On feelingsy art

I saw Inside Out 2 this weekend, and it left me feeling weird. It didn’t land the way the first one did, but I struggled to articulate why. Inside Out 2 tells two simultaneous stories: one about Riley (hockey camp, making friends, having a crush on a cool hockey girl), and one about the original Inside Out emotions (Joy, Sadness) jockeying for power with a new set of emotions (Anxiety, Ennui). The first story, the human one, is excruciating and tender. The second is low-stakes filler. I think you could have a great movie that’s just about hockey camp, but you’d have a hell of a time marketing it because it wouldn’t have a hooky premise. But you couldn’t have a great movie just focusing on the emotions because this part of the story didn’t touch any clever or daring ground that the first movie didn’t cover better.

I’ve been thinking lately about the divide between “clever art” and “feelingsy art.” By my estimate, the Riley part of Inside Out 2 was trying to be feelingsy (the emotional heart of things) and the Joy/Sadness/Anxiety/Ennui part was trying to be clever (the thing that sets it apart from other coming-of-age stories). The best stories are both feelingsy and clever, but you can get away with just doing one if you do it well enough. As a writer, it’s difficult to do one thing well enough, and it’s exceptionally difficult to do both at the same time.

I think the distinction between clever and feelingsy lies in how the author aims to surprise their readers. Some books—Trust or Biography of X—are satisfying the way puzzle boxes are satisfying. You don’t necessarily know where they’re going, but it’s a pleasure to see if the authors will be able to tie everything together by the end. I finished both of these books awed by the cleverness of the authors but also feeling clever myself for having participated. Other works are surprising in how exactly they manage to capture a nuanced feeling—Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Past Lives come to mind. I love all four of these stories, and I think the end result of each is something both clever and emotionally complex. But I do wonder what their creators started with—if they started with form (“I want to write a book about how one story shapes another”) or with feeling (“I want to write a book about the one who got away”).

Once you start thinking about the distinction between being clever and being feelingsy, you notice it everywhere. You can see authors trying to work out the purpose of art—generally and personally—on the page. From Biography of X:

And from Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow:

I would rather write books people love, but my instinct when I start a new project is to write something people will admire. It’s scarier to fail at being lovable than to fail at being admirable. Trying to write something smart and falling short is embarrassing the way getting a bad grade is embarrassing; trying to write something emotional and falling short is embarrassing the way being broken up with is embarrassing.

If I focus too much on how to look clever, my stories become abstract—bouncing between disparate characters and diverting into philosophical treatises absolutely no one asked for. If I focus too much on a specific emotional experience, the story feels myopic—trapped claustrophobically in one person’s limited experience. Clever ideas risk feeling cold. Feelingsy ideas risk feeling small.

I find that when I’m thinking about writing a clever book, I’m thinking mostly about myself, and when I’m thinking about writing a feelingsy book, I’m thinking mostly about the reader. You can get to a good book either way—just in different directions.

When I tell someone I’m a writer, people often ask what part of the idea I come up with first. The premise? The characters? A really great setting?

I never know how to respond. But maybe this is my response: I start with being a neurotic little freak graphing things in circles. And maybe it would be fun if you did too.

Currently reading: Rereading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (which I fear is obvious). Still a banger!

Non-urgent thought of the week: Any spare brain space I have is currently being occupied watching Olympic trials. I want MORE obscure sports pls ty!

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