Writing Project 2
Maya Medina
Writing 2
Genggeng Zhang
November 17, 2024
Wait, Which Form of Writing Brings Out the Most Emotion?
Journal Entry - Sunday, November 17
I don't write in this journal often, but tonight was surely something to write about, so I’ll sleep once I'm done jotting this down. I feel like I don’t know where to start, but I guess I could start by saying it was supposed to be a chill hangout, but it ended up turning into a really deep conversation. I like deep conversations, though, this one was one of the more interesting ones. The topic of interest was emotional writing. Well, first, I was sitting in the living room with Marta M. Maslej, Linda Ghirardello, and Brynne C. DeMenichi, but I’ll just use everyone's last names to refer to them from now on. We were talking about writing for a class, and how to write about certain topics to get people to understand your point in the best way possible.
I’ll see if I can remember how this conversation went, I’m going to retell sentences as best as I can. The conversation started with Maslej and DeMinichi slightly bickering about what makes people sentimental when reading. It seems like Maslej is winning in the discussion. “Obviously, you have to bring in emotion,” retorted DeMinichi. Maslej rolled her eyes, and replied with, “Duh. That's, like, the closest way to reach someone through writing. Get to their emotions. Whether it be a positive or negative feeling you induce, emotions are something easy to reach in good writing.” She was laying on the couch, messing with her hair as she spoke. DeMinichi was sitting in a reclining sofa chair while staring at the wall, and Ghirardello was sitting criss-crossed on the floor, next to me. Then, Ghirardello spoke up, quietly stating, “Well, Giulia, my roommate, agrees with me in thinking that theatrical story-telling is a good way to get to people's emotions, I mean, it works well for climate change. People get influenced when you bring authentic drama into real life.” Oh, I think Michal Muszynski was there, but in the kitchen getting snacks. I also remember Thibault Chabin being in his room with the door propped open while he was studying.
“Pfft. I doubt theatrical performances can out-do a good movie. Think about the plot, characters, script, and all the other hard work. There’s a bunch of movies to cry to.” Muszynski was listening in on the conversation from the kitchen, and decided to butt in. “Well what about music, if it even counts as writing. Although, I'm sure it does, with all the notes and scales and everything. Especially a live performance, when everyone listens together and collectively feels the same feelings,” Chabin chimed in from the open door of his room. I remember thinking to myself about what my opinion would be, and I decided to myself that I do enjoy music, but movies were such a good answer, too, so I spoke up. “Well, how about this? Everyone explains their approach to emotional writing, I’ll listen and be the tiebreaker.” After I said that, they all looked at each other and spoke over one another immediately. Eventually, DeMinichi won and got to speak first.
“I’ll start off, and Maslej can back me up,” she adjusted in her seat so she could project her voice better. “Studies show that expressive writing, writing about negative events or experiences, can have positive benefits on brain cognition and neural processing when learning.” (DeMinichi et al.). Maslej nodded as DeMinichi spoke, and she thought for a minute before adding on. “She’s right, although sometimes, when writing about something positive, your happiness levels can be lower afterwards than they were before. Same goes for writing about a negative scenario, which can induce more negative emotions during the writing process” (Maslej et al.). DeMinichi nodded in agreement and continued her argument, and stated, “Our point is, writing can have many emotional effects during the process, but afterwards, positive outcomes are highly likely to present themselves in mental health. One example of a benefit noticed in studies is the possibility to better process negative thoughts before moving onto another task, which comes from an increase in emotional processing” (DeMinichi et al.).
Quickly, Chabin walked out of his room and had to butt in with his opinion. “Okay, alright, how about my example of writing inducing emotions; live music synchrony,” Chabin took a seat on the floor by the coffee table, and began explaining his point. “When people listen to live music together as a group, there is a sense of emotional connection because of people sharing situations in the same environment. The way that emotional connections affect the dynamic of a group of people, like their state and cohesion” (Chabin et al.). Everyone nodded and kept listening, I remember thinking he must’ve thought long and hard about this to know so much. Chabin then carried on with his explanation, “The musical way of writing can bring out emotions as people lose themselves in the melody. The example of a group of people just accentuates the way music brings people close, and puts them on sort of the same wavelength” (Chabin et al.). Honestly, I was convinced by his argument already, and I hadn’t even heard the other two arguments about theater and film. Promptly, Muszynski walked into the common room and leaned on the wall.
