Character Emotions

Okay, so I have trouble with character emotions. I like to think I'm decent with personalities, but emotions... Gah. Bickazer told me that you have to do more than just say "He was happy" or something like that. I know that saying that a character is smiling can imply they're happy, giving them clenched fists and having them raise their voice could mean they're mad, but is there anything else I'm missing? Any other tricks?

First off, consider what real people do when they show emotions. Use actions to describe emotions.

If the person is mad, they can do the obvious and slam things down. Almost everyone has subtle ticks, when they show an emotion. My friend blinks really slowly when she's angry. Choose a tick for a person, and have it happen once with explanation.

For example Tiffany opened and closed her eyes with exaggerated slowness, trying to calm herself before she strangled Dylan.

From that point on, you can use it to subtly indicate an emotion.

This works the best with insecurity. Such as: She fiddled with her hair or he shuffled his feet, or she bit her lip. These are generic ticks so I suggest coming up with original ones.

Body language is also a indicator of emotions. When your character shows a certain emotion, show it through body language.

-Mad: Fold arms, clenched fists, clenched jaws, knuckle cracking or stepping back from a person
-Sad: Look down at their feet, limp tremble or blink quickly(indicates holding back tears.)
-Happy: Tap on things, bounce on the heels of their feet or messing with hair.

Of course there are more Physical indicators.

You just have to add to your characters profiles, by coming up with their personal ticks, Most people react close to how they reacted when they feel an emotion.

Pm me if this is confusing.

Amon hit how to show character emotions pretty much spot on. ^^ Using physical reactions is a great way to show character emotions. There is also using select descriptive words in your prose to make a scene look happy, upsetting, or sad. Like,

"Selene walked along the busy sidewalk. She smiled and looked up at the cloud-free sky, sun shining on her face. She'd just broken up with her boyfriend."

The above is a nice, cheery scene, and I never said Selene was happy once.

Another example,

"Selene walked around the crowded sidewalk. She glared at the cloud free sky above, squinting at the too-bright light. She'd just broken up with her boyfriend."

That description shows the character is angry and/or upset. And, again, I didn't say what Selene's emotions were.

Those examples might be a bit thin, emotion-wise, but that's because I was trying not to include any character thoughts at all. I was using strait-up description. Add in some more character thoughts and interaction to the cheery scene, it might look something like this:

"Selene walked around the crowded sidewalk and looked up at the cloud-free sky. The sun kissed her face with gentle lips. She told herself to remember how that felt with a smile. Next boyfriend she had would be able to kiss her like the sun.

She bumped into a man and quickly laughed a 'sorry' before sashaying down the sidewalk again. She bit her lip and quickly glanced over her shoulder. That guy had been cute. Maybe she'd turn around and bump into him again."

And with just a few right words, the prose takes on a flirty feel. I could probably add on a few more lines about her ex, but they're not completely needed. Also, you get the idea.

PM me if you have any questions!

~Rosey

Amon and Rosey have mostly got it. ^^ I'd just like to add that one way to really show character emotions is to describe scenes just as the character would. This works even for third person (I believe there's a name for it, but I can't recall it as of the moment...). Get really into your character's head--it helps if you think about what you'd do if you were in that situation. Granted, this doesn't work all of the time, especially if the character isn't similar to you. As long as you can really emphatize with your character, though, it should be relatively easy to depict their emotions. If you maintain too much distance from the character, the reader is distanced as well.

One more pointer is that varying sentence structure can do wonders. An angry character tends to think in short bursts, a tired character will let their thoughts trail off, etc. A lot of short emphatic sentences convey excitement, while slow and meandering sentences convey quiet reflection. The same scene, from an agitated perspective and then from a calm one:

"The colorful dresses of women, blinding him. Pearls flashing at throats. Giggles and laughs slapping against his ears. And the perfume, its noxious sweetness choking him, surroundign him. Preventing him from thinking."

"Women in blindingly colorful dresses twirled on the dance floor, pearls flashing at their throats. Their giggles and laughs filled the air, and a cloud of sweet perfume was making him light-headed."

Not a very good example, considering I came up with it on the spot, but you should get the picture. Yes, the first example is chock full of fragments, but they actually work in this scenario because they help convey the character's rapid-fire thoughts, his immediate emotional state.

