, and they know what needs to be said for the reader to locate themselves in that context.

Razi Shadmehry, Flash Reader:

When a character feels known to me, emotional resonance comes easily. As a reader, I find that I’ll latch on to any direction a character takes me if I know them well enough. I suppose this then becomes a question of characterization, but I think emotional resonance has to start with being bought into a story, and for me, that’s a question of my relationship to the characters. I’m most likely to get swept into the emotional currents of work that’s authentic to its core—that was allowed to take a shape of its own—and genuine characters are paramount to this. So, for me, emotional resonance comes down to the realness of a character, which all boils down to authenticity.

Max Pasakorn, Poetry Reader:

The root word for “resonance” is to “resound”: not a one-way sound but a reverberating echo that spills into a room after one has struck a bell or gong. Such a sound is only beautiful because it is continuous and layered upon each other, creating a rhythmic symphony for your ears. Now, imagine creating that effect with layers of emotions. I find the pieces that strike me are the ones where the source of emotional resonance comes from deep within the writer—a kind of truth that feels special and well-rounded because it is written from and through experience. Resonance is not oversimplifying a character just so a reader would “understand” them, but the opposite: imbuing a character with the rich complexities of human life, even as the story is crafted around them. Play a symphony with the characters of your story.

Bianca Sandoval, Intern:

As a reader, emotional resonance is established when you can sense the writer's presence throughout a story. Either through the characters they formulate or through their words alone, they imbue a sense of genuineness throughout that touches the reader as they move through a piece. The best pieces I’ve read that portray emotional resonance so vividly are those that tug at my heartstrings and almost make me feel one with the writer. It’s less about crafting characters that writers think will be relatable, but more about ingraining them with a piece of themselves that will grant the characters real human qualities and experiences. Being able to finish a story and coming away with the feeling that you’ve connected with it more than simply on a surface level is truly significant and makes for a strong piece of writing.

Teri Vela, Assistant Poetry Editor:

I find that nuanced speakers and events in poems often resonate with me, meaning that the “crux” of the poem is an accurate description of those many nuances, or layers. I think this is done through the speaker’s attitude towards what is in the poem, language or word choice, and all of the parts that go into the piece. A friend of mine once said that writing a poem is building a ship in a bottle. I don't mean to be prescriptive, but if you see your poem as the ship being built, then every little piece means something to the integrity of the whole. Sentence structure, lineation, punctuation, tone, etc., all build an emotional attitude towards the content or “subject” of the poem. So then, emotional resonance in a poem is built by intense focus towards all the disparate parts. I’m not saying it has to be a perfect invention, but poems [from the queue] that attempt to attend to the myriad difficulties of being alive and making art are the ones that stick with me. 

Ashley Anderson, Memoir Reader:

For me, emotional resonance happens when the memoir is more than just about the person, but truly digs in and takes a deep dive into something larger than the writer’s personal experiences. It’s a culmination of many elements of craft and thought, and I don’t think there’s one particular way to zoom in and say, “this—this is the one precise thing that causes resonance.” I want personas that read as being full, complex people. Word choice and rhythm that draw me in. Reflection and contemplation that compels me to feel, even if I can’t find the writer’s experiences reflected in my own. I also want to find myself swept up in a story, one that brings all of these elements together to help me think and feel at the same time. As a friend of mine and fellow creative nonfiction writer once said, we often think of writing in this genre—including memoir—to either engage the heart or the brain. We either feel or we think as a result of what we read. When a memoir resonates, however, it exists both as a heart and a brain piece and asks me to exercise both in order to make meaning.

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Bianca Sandoval (@biancadarlenes) curated this piece. She is currently pursuing English at the University of California, Berkeley. She is an intern at Split Lip Magazine and Editor in Chief of the Berkeley Fiction Review. Outside of school and work, she loves reading for pleasure, exploring new cafés, and spending lots of time cuddling her two cats, Bonnie and Bub.