Tag! I’m it—I’m interviewed on Christine Bryant’s Tag! You’re it! Tuesday this week. Are you next?
I have to be honest. The resource that really revealed this whole idea to me was part of Kaye Dacus’s showing vs. telling series, on feelings. And to give credit where credit is due, I’ll also be using one of her examples on these two techniques to show characters’ emotions.
The first method is possibly the most powerful way to show a character’s emotion:
Fear ran down Molly’s spine like a hundred tiny mice with cold feet.
That’s right: figurative language like metaphors and similes. Can’t you just feel that spine tingling? Figurative language is the best way to show an emotion. The imagery here can be so vivid that you might be able to get 
away without the name of the emotion at all.
This figurative language can be even more powerful an draw reader into the story and the characters even more when we work hard to use language specific to our character. Your MC is a veterinarian? Maybe she thinks of fear like an animal backed into a corner, and describes each of her actions and responses that way (arching her back, snarling, barking, etc.). Or maybe he’s a veteran—he sees the world divided along battle lines, can’t shake the memories of those he’s lost, or is just ready for all this fighting to be over.
Finally, in Margie Lawson’s Empowering Character Emotions course (and her EDITS system), she has a special classification for an involuntary physical response to an emotional situation—the most powerful type of emotional response. Things like sweating, blushing, skin tingling, and other responses to extreme emotion pack a powerful punch.
These methods of showing character emotions are a little more advanced and work best in tandem. But these are the most vivid methods, the most individual, and the best to illustrate the feelings and the character. But they should still used in moderation—especially involuntary physical responses and similes/metaphors. Too many, even if they’re all spot-on, can really distract the reader.
Of course, this is all easier said than done. Showing character emotions in a unique and engaging way is a pretty big challenge, no matter how many times you’ve done it before. (Actually, I might argue it gets harder over time, since you continually have to fish for new ideas so you won’t repeat yourself.) So, seriously, don’t pressure yourself to get this all right on the first try, or even the first draft. Human emotions are tricky things—and in writing, we should be grateful we get multiple attempts to get them right!
What do you think? How else can you show a character’s emotion? What are your favorite methods?
Photo by Bobby Acree
I love to show interactions between characters. Sometimes the smallest thing will let you know if a person is sarcastic, upset, elated, frustrated, etc.
I love the examples of using language specific to the character. I agree with you about it becoming harder as you search for unique ways to express something that’s been used numerous times before; putting in context of the character is a good way to work through that. For me I tend to use exclamation points to show emotion!! Just kidding.
If you can establish something of great importance between two characters, you can then later refer to that to express the unique emotions each character attributes to that moment or thing.
My rule for writing emotion: less is more. Once the emotional tone is set, the dialogue should do the remainder of the work. I write in both first and third person. The way I show emotion in third is very different than in first. In first person, we are truly in the character’s head, and the reader must experience emotion as the character experiences it. And Truthfully, how many of us think in similes and metaphors? In third person, there’s the introduction of a more distant narrative voice and therefore more leeway.
We absolutely have to take care not to put in too much emotion (something we’ll be discussing this week), but unfortunately, less is sometimes just less.
Let’s say we’ve established that our heroine hates the hero. Then he proposes marriage. Would we really just let that line stand without any response from the heroine (in her POV)? If we were in the hero’s POV for the proposal, would we just skip over the incident the next time we’re in the heroine’s POV? I don’t think so. We need the stimulus and the response.
You’re definitely right that conveying emotion will vary in 1st vs 3rd narration. But I think that even in first person, figurative language including similes and metaphors is useful (in moderation, as I say in the post). Characters—people—experience emotion as a result of a stimulus like dialogue, but the emotional experience is physical.
There is a physical response to fear (and most other strong emotions). We don’t have to (and shouldn’t) write pages of the physical response, or the mental process to get there—but we have to put something in there. “My spine tingled” isn’t going to do it for the reader, even in first person. If we’re writing in past tense, I think we have enough leeway in first person—it’s a recorded narrative, not stream of consciousness.
(I’ve heard the same argument to contend weak sentences and language are “my character’s voice.” But this is your character’s chance to make his/her story as persuasive, touching and eloquent as s/he can. There will be a different level of eloquence, but are we going to write in adverbs and weak verbs because it’s our “character’s voice”?)