Have you ever read a book (intended for someone over the age of 12) where the emotions lacked depth? I’m thinking something like “Her puppy died. She felt sad.” While it’s not always bad to tell an emotion like that, if that’s as far as you go in delving into your characters’ emotions, you’re robbing your readers of a rich experience of sympathizing with your characters.

So how can you show emotions? I know I’ve referenced this before, but one of my favorite resources on creating character emotions on the page is the article “Emotion is Physical” by award-winning author and editor Alicia Rasley. (It also goes hand-in-hand with her “Emotion without Sentimentality,” but we’re focusing on the physical now.)

Alicia’s basic premise is that one of the best ways to show deep, overwhelming emotions is through the character’s actions, rather than their thoughts or feelings.

Last month at Writer Unboxed, literary agent extraordinaire (and, by no coincidence, I’m sure, also an author) Donald Maass echoed that idea, with a stronger focus on eliciting that emotion from your readers:

So, now to the practical application: What is the strongest emotion you want your reader to feel? Search and delete that word everywhere it occurs in your manuscript. Now, how will you provoke that emotion through action alone? Got it? Good. Next write down three ways to heighten that action. (Remember that underplaying can also heighten.) When you’ve built a story situation that will force the emotion you want—make it happen.

What do you think? Do you build your story situations or your desired emotional responses first? What do you do to help show your character’s emotions?

Photo by Thomas Levinson