Emotion’s Big Importance in Ghostwriting

To paraphrase James Carville, not only is it the story, stupid, it’s also the emotion.

Plenty of studies have shown that storytelling matters. Here’s one example. One critical aspect of good storytelling is including emotion.

Adding details that trigger your brain’s amygdala (the emotional processing center) automatically makes the story better. A story with emotion invests, connects, and impacts the reader; puts the reader into the author’s world, maybe even into the author’s shoes, and drives the story.

Without it, you’ve got a dull book nobody wants to read.

Here’s a paragraph that began a chapter I wrote very early on in my ghostwriting career: 

Wednesday, May 26, 2010, began like every other school day since I started teaching social studies at Owen J. Roberts High School in Pottstown, just outside Philadelphia, eight years prior. The alarm awoke me at 5:08 a.m. Hours before, I had attended a school board meeting that finished around 10:30. We all told each other, See you next week and Have a good Memorial Day, and we talked about what fun things we would do that weekend. My wife, two daughters and I were planning to host our usual Memorial Day barbecue. But the Cuban Missile Crisis awaited me at school, so I kissed my wife goodbye and started the trip, making sure to stop at the local WAWA grocery deli for the roast beef hoagie that would be my lunch. I arrived at 6:45 a.m.

How boring. How emotionless. How drab. 

Contrast that with these paragraphs I wrote last year:

The next morning was Tuesday, and there still was no sign of him. Where the hell was he? I remembered he told me that he kept everything in Texas with his accountant. I hoped that also meant phone records. He always used just the one cell phone.

I went to his computer, quickly remembered his pass code. and there were the phone records. I clicked on the last month and started looking at the phone numbers. Something wasn’t right. He was on the phone all the time, talking to this investor or that investor, to his assistant, to his employees, but there were only a few different numbers listed.

I dialed the one listed the most. A woman answered.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for (name redacted). Have you seen him?”

“No, I haven’t seen him,” she answered in a businesslike tone.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

“About six weeks.”

“What’s your name?”

“Vivian.”

“Oh, how do you know him?” I asked innocently.

“He’s my boyfriend.”

I felt a jolt inside me, like I had just been electrocuted.

“I’m HIS WIFE!”

“That can’t be. He’s not married.”

“Where do you think he’s been the last six weeks?”

“No, no it’s not true!” She started crying.

“Where do you live?” I demanded.

“Mesa.” I could hear her sobbing.

I took another look at the phone records—and realized there was not one single number with a Texas area code.

“I have to go,” I said, and hung up. I threw the phone toward the fireplace and sat down on the couch in shock. I looked around. It was all starting to set in. This was all a lie. He was all a lie.

Quite the difference, huh?

A nonfiction story must get into the emotional weeds. It must show, not tell. As Kristin Overman wrote, “The emotional component of your story adds nuance and depth, and is what differentiates your experience from someone else’s.”

For example, one prospect I spoke to was a heroin addict who wanted to tell his story of recovery. There are probably thousands of books by people who have recovered, but this guy’s story was unique: Since he was only six months sober, the book could have gone one of two ways: his recovery or his relapse. Very intriguing.

I’m reminded of something Karin Wiberg wrote in 2019: No emotion in the writer, no emotion in the reader.

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