Writing is about increasing the resolution of emotions

When I was a novice editor, my editor-in-chief once told me, "You treat emotions too carelessly." At the time, I had no idea what he meant.

"Editor-in-chief, what do you mean by treating them carelessly?"

"Emotions have much more subtle nuances. Sadness, loneliness, and anger all have different textures. If you just dismiss them as 'I felt kind of annoyed,' you won't be able to convey what needs to be conveyed to the reader."

Years later, the editor-in-chief's words finally made sense to me. Putting emotions into words is the process of giving shape to vague movements of the heart.

Looking back, I have also organized my own feelings by writing.

When my father passed away. After hearing from my younger brother, who lived with my father at our family home in Shikoku, that he had "passed away in his sleep," I sat down with a notebook alone. I started with the word "sad," but as I wrote, I realized there were complex emotions that couldn't be expressed by that word alone.

Gratitude toward my father, regret that I should have talked to him more, and anxiety about the life ahead. These were all mixed together, and the simple word "sad" couldn't contain them. By writing, I was drawing a map of my own emotions.

A few years ago, I had a similar experience with my daughter. It was the day my high school daughter came home saying, "I'm so annoyed."

"What happened?"

"Nothing..."

It was the usual pattern, but I didn't give up and asked.

"Annoyed, in what way?"

"Ugh, so annoying. Dad, you have that side to you, don't you?"

At dinner, my daughter suddenly started talking. About being ignored by a friend, not knowing if it was intentional or accidental, and not having the courage to check. As she talked, her "annoyed" feeling was broken down into "anxiety," "loneliness," and "frustration with herself."

I suggested, "Why don't you try writing it down?"
"A diary or a private social media account would be fine."

The next day, my daughter reported that she had been able to talk to her friend. She said, "By writing it down, I was able to organize my feelings and figure out how to talk to her."

As an editor who has dealt with many manuscripts, I think that writers who can treat emotions with care write prose that resonates with readers' hearts. They don't just end with "I was happy" or "I was sad," but try to reproduce the texture, temperature, and weight of those emotions with words.

One author described a breakup with a lover as "the sound of something breaking inside my heart." A writer described their child's growth as "the feeling of watching a shadow that is slowly escaping to a place beyond my reach." Both are high-resolution emotional expressions that go beyond simple "sadness" or "loneliness."

What I love about being an editor is being able to feel the power of words like this every day. When I read a manuscript, I can understand the writer's inner movements as if they were my own. Prose that treats emotions with care also enriches the heart of the reader.

Conversely, prose that treats emotions carelessly feels somewhat shallow. With only words like "I was so moved" or "I was very sad," the reader cannot feel anything. That is because the writer themselves has not delved deeply into their own emotions.

Recently, in an era where AI writes text, I feel more and more the importance of the resolution of human emotions. AI can organize information and create plausible-sounding text. However, it cannot carefully put into words the subtle, complex, and contradictory nuances of human emotions.

By writing, you increase the resolution of your emotions. It is also an act of courage to face yourself. You take the feelings swirling around in your head and organize them, one by one, into words. Sometimes, you even encounter emotions you didn't realize you had.

When you start writing, you might feel like it was 'just something I didn't like,' but as you write, it breaks down into 'the frustration of being betrayed despite having expectations,' 'distrust in my own judgment,' and 'the feeling of still wanting to believe in the other person.' I believe this process is the real thrill of writing.

I have faced many manuscripts as an editor for 34 years, but in the end, writing that moves the heart has a high resolution of emotion. You can feel the writer's desire to carefully face their own emotions and convey them to the reader.

Tomorrow is my first interview with a new client company. I wonder what kind of emotions I will see in the voices of the president and the staff. I head to the site looking forward to it. I will let them show me the emotional landscape that becomes visible through words.

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