Finding Emotion

Sometimes I feel that an emotional topic for me, that seems like it should have many of my feelings in it, is rather just me telling a story, than putting together my thoughts. What can I do to add more emotion?

Make a subject personal, dont have things happen to people, have people do the things you talk about.

Use colour as a way to express emotions, red anger, blue apathy and so on, I am sure you know how to associate colour and emotion.

Learn three new words every day and use them. This improves your diction. Use a thesaurus to mix things up, don't get caught in th trap of using the same words to describe the same emotions.

And for my 73 cents (because everyone knows I have big opinions...):

I agree with Bret, and I agree with JPM. He gives damn good advice too if you can look past the spell checking and retard comments ;). You have to write about something you KNOW, if you want emotion it has to come from YOU.

If you write about actual experiences, or even things that bring tears to your eyes when you think about them, people can pick that up through your writing. What are emotions? Pain, happiness, depression, etc. Those all sound pretty good, right? But what about

Bliss,
Ecstasy,
Grief,
Torment,
Anguish,

See how they leave more of an impression on you than the other words that are normally used to describe emotion? It's because they are used all the time. They lose their impression.

Do you know what you will come up with if you look for "emotion" in the thesaurus? SENSATION. Emotions create a sensation, so if you want to pull on that and convey it to your reader, you have to use words that will IMPRESS upon them, something that they couldn’t find just ANYWHERE, because the words they see everyday lose their meaning. They matter less and less, and they get numb to their conotations.

The style and the rhyme scheme matter too, always rhyming or ending stanzas with the most important words. You want the words that are the "frame" for your poem to be marking pivotal flow points in your work.

Learn new words, use funny grammar, do whatever you need to do to create a SENSATION in your reader. That is where emotion comes from. If you put something forward that they do not see very often, with words that they are less familiar with you will paint something on a blank canvas. Your reader will not already have a pre set idea of what you mean, of what the words mean. You can take the readers mind wherever you want to go, because you are controlling their reaction to your work.

The thesaurus is the poets best friend.

I agree with JPM, Bert and Kaitlin all giving you great advice :o)

Damn you guys aren't leaving me alot left to say but "I Agree"

Covering it all....