Describing emotions

[Jabrosky]

I've noticed that whenever I write fiction, I avoid obviously emotional words as much as possible when describing characters' emotional states. By emotional words, I mean adjectives like "happy" and "sad" or nouns like "fear" and "joy". Instead I tend to describe characters' physiological reactions, facial expressions, or body motions. For example, instead of explicitly saying a character is scared, I might describe her drumming heart or have her gulp and tremble. My sentiment is that the traditional emotional words tell too much and show too little. Additionally visible displays like frowns or clenched fists work better for non-PoV characters since the PoV character can't actually read other people's minds and feel the same emotions as the non-PoVs. On the downside, it does limit your emotional vocabulary since certain emotions only produce so many physical reactions.

What are your ways of describing characters' emotions?

 

[Philip Overby]

There is a pretty cool book I'd recommend, that Black Dragon also recommended in his recent article: 9 Amazing Blogs for Writers

It's called "The Emotion Thesaurus." It has a lot of good suggestions on how to describe emotions instead of just saying "happy" and "sad," etc.

That said, I think it's always better to show emotion through actions and not just saying "He was tired" or "She was happy."

Other ways to describe emotion other than just facial expressions could be:

1. actions: He threw the ashtray across the room.
2. dialogue: "You did what?"
3. narration: I don't know what to do with this kid. Day in, day out. Just screaming.

There must be others as well, but I think these are good ways to show emotion without saying the emotion's name.

 

[Ankari]

It's called "The Emotion Thesaurus." It has a lot of good suggestions on how to describe emotions instead of just saying "happy" and "sad," etc.

I bought it. It's awesome. Especially in ebook format because you can quickly navigate via clickable links.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Yes, I'll add a 3rd voice to this. I've had the Emotion Thesaurus for awhile now. It's a fantastic resource as long as you use it as a guide. If you try to use it as a be-all-end-all of showing emotion then you'll be disappointed. If you want something to spark some organic & dynamic emotion showing, specific to your story, then this is a fabulous tool.

 

[wordwalker]

So much to agree with here. First, clumsily Telling what an emotion is just might be the biggest single AMATEUR label someone can slap on their writing. (OK, after passive voice...)

Another vote for "The Emotion Thesaurus," amen.

Other ways to describe emotion other than just facial expressions could be:

1. actions: He threw the ashtray across the room.
2. dialogue: "You did what?"
3. narration: I don't know what to do with this kid. Day in, day out. Just screaming.

I think this covers most of the options. I look at the elements of a moment as

1. environment description
2. events
3. character actions --including gestures and expressions
4. dialog
5. thoughts

so Actions/ Dialog/ Thoughts sum most of it up. But then I started thinking eek, there are a few other dimensions you could multiply these by, that use all five of them:

• is it which thing happens, and/or how it's done? "Dialog" to show "anger" could mean chewing someone out, or an ordinary hello said through gritted teeth.
• which thing is he reacting to? does an angry person gravitate to people to fight with, or doors to slam, or just notice more things that tick him off or else struggle to get to somewhere less stressful? does he look at someone and think "Yeah, you go and protest the damn taxes, get yourself locked up!" or some other reaction to the same thing?
• what things react to him, or were affected by him? One glance back at a wake of kicked-over trashcans or a streetful of people ducking out of sight does wonders to show anger, even if you don't have time to run a dialog of who reacts how to his rage and what further levels that shows about both of them.

Some of these are more involved than others, not really right for the quick, clear statements we usually want in the middle of a shifting scene, but they have their moments.

(Or, there's the character himself trying to react to his mood --"If I don't stop being so mad, it's going to scare people, but I can't!" And I think that's the only time it's safe for the character to name his own emotion and not look lazy.)

 

[BWFoster78]

I echo the above and also offer the following advice:

1. Use emotionally charged feeling words in the scene to set the tone subtly.
2. Use scene details that emphasize that the character is observing the setting through the lens of the emotion he's feeling.

And a word of caution:

Be careful not to overdo it.

I think one of the biggest problems that we face of writers is to find the correct balance of clearly conveying emotion without sliding into melodrama. If we try to be subtle, we run the risk of the reader not fulling understanding the character's emotion. Overexplaining, on the other hand, is an even worse sin.