“Well, that could even add to my argument. There are so many movies that have emotional scenes with music that adds to the emotion. Although, the way it affects an audience is different, because of the difference between perceived and induced emotions. Perceived emotions come from the actors and the way that the movie-makers want to portray an emotion, and induced emotions are the ones evoked by the audience because of the scenes with dramatic perceived emotion” (Muszynski et al.), Muszynski said as he shrugged, and everyone took a moment to process the information dump he did. “Sorry if that was a bit much. What I’m trying to get across is certain movies have aesthetic highlights that associate with perceived and induced emotions, and that all comes from writing. Writing by the directors, screenplay writers, and producers” (Muszynski et al.). Suddenly, Ghirardello shot up in her seat and grinned, then she started off her argument, all of us flinched with how fast she sat up.
“There! You just gave me an opening for my claim. Writing that comes from directors, screenplay writers, and producers is also seen in theater. Film and theater are not all that different when you think about it.” Ghirardello looked around and made sure everyone was listening intently, the face she was making was funny. Once she made sure she had everyone's attention, Ghirardello kept going and described her point of view, “Alright, my example will be climate change. A controversial, but realistic topic, right? That means this topic will be one of science, but the best part is, theater can even bring out emotions when people learn about scientific facts that directly affect them. The efficacy of theatrical storytelling in unleashing emotions in relation to climate change is important to how emotions are induced because of the emphasis on theater storytelling. Theater started out as something to let humans embody their emotions on different topics and experiences. When thinking about climate change, this can definitely be expressed as a theatrical tragedy. A survey of emotions before and after a theater performance on climate change shows an increase in confusion, concern, and hopeful engagement. On the other hand, there was a decrease in guilt, powerlessness, and calm feelings. These emotions are not only apparent, but important to the world, the environment, and people. It's also meaningful to the actors and screenplay writers that this message is passed along and brings a rise of emotion for change” (Ghirardello et al. 296-301).
We all sat in shock, surprised that she could even speak that much without taking a breath. I sat thinking about everyone's approach and explanations. I realized my opinion isn’t very important, but it was important to them, so I made a decision. “I think… I think you all made such a good point. However, this argument has a tight connection to my opinion, so I chose the one I resonate with the most, so no one's feelings get hurt. I believe that music is a great example of emotional connection and inducing feelings that create a wavelength within a group of people, and it's an amazing way of silently bonding with each other emotionally. I can’t think of a more beautiful way to connect with others on a different level. Everyone had such good explanations, though, so it was a hard choice to make.” Everyone applauded and we all laughed, realizing how the conversation got carried away so quickly. Maslej laughed and said, “I can't even remember what this conversation started out with.” And that's where it ends, perfect timing for me to get to sleep, since deep conversations wear me out. What a night.
References:
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Chabin, T., Kambouchev, N., Gosselin, N., & Schall, J. D. (2022). Audience interbrain synchrony during live music is shaped by both the number of people sharing pleasure and the strength of this pleasure. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.855778
DiMenichi, B. C., McLoughlin, M., & Bensafi, M. (2019). Effects of expressive writing on neural processing during learning. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00389
Ghirardello, L., & Isetti, G. (2023). Is tragedy the true language of science? Unleashing the emotional power of theatrical storytelling for climate change communication. GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 32(3), 296–303. https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.32.3.6
Maslej, M. M., McLeod, S. R., & Lawrence, C. (2020). Why does expressive writing affect emotion? Considering the impact of valence and cognitive processing. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue Canadienne des Sciences du Comportement, 52(2), 85–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/cbs0000167
Muszynski, M., Li, J., & Xu, H. (2021). Recognizing induced emotions of movie audiences from multimodal information. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 12(1), 36–52. https://doi.org/10.1109/taffc.2019.2902091