writing, inspiration,

“Show the Emotions of Your Characters in Your Writing” by Joan Y. Edwards

I decided to separate an earlier post Putting Universal Conflict, Universal Theme, and Universal Emotions in Your Story to simplify so that perhaps you might understand adding emotions to your stories a little better.

To pull readers into your story, put emotions in your story. Emotions make your characters come alive. One way to make your story have universal appeal is to add the tension of opposing emotions inside your character. We all feel mixed emotions every day. Should we do this? We shouldn’t do that. It’s smart to do this. How could I be so stupid? How could he be so naive? What’s the wisest choice? Do I get a choice? When a character has two or three choices and none of them seem very good, it adds tension. It makes the reader want to turn the page.

You ask me, “What are the main emotions?” Here are three lists of emotions:

Paul Ekman’s Big Six Emotions

Anger
Disgust
Fear
Happiness
Sadness
Surprise

Ekman’s Eleven Other Basic Emotions

Amusement
Contempt
Contentment
Embarrassment
Excitement
Guilt
Pride in achievement
Relief
Satisfaction
Sensory pleasure
Shame

Robert Plutchik’s Two Added Emotions (Wikipedia)

Acceptance
Anticipation

Nine Emotions of The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin

Acceptance
Anger
Apathy
Courageousness
Fear
Grief
Lust
Peace
Pride

All people experience emotions. Put believable emotions into your story. Put emotions that everyone that might be in the position that your character is in might experience. It will help your story reach out and hook more readers. You want your readers emotionally involved with the characters in the story. If they are emotionally involved, they’ll want to find out what happens to them.

Read this sentence: Jake was disgusted.

You might say the writer put the emotion into the sentence. The word, “disgusted,” is there, but we don’t feel the emotion. Add action, setting, and description of face and body to make the emotion come alive.

Below is dialogue I made up right here on the spot, just for you. See if it showed emotions through the dialogue, action, setting, and description of face and body.

Jake thought as he looked at the men pawing the waitress. “How can they do that?” His heart pounded inside his chest. He remembered his sister talking to him about the man who raped her. She said, “No one tried to stop him.”

Jake immediately left the bar stool. He stood in front of Preston Richards. “Take your two men and leave. Don’t ever come back.”

“You and whose army is going to make me leave,” Preston said as he blew smoke from his cigar into Jake’s face.

Jake’s three bouncers approached. They were six foot five and weighed 300 pounds. Their muscles were larger than Preston’s whole face.

Preston said, “Okay. We’re leaving. But, we’ll be back to get her later. You can count on it.”

Did I show any emotions without actually using the words for the emotions? I think I did. I hope you think I did, too.

If you find you’re using the word for the emotion: he was sad, she was angry, etc. You are telling, not showing. It’s time for a rewrite. What you wrote isn’t wrong. It’s just not complete. You’ve got it started. You named the emotion. Now it’s your job as the author to show the emotion with other words, similar to what you would do with your body if you were playing charades. You can’t use words in charades, but you can use your body and nearby props. Do that with your writing.

Use the Search and Find in your word-processing program. Find any plain emotion words and replace them with appropriate action, setting, dialogue, and description.

Keep a journal observing yourself or other people experiencing six emotions from the lists above. As an experiment, put down each emotion and write down visible signs or invisible signs (what’s going on inside the body) of this emotion. Keep this close to your computer so that when you are writing your next scene, you can use these ideas as spring boards to heighten the showing part of your writing.

Here are website links with information about emotions:

1. Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions
2. Pamela Berry. Clip Art Guide Great pictures matched with emotions – Free to look, pay to use on websites and in print.
3. Feeling Faces Cards.com and icons
4. Words Describing Feelings on Eqi.org
5. Words Describing Common Negative Feelings on Eqi.org
6. Aristotle’s and Robert Plutchik’s List of Emotions from Wikipedia

Thanks for reading my blog. Good luck with your writing. Please sign up for an email subscription in the column on the left.

Do something to celebrate being you!
Never Give Up
Joan Y. Edwards

“I Should Have Stayed in Bed”
by Joan Y. Edwards

On June 14, 1971 I should have stayed in bed. In hindsight, it might have been the best thing to do. It was my daughter, Lorrie’s third birthday. I woke up…looked in the mirror, and said to myself. Just look at your hair. It’s so straight you could draw a straight line with it. With your hair looking like that, people coming to your daughter’s birthday party will take up a collection for you. I thought if Dolly Parton can wear a wig, I can, too. So I put on a wig of long, chestnut curls. Now, I was ready to face the day. I was glamorous.

First, I baked yeast bread. It turned out hard. I dropped it in the trash quickly so my husband, Alvin, wouldn’t see my failure as a bread baker. The brick bread made a big loud BUMP THUD.

My husband hollered from the other room, “What in the world was that?”

What could I say? Possible choices:
1. “Just the bread I made, dear. Fresh from the oven.”
2. “Oh, I just dropped my cook book.”
3. “The upstairs neighbor fell through the ceiling.”

I swallowed my pride and told him what really happened. Lucky for me, there was a loaf of French bread in the freezer. I sliced it and spread garlic butter over it. I toasted it under the broiler after the spaghetti was ready.

I boiled noodles to compliment my famous delicious spaghetti sauce that simmered on the stove. I took the pot of noodles to the sink to drain the water off. As I was pouring off the water, my hand slipped. Instead of only the water draining off, all 100 strands of pasta fell out of the pot and slithered down into the garbage disposal.
Luckily, a neighbor loaned me two boxes of angel pasta. I started over again. I put a big clean pot in the sink to drain the pasta over next time.

My mother, my husband’s sisters, and other guests arrived for the party. We ate supper. Then I carried the Holly Hobbie cake that Lorrie’s Aunt Betty baked and decorated just for her. I lit the candles. I leaned way over to get all the candles lit.

I heard my mother say, “Oh, dear. The child’s hair is on fire!”

I leaned in closer to look at Lorrie’s hair. However, Lorrie’s hair wasn’t on fire. She was sitting patiently waiting to blow out her candles. She was just fine. I was relieved.

All of a sudden I realized that my Mother’s child was me. My hair was on fire. I ran to the sink, pulled my wig off, and ran water over it. All my glamour sizzled and melted in two seconds. It was definitely a bad hair day.

The rest of the day went well. Lorrie loved her cake and the gifts.

Everyone laughed. I had to admit that it was funny. Being able to laugh at myself, helped me enjoy the rest of the day. I had funny stories to share for many years to come. I learned to bake bread. I learned to strain the water from pasta without dropping the noodles in the garbage disposal. I kept my wigs away from flaming candles.
I’m glad I didn’t miss Lorrie’s third birthday. It was fortunate that I got out of bed that morning, after all.

—–

Thanks for reading my blog. I hope you enjoyed my story, “I Should Have Stayed in Bed.” All of these things happened, they didn’t all happen on the same day. They happened years apart, but my wig actually caught fire on Lorrie’s third birthday. Her Aunt Betty really baked and decorated a Holly Hobbie cake for her. My wig was really short hair. I fictionalized parts of the story to make it seem like things were stacked against me, to make it funnier.

Stack things against your main character in your story. Your main character is strong. He or she will work his way out of the trouble, into more trouble, and you’ll have a prize-winning story.

Writing, Inspiration