The Power of Emotion
Emotion is fundamental to successful novels across all genres, driving characters’ decisions, actions, and words, which in turn propel the story. Without emotion, plots become unengaging, and readers lose interest. Readers seek emotional experiences through characters whose trials resonate with their own lives. Emotions guide our choices, interactions, and values, and are essential for meaningful communication.
Nonverbal communication constitutes up to 93% of our exchanges, with body language and vocal cues conveying much of our feelings. Writers must translate their observational skills into their writing to meet readers’ expectations for authentic emotional experiences. Characters should express emotions in ways that are both recognizable and compelling.
Vehicles for Showing Emotion
- Dialogue: While dialogue articulates ideas and needs driven by emotion, it should not convey feelings alone. Writers should combine it with nonverbal communication.
- Vocal Cues: Changes in voice tone, pitch, and speech flow provide hints about a character’s emotions, revealing more than words alone.
- Body Language: Physical reactions to emotions vary by character, offering numerous ways to show feelings through behavior and movement.
- Thoughts: Internal monologues reveal characters’ mental processes and add depth, showing how they perceive their world and react emotionally.
- Visceral Reactions: These raw, instinctive responses, such as changes in heart rate or adrenaline spikes, should be used sparingly to avoid melodrama and clichés. A light touch ensures these reactions remain impactful.
Understanding Emotional Range and Individuality
- Unique Emotional Expression: Each person expresses emotions uniquely based on their upbringing, education, experiences, beliefs, and personality. This individuality affects not only which feelings are overtly shown but when and how they manifest.
- Emotional Spectrum: People fall on a spectrum of emotional expressiveness, from those who are naturally open to those who are highly reserved. Most people lie somewhere in between, and heightened emotions can shift them along this spectrum.
Importance of Backstory
- Character Alignment: Developing detailed backstories helps writers ensure that characters’ actions, choices, and decisions align with their past experiences.
- Focus Areas: Concentrate on two main areas when building backstories:
- Important people in the character’s life who influenced their views on emotions.
- Impactful experiences that have shaped their emotional responses.
Influence of Important People and Formative Experiences
- Positive and Negative Influences: Significant people, whether supportive or dysfunctional, shape how characters view and handle emotions. For example:
- A character belittled for crying as a child might hide their emotions to avoid ridicule.
- A character influenced by a sibling who openly expressed emotions might see emotions as a vehicle for positive change.
- Formative Experiences: Specific events can deeply affect characters’ beliefs about emotional expression. For instance, a character receiving communal support after a disaster might learn the value of sharing emotions.
Establishing Baseline Reactions
- Everyday Scenarios: Determine how characters react in everyday situations to establish a consistent baseline for their emotional responses. For example:
- A character might patiently wait in a long grocery line, indicating high tolerance for frustration.
- Another might quickly become angry and vocal, indicating a low threshold for irritation.
- Consistency and Intensity: Use these baseline reactions to predict and plan how characters will respond to more significant conflicts and upheavals in the story.
Determining Expressiveness
- Reserved vs. Demonstrative: Decide if a character is naturally reserved or demonstrative:
- A reserved character might show excitement with a subtle smile and quiet voice.
- A demonstrative character might react with exuberant gestures and animated speech.
- Body Language and Verbal Cues: Tailor the character’s body language and verbal expressions to match their level of expressiveness.
Considering Comfort Zones
- Emotional Context: Characters’ emotional expressiveness often changes depending on their environment and company:
- In private, people tend to be more open with their emotions.
- In public or around strangers, they might be more reserved due to self-consciousness or fear of judgment.
- Trust Levels: Characters are more likely to express emotions around trusted individuals or those sharing similar emotional states.
Differentiating Stimulus and Response
- Varied Reactions: Recognize that characters will react differently to the same stimulus based on their life experiences and personality. For example:
- One character might react with fear to a spider, while another might calmly move it away.
- Highlighting Individuality: Use these varied responses to emphasize each character’s uniqueness and add depth to their emotional reactions.
Identifying Emotional Sensitivities and Insecurities
- Emotional Vulnerabilities: Determine characters’ emotional soft spots and how they react when these vulnerabilities are triggered:
- Characters may fight, flee, or freeze when confronted with emotions they find uncomfortable or insecure.
- Using Sensitivities: Use these emotional hot spots to create powerful scenes and reveal deeper layers of the character’s psyche. For example:
- A character fleeing from a situation that triggers painful memories indicates unresolved trauma.
Tips on Eliciting Emotional Responses
- Show, Don’t Tell:
- Use actions, dialogue, and body language to reveal emotions instead of directly stating them.
- Allow readers to infer emotions through characters’ behaviors and interactions, making the emotional experience more engaging.
- Embed Triggers in Settings:
- Incorporate elements in the environment that evoke emotional responses from characters.
- Utilize settings to remind characters (and readers) of past experiences, intensifying their emotional reactions.
- Use Subtext in Dialogue:
- Convey hidden emotions through dialogue, allowing characters to express feelings indirectly.
- Layer conversations with underlying emotional currents to add depth and complexity.
- Craft Relatable Experiences:
- Create situations that readers can empathize with, drawing them into the characters’ emotional journeys.
- Use universal themes and experiences to resonate with a broad audience, making the emotional content more impactful.
Puglisi, Becca; Ackerman, Angela. The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression (Second Edition) (Writers Helping Writers Series Book 1). JADD Publishing. Kindle Edition.