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Five Ways to Show Emotion in Your Writing

Five Ways to Show Emotion in Your Writing. 1) A Reaction Inside the Body.

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Five Ways to Show Emotion in Your Writing

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  1. Five Ways to Show Emotion in Your Writing

  2. 1) A Reaction Inside the Body • Your character feels emotion immediately through his or her body. This could be an increase in heartbeat, a change in temperature (hot or cold), muscles tightening, a flutter in the stomach, etc. Identify the body reaction in your character, and get creative with your language (beware of clichés like butterflies in the stomach).

  3. 2) A Reaction Outside the Body • Your character will also express emotion through his or her body language. Your character will start by feeling the emotions (and sensual reactions) inside the body first, and then translate that emotion into the physical. The body will react. Think about your character’s posture, facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, etc.

  4. 3) Emotional Flashes of the Past • When humans experience emotion we reference moments from our past in our minds. Small flashes of memory show up in our consciousness. These moments don’t come as ideas but as vivid images. These images could include memories of similar emotion, people, environments, etc. Think about what your character’s triggers are from his/her past, and how they may surface in the present.

  5. 4) Emotional Flashes of the Future • Similar to flashes from the past, a character can also flash forward to the future during an emotional moment. These flashes show what the character desires or fears, as these flashes have not yet come into existence.

  6. 5) Surroundings and Senses • Consider your character’s surroundings at the moment of emotion. At any given time your character will be surrounded with hundreds of sensual cues. But the mind cannot process everything at once, the character will select certain elements in his/her environment with which to focus upon. Often one is not conscious of this selection, instead one’s emotions hone in on something deeper, that the character is not aware of. The emotion (in a way) makes the selection. Use your landscape to help reveal character.

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