5 Netflix Shows to Binge For Better Emotional Writing

I’ve said before that I don’t write in a linear fashion. If I had to write Chapter One followed by Chapter Two in succession then I would never finish a book, because my brain doesn’t work in that manner. Another thing that my brain doesn’t do is produce or recall emotions on demand . When I’m writing an emotionally charged scene, sometimes I stall out because I can't access the depth of emotion I need to convey.

I have to stop writing, and work on something else because I can’t force it. An example of this is when I killed off an older woman in Bachelor In Paradise. I know exactly what it feels like to lose a grandparent, all four of mine have been gone over a decade or more. But I couldn't access the raw emotion of first loss - the inconsolable grief that comes from losing a paternal or maternal figure, the fresh stabbing pain of thinking you may have wasted precious time, the yawning chasm of emotion that opens up in your heart and threatens to engulf you.

So, I did what I often have to do to unlock those emotions in me, I turned to one of my streaming services to watch something that would put me in the right place. The touching death of Moana’s grandmother unlocked that loss for me all over again. I literally sobbed with fat tears streaming down my face as I wrote the scene. Now I’m going to share some of the shows that I binge to help me write emotions better.

Dexter: All the seasons of this show are packed full of internal versus external conflict. If you don’t know the show, the title character Dexter is a serial killer who works for the police department. Every season is Dexter versus himself plus Dexter versus “big bad villain” and you find yourself rooting for the bad guy or the least-worst bad guy. The former Showtime series is based on the novels by Jeff Lindsay,

The West Wing: Not just because it is one of my favorite television shows of all time (I’ll post my top ten favorite shows on another post.) The West Wing is full of Aaron Sorkin’s fast paced and moving dialogue. You have to speed up your hearing to catch all of the nuance which I love. In addition to the spoken dialogue, the world is full of conflict at the highest level of government.

Into the Badlands: – I admit, I slept on this show when it was airing on AMC. I wish I hadn’t because the slow world building is glorious. The first season starts off like a tight urban neighborhood and by the end of the last season, there is a full continent of possibilities to explore. Not to mention the fight scenes, I’ve started to sit and take notes to improve my fight scenes because the martial arts choreography is visually stunning and has made my heart pound on more than one occasion.

Rita: – First, I have to warn you this show is in Danish, so you’ll need to turn the subtitles on. It’s billed as a comedy drama or dramedy (think Desperate Housewives or Orange Is the New Black), but Rita is a study in character development. Ideally, you want your characters to grow in a linear fashion like they are going from first to second to third grade. That isn’t Rita. You want to see how a character makes all the worst decisions possible and still keeps going. That’s Rita. Rita is a fun house road map of how a character grows and retreats from maturity in loops, leaps, and bounds.

Last Tango in Halifax: – You want all the feels? Last Tango in Halifax is it! The premise, a pair of senior citizens reunite on Facebook with the help of their grandsons. Bam, in the space of one wild, improbable IRL date they discover sixty-year-old secrets and throw caution to the wind deciding to get married. That is just the beginning episode of this family drama and second chance romance. Listen all the seasons are full of highs and lows, deaths and births, divorce and affairs and love, and endless bits of captivating emotion that drag on your heart strings.

Go binge watch now, and then go forth and write better emotions! Let me know if you’ve watched these shows already. What shows do you recommend to better boost emotions in your writing?