And if you're very deep into your writing (which you are, if you've already finished a whole novel), then making character profiles really wouldn't hurt. I find making a list of the characters' attributes, both positive and negative, and writing their histories helps in emotional situations, because it makes you fine tune their response to their personality and history.

Hopefully this is of some use. ^^

I'd just like to add that one way to really show character emotions is to describe scenes just as the character would. This works even for third person (I believe there's a name for it, but I can't recall it as of the moment...).

That would be diary style third person. Comes in very handy, as Bickazer said. ^^

Keep in mind, too, that the degree of physical reactions will vary from character to character, depending on their different personalities. Someone who is distant and keeps their emotions carefully concealed will have physical reactions that are much more subtle than a character who is more open and expressive.

Above examples are spot-on!

Just to add on to what was said above about word-choice and diction, probably one of the best ways to portray a character's emotions is through tone. This can be done most effectively through first person, but third person works too, it's just a bit more subtle and challenging to write, in my opinion.

The tone of a story says everything about a character. Whether you're going for a serious or humorous tone, sarcastic, gloomy, cheerful, you can alter it with word choice and sentence structure, as was mentioned above. But I always think of tone as the character's 'voice', and that means a writer has to get well into the character's head and be able to write as the character would think. Depending on the situations, the character's emotions should arise naturally. If it's a life/death situation, the tone would naturally take on a worrisome, tense/dramatic sort of feel.

I can't say exactly how to write this way, except to simply put yourself into your character's shoes and see what comes out of it. Write as they would think and say.

"I'm so sick of my parents telling me what to do all the time, running my life as though I were some kind of puppet-doll they could manipulate. I can't even talk or express the way I feel without my mother interrupting my every word, or my father patronizing me with his scornful taunts. To heck with all that! I'm finally eighteen, and I'm looking forward to saying goodbye forever."

As mentioned, first-person is generally easier to deal with in writing emotional/tone pieces because you get direct access into the character's heads. You can tell the character is feeling oppressed and can't stand it anymore. She's angry and frustrated and the tone shows this.

Another effective way to write emotions is through literary devices such as metaphors and similes.

When a person is in love, the birds are singing symphonies. The moon is a beautiful maiden upon a starry, jeweled pedestal.

But when a person is grieving over the death of a loved one, the birds are instead crows chanting a funeral march. The moon is the pale face of a ghost.

Experiment and see what you come up with, I'm sure they'll be ten times better than my pathetic examples. But I'm sure you get the picture.

Hooray for stories that evoke emotion! I'm all for it, so good luck!

~ Audy

Here's another question. What are ways to describe confusion?

That question is rather impossible to answer, since each character will be confused a different way. I can't even begin to describe the number of different ways people can be confused. It's really what your character's personality is.

You could make the character frown, give a blank look, scratch his/her head, blink repeatedly and say "Huh?" if you want to portray confusion.

At least, that's what I would do. I also squint and incline my head to one side. Or bite my lip. If it's first person, you could depict yourself as "trying to digest/make sense of/understand the information", or describe the info given as an overload.

I think.

I don't think anyone's mentioned dialogue, which is a pretty good key to some characters' emotions. For example, an angry character wouldn't immerse themselves in the usual tact of conversation - the polite "how are you?" goes out the window. Sometimes the anger manifests as monosyllables, other times the character just mumbles and doesn't appear to be listening, maybe the character even launches into a tirade about their current problems. Confusion's hard, though, because I don't know, as someone else said, exactly how and why your character gets confused. As a suggestion, though, maybe your character stutters over their words? Maybe they don't seem to know what to say?

Keep in mind, too, that the degree of physical reactions will vary from character to character, depending on their different personalities.

I second that. It's hard for us to give you specific advice, because only you know your character inside out. I'm just offering you a technique. To practice showing dialogue though emotion, try writing a whole piece entirely of dialogue. It's a fun experiment to try, and it's actually really rewarding if you can get your characters across simply through what they say. Obviously that's a very extreme exercise, because you'll never depend entirely on dialogue for emotion and characterisation, but it's good to be conscious of it.