How To Write An Emotional Scene?

[Harratot33 93]

I'd like to write a real tear-jerker scene in my fanfiction Starswirl's Return, how can I go about pulling this off successfully?

[SFyr 1,982]

I am not an overly experienced writer, but to me, it seems like there's a few major points to creating an emotional scene:

1. Character empathy or relevence; basically, make sure the characters mean something to the reader. Different characters will hold different attachment to the reader, and in order to be emotionally invested in a scene, I believe you need to be emotionally invested in the characters playing a part in it. This goes beyond being just the main character, or the character that the reader spends the most time with. Said characters simply need that built up, which can occur in minor characters, or be absent in main characters (unsympathetic or uninteresting main characters can be a bane of many stories IMO).
2. Impact or stakes; I feel emotional scenes, in order to be impactful, need to have something on the line. Something important needs to be either at stake, or involved with the exchange. Could be life, livelihood, relationships, or feelings, but it needs to matter.
3. Overall effective conveyance; basically, writing skill. It's pretty unavoidable that there's a lot of little quirks and skills that make the hits of an emotional scene connect, be it smoothness, effective word choice, or overall good conveyance of the scene/actions/thoughts. There's a lot of little mistakes people can make that help kill the drama, or drag readers out of the experience. Just as well, there's a lot of little details that can help pull them in. I think that's a much more complicated manner though.

[PonyOfDespair 28]

As a writer I just have to say that depending on what travesty you plan to write, you do have to make the character it involves relatable or at the very least lovable. Something about them needs to make the reader latch onto them. Even if they don't particularly have a love for the character they need to agree that the situation is unfair and harsh on them. You can also manipulate the audience into feeling some sort of sadness by making other characters hurt for them and shed tears. Using children often enhances this because people tend to be upset over anything that upsets a child. If it's a death, make it affect more than just the main character and allude to it long after its passed in the story if only momentarily. If you write the heartbreak as if you've experienced it yourself, this makes it more real for a reader. Accidents that take away dreams or aspirations hit hard if you've made sure to emphasize what it means to the character beforehand, but this worksfor many situations. Its all about what you believe you yourself would be emotionally wounded over. When you read over it, see if it causes a stir in you. The best stories are ones that the author feels attached to personally.

[Widdershins 9,959]

  Well, I'm no writer, but I am VERY emotional! 

 

    Have to say though, @PonyOfDespair, most of the tragedy you do bring up can be robbed of its impact pretty easily. As a more cynical sort that is kind of on the spot of believing that most modern storytelling has become predictable, there's more to it than mere impact or longevity of the object of that loss. Town burns down to incite the hero into action? Whoopity-doo, haven't seen that done before. But... if you've spent some three or four chapters detailing that town... giving character to seemingly random villagers, showing them as unique individuals with their own lives that would probably live on unnaffected if the hero or the central focus of the story moves on..... then the dragon comes down on it to eat & burn half the villagers, THEN that's a sharp tonal turn and a punch to the audience!

   Take it from a dork that gets emotionally attached to ponies that've likely only been in one episode with fewer then a clawfull of lines. It's not so much time spent on those characters, or how much you tell us that that loss was important, so much as the room you've given them to act of their own volition. Its a folly even big companies like Disney or Game Freak and their pokemon franchise fall victim to. Who cares if the protagonist has dead parents? You can show us all you want about how the absence of that figure has effected them, but all we know of them is by title alone. We need to see them live, be their own thing, have unimportant, irreverent details that are separate but don't distract from the main story. 

  Hmmm... what's a good example...? Well, there's Arsenal's little daughter. (and no, I've not read the comic books.) We get dropped little things here & there. Oh, he's out being a superhero and the wife or babysitter calls to tell him she's put peanut butter in the cd player and he has to act all nonchalant and normal despite racing down the road in a motorcycle being all superhero. It's little things, we get tiny little reminders that she means something to him, that they do, indeed have a relationship. ...why it hurt all the much more when she... met the end she did. 

   Take a page out of Lovecraft's writing! Sure, the man wasn't... all that happy, but he positively bled his personality into his work! Describe! Sure, a whole page of scene-setting ain't for every reader, but if you keep adding in new details and how they keep providing more of an emotional tint to things... it gets the audience invested! Don't just write that Starswirl has decided to leave now... have his decision planned out before hand, that his leaving might be the only solution, that he's the sort to not only see that but be committed to leaving, have it be a slow burn coming to that, that the audience knows how hard it'll hit the other characters, yet those characters haven't figured that out yet and we still have the varied reactions from each to see.

