Emotionally moved by your own creation?

[cabfe]

Have you ever felt emotionally moved by your own creation?

It has already happened that I cried watching other people's work involving strong emotional scenes. A lot of people do, after all.
But it's the first time something like that happened with my own work.

As I was adding the last touches to an emotional cutscene, I played it and put myself in the shoes of a player, so that I could feel what might be wrong.
I know it's hard to be really detached, but I felt tears coming to my eyes, even though I know the story by heart and it's a fiction.
Since I used some elements from what really lived a loved one, that certainly resonates within me stronger than another thing.

Have you too felt something like that from reading/watching your own work or am I just too sensitive?

 

[bgillisp]

It's happened to me. I once wrote a death scene for a character, and found the same thing happening to me when all was said and done. I'd just take it as a sign that your scene is having the intended impact.

 

[Archeia]

Happened to me when I tried to avert a character's fate but the story demanded it ;;;

 

[Indrah]

Don't lie Nessy, we all know you enjoy torturing your characters XD Even if part of you wanted to save them, another part was probably being all mwhahaahhahaha~

 

[Sharm]

I put myself in that state on purpose, it helps me write and draw better I think.

 

[seita]

Generally no, but I created a pretty emotional scene which came together really well. After playing it back with all of the custom animations, it really got the feels going. I'd explain what happens, but it'd be a big spoiler.

 

[Quigon]

When I was writing my dissertation creative writing piece, the ending involved a pretty heavy scene of the protagonist killing himself whilst thoughts were racing in his mind involving his existence, his psyche, and his place in the universe...

I spent a whole day in a very, very dark room writing various different versions of the same paragraph, and ended up splicing them all together in the end to get that stream of consciousness thing going. Needless to say, I was not in a particularly good place afterwards, more so because of the relation to my own situation. Still, it got me a boss of a grade, helped me move past some deep stuff and had the waterworks going for quite a while.

I also listened to this while I was writing. On repeat. For eight hours.

 

[bgillisp]

@Quigon: For some reason that reminded me of my Developmental Psych final, where we had to write a fictional life story and explain everything that happened in terms of Eric Erickson's stages of development. Well, I had a rough semester in college that term, and took it out...on my fictional life. I joke it should have gotten me an A+, as in, an A, plus an appointment with the school counselor.

Back to the topic and hand now. Sometimes the music can help too. I wrote one scene a few weeks ago in RPGMAker that still gives me some shivers when I hit it, just because of my choice of ME at that very point when the key text comes on screen.

 

[Kes]

Yes, my opening and closing cutscenes in Tale of a Common Man can do it, even now. I think the music plays a big part in it; music will always bypass at least some of our rationality and go straight for the emotions.

 

[TMS]

It's rare for me to have a more emotional reaction to my work than an audience might get, but if you can't feel anything at all when you're working on something it's probably a sign that it won't be any good. For the kind of stories I usually write, I have to be able to get a shiver out of the premise or I can hardly expect a reader to.

 

[Matseb2611]

Yeah. Though not a full-on cry, some scenes in my works do make me feel emotional. I had that happen in some of my books. One series in particular was pretty dark and heavy, with many good characters tragically dying one way or another. In games there's probably an even stronger effect, as many have pointed out, thanks to music that plays at the time of the scene. I think my current project has a lot of those highly emotional scenes due to the tragic past of some of the characters, and I'm more than pleased with that.

It's often the combination of sensory stimuli (music, visuals) and the underlying theme that strongly relates to our own lives that causes this, and heck, most of our creativity is expressed through our own emotions and experiences. We create the kind of characters we can relate to on some level and design storylines that resonate with us. If you finally managed to feel emotional from your own work, then you've succeeded in expressing that what has been deep within you for a long time.

 

[nio kasgami]

bleh everytime I draw a beautiful character I feel emotionnally moved by my creation D: 

and even more when I reserve something crual to my creation xD

 

[_Shadow_]

One day, years ago, I woke up and while I was making coffee, I though of something.

An abstract thought like "Imagine if..." and I started a scenario in my mind.

5 Seconds, 10 seconds 30 seconds, the story ends in my mind. And I cried.

I instantly wrote the whole scenario guidelines in a piece of paper.

This story is ready now, never published, but it is done.

I just couldn't ignore something that moved me, even getting out of my own mind.

It is an awkward feeling and also a rare one (at least for me) so I can understand why you ask if happened to other people.

Also, while I was doepressed in the past, I tried to express this depression feelings, including need and crave, into music.

I was moved by one piece I made. The others were seeds for many creative things in the future though.

 

[cabfe]

Thank you all for your replies.

I almost felt stupid crying alone upon seeing pixels, but I was just being human and now I feel better.

It is indeed a natural reaction to be moved and it doesn't matter what is the cause of the emotion.
If, for some reason, something "works" with you, it will always do.

The good news is that you can use that force to further enhance the final result of your work, whether it be games or visual arts or music etc.

What is interesting though, is that emotion although universal is not felt the same from one people to another. But that's another subject.

 

[Sausage_Boi]

I have never felt really moved by any of my writings, not to the depth that is being described above, but definitely by my own music. But sometimes, I don't even feel like it's "my" music, so much as I am in a vacuous state of mind and let escape what ever notes feel the need to be free. Music has been for me the most consistent, method of stirring up my feelings. Aside from, you know, other Human Beings...

 

I also listened to this while I was writing. On repeat. For eight hours.

What were you on? Not that the song is bad, I like songs like this. (As an aside, can someone PM me a list of songs like this?)

 

[bluebird]

I haven't made a game to be getting emotional to, but I have written a few pieces of emotional writing for college projects.  Had to write out a memoir of my life, and I have to admit, that one was pretty tough.  Once you get into a state there you can relate a game, a story, a piece of music, to your own life, it's hard not to get moved in some way about it.

Then again, I think I might be over-sensitive to begin with.  Spent hours yesterday looking up the right phrase to engrave as a gift to my boyfriend in the form of a silver guitar pick.  That alone had me in feelsy mode.