Oh, What a Feeling: How to Show Character Emotions

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Don’t talk of stars burning above. If you’re in love, show me!
Tell me no dreams filled with desire. If you’re on fire, show me!
– Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady

How to describe a character’s emotions is, of course, one of the most important tools in the fiction toolbox, right next to the plot caulk, the dialogue drill, and the scene saw.

And there are, as we all know, two choices: showing and telling. A good many critique group sheriffs will insist that you must never tell (name) an emotion. Never a simple Nancy was worried or Bob was frightened.

Well, I shot the sheriff (figuratively speaking!). It all depends on what I call The Intensity Scale. Think about the emotional intensity of a scene on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being nearly catatonic and 10 a loss of control like the “Leave Britney alone!” guy. And think of 5 as the demarcation line.

A scene can travel, and usually does, from below the line to above the line.

My rule guideline is that any emotion below 5 can, and usually should, be named. If Nancy is worried about how the meatloaf will turn out, you don’t have to go into sweaty palms and racing heart. That’s too much (unless the meatloaf is being prepared for Hannibal Lecter and the cops are nearby). Just write, Nancy was worried about the meatloaf.

But when you go over 5, you should show the emotion. The goal is to help the reader feel, not just know, what the emotion is.

So how do we show when we’re in the intense portion of a scene?

Nancy Kress, my former colleague at Writer’s Digest, had a great article on that in the January, 1993 issue. She gives five ways. Here they are, with my comments.

Physical Reaction

This is the one we usually go to first. Because it’s effective. Rendering how the character feels physically helps the reader vicariously feel it, too.

The trick is to find original ways to do it. Readers are used to sweaty palms, racing hearts, and twisting guts.

Does that mean never using them? Not at all. Just give them a little boost:

Her hands were slick and slippery now.

Her heart thrummed like a souped-up engine.

His stomach rocked in a greasy hammock. (This is like something I read once in a Stephen King story, but can’t remember which one. Anyway, you get the idea).

So: Don’t just grab the first description that comes to you. Play around a little. Add your touch of originality.

Action

Actions speak louder than words, right? You can always show the character doing something as a result of the emotion.

Again, watch out for the instant answer. An angry boss pounding his fist on the table, for example. That’s expected. Add something to it.

How about pounding a coffee mug down, spilling the brew?

How about yanking out a drawer, scrambling the contents?

A good exercise is to visualize the moment and let your character improvise, try different things. Go a little wild. You’ll hit on something surprising that seems right. When that happens, you know it will surprise the reader, too.

And a surprised reader is a delighted reader.

Dialogue

What a character says in the context of a scene should reveal emotion. And the way you can tell if you’ve succeeded is that you don’t need an adverb to make it clear.

Not:

“Get out of here, John!” Nancy said angrily.

“That’s the last time I pet a lion,” said Tom offhandedly.

No finer example of how it’s done is this clip from Hemingway’s story “Hills Like White Elephants.” A man and woman are sitting at a train station, sipping drinks, as the man jauntily tries to tell the woman that an abortion is no problem. (The mastery of the story is that the word abortion is never used).

“Then what will we do afterward?” [Says the woman]

“We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.”

“What makes you think so?”

“That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.”

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the string of beads.

“And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.”

“I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it.”

“So have I,” said the girl. “And afterward they were all so happy.”

That last line hits hard. We know how she feels from the context and word choice. We don’t need said the girl sarcastically.

Setting

We waste a description of setting if we don’t use it for “double duty.” It should add to the tone of the story and reflect the character’s emotion.

In “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away,” a short story about a man’s darkest moment, Stephen King begins this way:

It was a Motel 6 on I-80 just west of Lincoln, Nebraska. The snow that began at midafternoon had faded the sign’s virulent yellow to a kinder pastel shade as the light ran out of the January dusk. The wind was closing in on that quality of empty amplification one encounters only in the country’s flat midsection.

Fading light, dusk, wind, emptiness. We are being set up to feel the inner life of the character even before we meet him.

Thoughts

This is, I think, the most powerful way to convey emotion, because it’s coming directly from inside the character. It’s also the best opportunity for originality, as there are an infinite variety of choices under two main headings: explicit and implicit. Here’s an example of explicit emotion.

