How Writers Should Handle Melodrama

Learn how to balance the emotion in your writing. WARNING: CONTAINS MELODRAMA.

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Credit to SkyDilen for my video intro.

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[TrevorDuran]

As a visual learner, I appreciate the paragraph examples.

[jojogodtier]

As i was pressing this video, the sheer satisfaction made me get on the floor and sob of emotional enjoyment. as if i watched my first childs birth into the peaceful existence of joy.

[WriterBrandonMcNulty]

Be honest. How often does melodrama appear in your current work-in-progress? Let me know! (And don't be ashamed... The 2nd draft of my new novel was overloaded with it)

[ryptoll]

To be honest, I'd say that I hope there isn't too little melodrama in the book I'm currently working on. I have a tendency to not be emotional enough in my writing when my characters need to be having strong emotional reactions. For ex when someone they love dies or when they're having a deeply romantic connection.

However, I wouldn't consider it "melodramatic" when a character completely loses it after/during a seriously tragic or intensely positive event in the story, because that isn't over the top for that particular situation. I'm a generally reserved person, which is probably why I struggle with writing out extreme displays of emotion, because to me it feels unnatural to show emotion at all. Obviously I still feel emotions as much as anyone else, but this character trait in myself as a writer has definitely made it challenging for me to do the whole "show don't tell" in regards to emotions. I have even had to google common ways of expressing common emotions, because I'm just that stiff lol. But I mean I think I'm getting better at it.

But I'd still agree that there are good and bad ways to convey strong emotions in a character. It helps me to think of how I would react in my character's situation and then alter it to fit that character's personality, plus add whatever google told me about emotional expressions. Some characters may be more emotional in general while others may be more reserved though, so that's something to keep in mind too.

So I think maybe the problem with melodrama isn't just that it's over the top or out of place for the event in the story, but also that if done wrong can break immersion because it's an out of character reaction, or just full of overdone cliches. You can describe the same feeling in a thousand different ways without ever directly mentioning what the exact feeling is. Specifically with sadness, I think that's one of the emotions you can go especially creative with to hopefully avoid it coming off as cringy.

[leonmayne]

'I HATE YOU!'
Anakin Skywalker.

[bwanamatata]

Just finished "All Sinners Bleed" by S.A. Cosby. Great example of melodrama done right. The men are constantly crying, but in the best possible way.

[evelynjoy]

I was afraid there was too much melodrama in book two of my current WIP trilogy because my usually unemotional protagonist found herself lashing out and yelling at (and sometimes physically assaulting) others to cope with a betrayal that shook her to her core. My writing group said it worked well in this instance because we had spent almost the entirety of book one building the relationship between her and the character who betrayed her that it felt earned

[lukemauerman]

My main character in current series is a complete drama queen :-) ... But as the stories progress he begins to learn that it doesn't particularly serve him. So it's kind of fun, I get to whip out all kinds of melodrama and watch how the people around him kind of roll their eyes

[zoeelovee]

I'm having an issue with my story and melodrama because one of my characters is supposed to be melodramatic. So I want to express his melodrama, but I don't want to make my overall story melodramatic. Does this make sense? hahaha

Also I really liked that you included examples!

[christiankalk]

This video made me so sad. The sadness consumed me, and consumes me still. Sea levels will rise due to my tears. My sadness causes me to fear for New Orleans.

[lance]

"come on Bob, get it together" 😂

[Prince_Az_Myr]

I thought the first melodramatic paragraph was humorous. Would've fit in a comedy fairly well.

[juju]

Your channel is amazing. Do you do consulting?

[danxp]

I would really like this, but is at 420 likes, which is perfect

[wordonice]

Hey! Come on, man. Don't talk about Bob like that. He really, really, REALLY wanted to get into Harvard 😥

[polygrind]

That's not melodrama.Melodramatic emotions where hightenened by the use of dramatic music chords in theatre. Melodic drama. In narration it refers to having shocking revelation for shock value as in unexpected and unearned news about familiar ties. What you are talking about is base characterisation, which in theatre is called ham acting.

[ThriftyTeacherTrips]

I disagree with the advice on this video.