Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Substack, Patreon, or Buy Me a Coffee!
Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment on YouTube!
How do writers create emotion that readers genuinely feel? Matty Dalrymple talks with Jeff Elkins about treating emotion as a deliberate craft choice and focusing on the reader’s experience rather than relying on plot formulas alone.
Jeff explains the controls writers can use to shape emotion: trajectory, vector, alignment, saturation, pressure, velocity, and altitude. He shows how grounded and distant writing create different effects, why emotional distance can protect readers or make a later moment more powerful, and how dialogue, internal thought, body language, cast size, sensory detail, and segment length change emotional saturation.
The conversation also explores editing at the level of character interactions, why there is rarely one correct way to revise a scene, and how writers can evaluate confident but contradictory advice from AI editing tools. The central question remains the same: What emotional experience do you want the reader to have?
Jeff Elkins coaches authors, edits, and podcasts at the Dialogue Doctor. He is the author of 19 novels and 4 works of non-fiction.
Episode Links
Want the Full Companion Content?
Podcast episodes are free for everyone. Expanded episode materials, including an extensive interview summary, transcript, and access to the supporter-only discussion threads, are available to paid subscribers of The Indy Author on Substack.