« If we do our job correctly, the reader will feel what we feel. If we cry, they will cry. If we laugh, they will laugh. If we get our hearts on the page, the reader’s heart will link with ours. ». Debbie Macomber
How true! Debbie Macomber should know. She’s written more than 100 novels. I’ve read a few—they’re the kind of books you curl up with on a cold night, a cup of hot chocolate in hand. Debbie’s stories are cozy and comforting. Characters face problems and heartbreak; life doesn’t always work out the way they planned, but the stories are wrapped in warmth and hope. When you finish one, you feel uplifted and in the land of possibilities. You know you’ve read a story that’s somehow made you care about the characters and what happens to them. It may not be Shakespeare, but it’s a story with heart.
We all know when we experience that feeling— and when we don’t. We read a story that’s well written and artfully engineered, but without a beating heart. Like the Tin Woodsman, it was missing one. We don’t feel the writer’s “heart on the page,” so it doesn’t ring true.
How different when we read a book that truly touches our heart! I can still remember sitting in a bus in Manhattan in my knee socks as a teenager. It was very early in the morning and I was on my way to school. I should have been studying my math, but instead, I pulled out a Tale of Two Cities. I came to one moving moment and suddenly burst into tears. Bleary-eyed bus riders turned to stare. Who was this kid and why was she crying? What had happened? I was reading a book whose author had written it with heart. I’ve been a Dickens fan ever since.
Sure, I was a teenager with all the angst that goes with it. But I know that wasn’t it. A Tale of Two Cities touched me. It moved me. In that moment on the bus, the writer’s heart linked with mine. We wordsmiths have so many tools in our kitbag. Let’s make sure that one of them is heart—and all write on!
