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Lisa Gardner

The Queen of Writing Emotion

With over 7 million copies of her books in print, Lisa Gardner has captured readers' hearts. Her suspenseful writing pulls no punches. Those heart-pounding chapters drive the reader’s pulse high enough to rival a two-mile run.

Pick up any Lisa Gardner novel and you are in for an emotional ride that will propel you into her fictional world and hold you hostage.

Visit her website. Read the killer reviews. This lady can out-write the best of the best.

How does she do it? Emotion. Emotion. Emotion.

Fresh emotion. Pacing tools. Deep characterization. Details. Making every word, every image, every nuance of body language count. Being obsessive about writing craft. Darn good writing of a darn good story.

As Lisa says, “I rewrite intensely. Yep, writing is a neurotic business.”

The following excerpts share a sliver of her talent. To fully appreciate her talent, read her gripping novels. Your heart will thank you. Think of it as an aerobic workout.

The Survivors Club

This winning book was turned into a CBS movie, which aired in March, 2004 starring Roma Downey and Jacqueline Bisset. Here are several excerpts from The Survivors Club. The first one is a complex example that carries a lot of punch with its six emotional hit points in 28 words. For readers who haven’t taken my Empowering Characters’ Emotions course, assign one point per separate emotional impact phrase. The excerpt contains a blend of nonverbal communication and internalizations.

Fitz narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth, started to say something harsh, then –seemed to think better of it. He shut his trap. He regarded Griffin stonily.

Here’s a passage where a male, Griffin, is observing three women (the survivors) react. Four people in the scene and the reader is treated to Griffin’s interpretation of their body language.

Griffin amused himself by waiting to see who would do what next. Jillian Hayes simply raised her mug and took a sip of chai, her expression carefully blank. Meg Pesaturo still had her head cocked, listening to something only she could hear. Only Carol appeared agitated. She remained breathing too hard, her hands gripping the edge of the table while she waited for something, anything, to make her feel better about things. Maybe Griffin should’ve lied and told her Eddie Como had been shot to pieces one limb at a time. She would probably sleep better at night.

The following excerpt is the last paragraph of a super empowered passage containing two examples of anaphora, repetitious phrases, often repeated three times, usually at the beginning of a sentence or phrase. The power of the repetition ratchets up the tension. Gains momentum.

But her whole body was shivering, trembling, quaking. And she couldn’t stop thinking about her empty bedroom. She couldn’t stop thinking about that one bedroom window. She couldn’t stop thinking that she would swear, she would swear, she would swear that Dead Eddie had been standing right there.

The last excerpt from The Survivors Club is an empowered scream. Enjoy.

The scream had grown too big then. It had exploded up her throat and ripped through her mind. It had burst out of her eyeballs and wiped out her brain. It had gone on and on and on, a sonic boom of a scream. And still she never made a sound. No one heard a thing.

And then as violently as it had started, the scream recoiled, turned in on itself, sank back into her body and took her with it into a dark, velvety abyss.

She had spent a year wanting to remember. Now, in the car with this man, Meg wished she could forget.

The Killing Hour

Here’s an example of a character noticing their tell-tale body language and modifying it so others couldn’t easily read their nonverbal communication.

Kimberly’s shoulders immediately went rigid. She caught the motion, then forced herself to breathe easily. “I didn’t apply to the Academy because my interests ran to sewing.”

This basic paralanguage example is more powerful with the embedded internalization.

“Should he have called you instead?” Rainie asked. Her voice held just the barest hint of sarcasm and Mac liked her immensely for it.

Lisa Gardner shows us how easy it can be to have a POV character share what their eyes convey. Look how far she leads the reader as she interprets eye messages and deepens character.

She turned toward him them, knowing her eyes said too much, knowing she needed more armor, but helpless to find it now.

Here’s another example of putting basics together to reinforce the character’s emotional state.

His voice broke again. He didn’t seem capable of looking at anyone anymore. Instead his shoulders sagged, his head fell forward, and on his lap he began to wring his hands.

The last piece from The Killing Hour shows us the 1-2 pattern that works so well, physical emotion followed by a rich internalization.

Watson’s face had darkened dangerously. If she thought he’d appeared stern before, he was downright intimidating now.

The Killing Hour. Treat yourself to a riveting read.

HIDE – Lisa Gardner’s 2007 release

Here’s a Deep Editing Analysis I wrote for Mary Buckham’s e-newsletter:

Eola Sr. paused, his voice drifting off. He had lost his clipped emotionless tone. A mood had settled over his face. Dark, angry, depressed. Bobby leaned forward. He could feel his stomach muscles tightening, steeling him for what was coming next.

ANALYSIS: Lisa Gardner loads these few lines with a broad range of nonverbal communication: a pause, two fresh vocal cues, facial expression, postural shift, and a visceral response (stomach). Definitely an empowered passage. Lisa tacks on a Power Internalization that ups the tension.

Lisa Gardner speaks to the unconscious of the reader -- telling them nine times, that what's going on at this moment is important. The reader is hooked.

Lisa Gardner is the Queen of Emotion. She makes it look easy and sound smooth. She builds emotion with the components you see here. She stacks up fresh and varied nonverbal communication and includes an involuntary physical representation of emotion. A winning combination for an award-winning author.