There’s this weird blink in time — that hiccup between something happening and your brain sending out the official memo that says “Hey champ, you’re about to feel things.” Fiction lives there. Camps there. Probably steals cable from the neighbor there. That micro-instant is where your characters actually become human instead of cardboard standees with witty trauma.
Everybody writes emotion. Big whoop. People have been writing heartbreak since someone in a cave got ghosted via smoke signals. What almost no one writes well is the pre-quake. The stutter. The static charge right before the lightning smacks the lawn chair. I’m talking about the moment when your character hasn’t cried yet, but their eyeballs are already turning into stingy little gossipers.
Think: grief doesn’t start when someone dies. It starts when the phone rings at some unworldly time and your stomach rolls over like a bored dog. You haven’t gotten the words yet, but your body’s filing the paperwork early.
Writers screw up by jumping straight to the impact. A character’s mom dies? Boom — tears, screaming, throwing themselves on the floor like an Oscar reel. But the moment before the news hit — that’s where the story actually breathes. It’s the emotional equivalent of tripping but not hitting the ground yet. You’re midair, deeply reconsidering your life choices, probably holding a latte like a complete idiot.
Physics people call that “suspended state” or something academic-sounding. I call it “Oh no oh no oh no” energy.
So what’s happening in that sliver of time?
Tension behaves like bad electricity. It crawls up the arms first. Then the jaw sets, because apparently the jaw thinks it’s the designated hero. Your character notices one weirdly specific detail — the chipped blue mug, the dog staring too long, the window that suddenly looks suspiciously tragic. The brain loves props. It’s dramatic like that.
The best part? None of this requires the character to understand anything. They’re still clueless, standing there like someone who just opened the fridge and forgot why. That’s what you want on the page: hyper-focus mixed with total mental stupidity.
I once had this moment at the DMV. Not tragic — just emotionally dumb. The clerk called my number, voice flat as cardboard, and I swear my chest did this weird medieval drumroll. For what? A form? A new photo? A gladiator match? Who knows. My body just did its own thing. That’s what I mean. The body is your funniest, most chaotic narrator.
Writers often think the emotional hit is the powerful part. It’s not.
Impact is predictable. Everyone cries eventually. Yawn. The gold is in the hesitation — the half-second where your character senses the shape of the incoming emotion but can’t name it yet, like trying to guess a horror movie monster from the shadow behind the shower curtain.
One trick: write the delay like it has mass. Make the air heavier. Make the room slow down by one ridiculous millisecond. Let objects act like they’re in on the joke. A lamp might suddenly look judgmental. A spoon may become ominous. This is the universe doing improv.
Another trick: let the character misinterpret the feeling. Humans are awful at emotions. We constantly confuse panic for hunger and heartbreak for seasonal allergies. Let your character do that. “My chest feels tight — must be gas.” Yes. Let them be dense. It’s charming.
And sprinkle humor. People make jokes before they scream. It’s physics. Even funerals get that one uncle whispering, “Well… at least parking was easy,” and boom — there’s humanity.
Your job as a writer: stay in the before-zone.
Keep the camera on the breath before the sob.
The half-smile before the breakup lands.
The frozen doorway before the bad-news phone call.
Write the moment that’s holding its breath, clutching the rail, waiting to fall —
because everyone knows the landing hurts.
The magic’s in the hang time.
Bio: Sabyasachi Roy is an academic writer, poet, artist, and photographer. His poetry has appeared in The Broken Spine, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Dicey Brown, The Potomac, and more. He contributes craft essays to Authors Publish and has a cover image in Sanctuary Asia. His oil paintings have been published in The Hooghly Review. You can follow his writing on Substack here.