 

[Codey Amprim]

I always avoid direct narration of someone's emotions. And by that I mean I never directly write things like, "he slammed his fist down in furious anger," or "she cried in her deep sorrow." It's redundant. Emotion is conveyed so much more effectively by creating the image of the emotion. With established characters, it's easier to convey emotion because you know their persona and how to reproduce their personality through their actions.

And as BWFoster said, it's best not to overdo it, though it's difficult as a writer to know how to limit yourself.

My best advice would be to read, and take note on how others establish and convey character emotion.

 

[Sheriff Woody]

I think an action without words is pretty much always more powerful than dialogue. The key is finding the right action for the given situation.

 

[Ireth]

I try to keep stating emotions directly to a minimum, but sometimes it can be tricky. Say a character is experiencing fear while in a cold place -- if I just say the person is shivering or stuttering, how are people to tell whether it's from fear or cold (teeth chattering, in the case of the latter) unless I say it directly?

 

[Shockley]

It might just be what I've been working on as of late, but I find myself trending more and more to the absurd and bombastic when it comes to describing emotions. I think it works, since it is the exact opposite of 'prosaic.'

 

[wordwalker]

I try to keep stating emotions directly to a minimum, but sometimes it can be tricky. Say a character is experiencing fear while in a cold place -- if I just say the person is shivering or stuttering, how are people to tell whether it's from fear or cold (teeth chattering, in the case of the latter) unless I say it directly?

If pacing needs it clarified in just five words, sure.

But if I have a moment more, I can usually find a way. Show someone glancing around nervously (okay, I guess that word is half Telling as well as showing), or avoiding someone's gaze.

Plus there's my good friend Viewpoint, making it easy to slowly immerse the reader in "The Whatzits never come out here... but what if they did..." (Or if it's not the VP character's emotion, I get in the twofer: "1) Is he worried about Whatzits? 2) Poor rube, any real MC knows they never come out here...")

 

[Leif Notae]

I usually go with this book because it is pretty comprehensive for action based emotional descriptions. "The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression" by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. The best way to get a reader to buy your character's emotional state is to show it to them.

 

[BWFoster78]

This thread inspired my blog post for today.

I think that we all agree that Showing should be your default when it comes to conveying emotion. However, every rule has exceptions. Can you think of situations where Telling works better?

 

[Xaysai]

This thread inspired my blog post for today.

I think that we all agree that Showing should be your default when it comes to conveying emotion. However, every rule has exceptions. Can you think of situations where Telling works better?

Brian, I just posted this to your blog but would also like to post is here to further discussion:

"Decent point, Brian.

Even as a new writer, 'Show, Don't Tell' gets ingrained into your head and I often find myself rifling through my work trying to turn all of my 'Tell's' into 'Show's' even though there are perfectly legitimate times for their to be 'Tell's', as you described above.

I think one of the real art's of writing is knowing when is the best time to Tell and when is the best time to Show."

 

[BWFoster78]

Xaysai,

The start of understanding the answer to that question is asking it.

I take a technical approach to writing. When I consider a scene, my thinking process is:

1. What impact do I want this scene to have?
2. What technique best achieves that impact?
3. How do I best use that technique to achieve that impact?

Unfortunately, a lot of the time I don't have these answers, but I'm working on it.

 

[Jabrosky]

I think one of the real art's of writing is knowing when is the best time to Tell and when is the best time to Show.

To a large extent that depends on your story's focus. You might need to Show certain moments in one type of story but can safely Tell those same moments in a brief paragraph (or completely skip them over) in another story.

 

[SeverinR]

There is a pretty cool book I'd recommend, that Black Dragon also recommended in his recent article: 9 Amazing Blogs for Writers

It's called "The Emotion Thesaurus." It has a lot of good suggestions on how to describe emotions instead of just saying "happy" and "sad," etc.

That said, I think it's always better to show emotion through actions and not just saying "He was tired" or "She was happy."

Other ways to describe emotion other than just facial expressions could be:

1. actions: He threw the ashtray across the room.
2. dialogue: "You did what?"
3. narration: I don't know what to do with this kid. Day in, day out. Just screaming.

There must be others as well, but I think these are good ways to show emotion without saying the emotion's name.

I love the emotion thesauraus, plus the settting thesaurus too. You beat me to it.

Sample: http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/p/the-emotion-thesaurus.html