  Take your time in writing! The more you do, the more of your own spin you put into it! Describe!

[Rocco 567]

This is actually something very personal to me, my story thrives on this sort of thing, and I am a huge fan of such a thing.

Writing a story can be a lot of fun, it can also be a real pain in the flank in the ways of emotional drama.Taking into account everything everyone else has said, you seem to be in good hands in that way, but I can't help but throw in my two cents.

1. Don't be afraid to be merciless! 
-We all have that feeling of going too far in the ways of hurting a character, especially one that is well received and love by the readers. That is why you can not be afraid of actually hurting them. By that I mean leaving a lasting character scar in that it will effect them throughout the remainder of the story. It can even become an overlying, or underlying, Character arch when you are working on a romance piece. You can go too far in the ways of the character "emoting", IE getting too hung up on the ordeal and becoming overly wordy, and in that is why I like to keep things concise in the feelings department. But never be afraid to really throw a curve ball at the reading in the ways of cruel fate, irony or the ect...

2. Make it personal!

- Whatever way you chose to go about writing something like this, remember to keep it personal to the character. If the reading is emotionally invested in a character, they will feel what your write and react accordingly. Now, it goes without saying that writing is art, art invokes emotion and emotion leads to how they feel about the character as a whole. That is why you will often see a roller coaster of feelings when reading a good story. If you make the insult, breakup, fight or whatever about something that would be very personal to the character (especially something beyond their control) IE Looks, way of life, standard of living, hopes and dreams, desires... You will be able to use those tools to actually write something deep!

3. Build to fail!
-I personally like to use a few chapters to work on character development around the very thing that will lead to a break up or great loss. Somber (Foe:PH) was well known for building a character up and tearing them down repeatedly over the course of several chapters. I often will build on a key aspect and make it part of the plot line in cases of hopeless tragedy or loss, sometimes taking the entire story to create and grow. Everything you write about a character can come into play about how they will react to a given situation, as such you are the creator of this and can build them to fail at just the right time for it to all fall apart.

4. Over do it, then under word it.
-I often will over write a emotional scene off of fimfic in Open Office and let it sit for a wile before using it. I will then go back through and make it far more concise and relevant to the story or situation. Often times I would reread the whole chapter and find ways to twist it into cruel irony or make the situation completely hopeless so that there was nothing that the character could have done to prevent it. Sometimes it will call for me to make it personal to the character by making the situation something that is completely their fault. As such, I tend to get hung up on the details of the moment and over word things. That is why it is important that you reread it a few days later, not as a writer of a novel, but as a poet. That way you can re-vet what you have done and can compile it to what it needs to be.

5. Real life to fiction.
-We are all warm, squish sacks of meat that have our own lives and dreams. But one thing apart from the board generalization I just made that makes us less than unique is that we all have deep seated fears that terrify us if it were to happen. For me it would be the death of my son or spouse, for others it could be ruining someone else's life by way of their own hand. Either way, you can take your real life fears, nightmares or even past events and rework them into something relevant to the story you are creating. I do this all the time in fact. My mother gave me up at the age of 15 month old to my grand parents stating "If he doesn't want to be a dad, I don't want to be a mother!". At the risk of spilling personal info all over Mlpf, My mother was hooked on cocaine and my father was no better. My brother and I were forced apart at a early age and did not see one another again for a great number of years. 
I used this as two different aspects of my FoE story I'm writing as a conflict for a unwanted child from an outsiders perspective and a long lost brother as a first person perspective. You just have to get creative with it, maybe even break it up a bit, but it will not only lead the reader to the same emotions you feel, but it can be very therapeutic when you write in the redemption portion. 

6. last but most importantly.

-Never do it out of spite for the reader. Emotional scenes are largely inoculations but can be derailed quickly when the reader feels you are trying to hurt them emotionally. If you out right reach out and rip the readers heart strings it had better be freaking worth it or the ending of the story entirely. Nothing will turn a reader off fast than if they get the feeling you are trying too hard to make them feel. That is why you have to space the events out and drag them out to their finality. For me it was in chapters 1 and 1.2 of my story when I spend 30k words building up a relationship on puppy love, only to have it pulled apart at the very end of same said chapter. sure it was one chapter, but that one chapter was 30k long! That is one third the hunger games first book. It is also worth noting that I did this to the MC not once but twice during that chapter. If you push things too hard and too fast in ways of leading on, they will leave mid chapter. So remember, Detailed but concise, painful but relevant, show the reader, not tell the reader. You are the author and you are building the world, set yourself some rules and have fun!