Frustration

What I'm Listening To: Tiziano Ferro - Ed Ero Conentissimo

What I'm Doing: reading fanfics, and considering sleep.

I've been reading a lot of fanfics lately, trying to recapture the writing spark. Some are so-so, and some are just so ... utterly amazing. I get completely sucked into them, and it's only afterwards, when I'm sobbing into a tissue over such a happy/bittersweet ending, that I think, How do they do it?

How do they write characters that make me feel so much for them? What is it about that story that sucked me in so hard? Why am I crying right now, how did they DO it?

I'm proud of myself for these questions. Because I know it means I'm asking myself, How can I do it, too?

But it doesn't lessen the frustration of not being able to pick out the moment when they turn generic characters into real people that I feel for. I foresee a lot of rereads in my future as I try to decipher this little mystery.