I can’t open this door. I just can’t. John will kill me. But I have to. I have to.

Implicit emotion can be proffered by way of metaphor (A thousand devils poked his brain with pitchforks), dreams, and memories.

And example of using a dream is the beginning of Chapter 15 of The City by Dean Koontz:

Eventually I returned to the sofa, too exhausted to stand an entire night watch. I dropped into a deep well of sleep and floated there until, after a while, the dream began in a pitch-black place with the sound of rushing water all around, as if I must be aboard a boat on a river in the rain …

Here’s an example of memory from my novel, Your Son is Alive:

He was surrounded by cops, touched by strong hands, hearing voices, but they were growing distant, and he went into another world, long ago, seeing the Mickey Mouse balloon from Disneyland when he was four, and his dad tied the string around his wrist. But he wanted to hold it himself so he slipped the string off his wrist and held the balloon and waved it around. Then had to scratch his back and somehow the string got away, and the balloon went up, up, up and he said Oh no oh no oh no, and he could only watch, helpless, his grief expanding because Mickey was all alone in the sky, no one to help him. Unmoored.

So try this:

Go to any scene in your WIP and ask:

  • Where do the moments fall on the Intensity Scale?
  • Do I show or tell intense emotions?
  • How might I use or more of the 5 ways?
  • How can I “originalize” the showing?

Jim Butcher says the emotional component of his books is the secret of their popularity. In writing about scene and sequel, where sequel = emotion, he writes:

People don’t love Harry [Dresden] for kicking down the monster’s front door. They love him because he’s terrified out of his mind, he knows he’s putting himself in danger by doing it, he’s probably letting himself in for a world of hurt even if he is successful, but he chooses to do it anyway. Special effects and swashbuckling are just the light show. The heart of your character—and your reader—is in the sequel.

Comments welcome.

35 thoughts on “Oh, What a Feeling: How to Show Character Emotions”

  2. I once scoffed at the idea of talking to your characters for ideas, but it works. Problem is, we can’t tell normies that we have imaginary conversations with imaginary people. They’d have us put away. Guess that’s one of the rules of Write Club.

  3. Great distillation of accumulated wisdom.

    Some time ago, I started noticing that all my favourite novels violated the “Show, Don’t Tell” injunction when it came to depicting characters’ emotions. Then I also noticed that mediocre novels tended to follow it to a tee.

    I like your approach. We get the best of both worlds and a method by which to sort out the two.

    Thanks. That’s what I call sound advice!

  4. I like to use Jack Bickham’s speedy list technique.
    Number your paper (computer, stone tablet, note app on your phone, write in the sand, etc.) from 1-20 and make a quick list of your character’s reaction. The first 10 are predictable. I find for me 15-20 are where the gold is.

    Happy writing!

  5. Good advice, good suggestions. I have trouble with descriptions/metaphors/idioms/whatevers because I don’t like reading them. I’m very much a ‘cut to the chase’ reader, and to me, they can stop the action, slow the pace. My book club recently read a book by a well known mystery author, but it wasn’t one of his mysteries. They loved all the brilliant descriptions. I gave it a ‘meh’. The story should have grabbed me, but I couldn’t connect to the characters.
    As I reach ‘the end’ in the current wip, I’ll be referring to this post in my first editing pass. I know I have too many pounding hearts and twisted guts.

    • The editing pass is usually the best time to add or refine emotional content.

      And yes, we have to be aware of slowing things down. But it’s also true that in the upper part of the Intensity Scale the right rendering of emotion also deepens the intensity of the action.

      • And make sure what we’re writing stays true to the character. I think that’s what bothered me about the book club book. I couldn’t accept that the characters would think that way.

        • Lack of motivation for a character to do or say something is a pet peeve. TV is even worse: because you see it happening right in front of you, it must be true? But it disrupts your understanding of a character, and dilutes what you had already learned.

          Okay, when that’s the REASON – something new is coming along – and irritating when it is unconnected from anything else AND out of character.

  6. I like the idea of the intensity scale in determining what tell stays and goes. I know I continue to wrestle with this–seems like no matter how many years pass, it’s still easy to slip into ‘tell’ mode in your writing. But the concept of choosing the level of tell vs. show based on intensity of the moment is a good guide.

    These things are tricky. On the one hand, we obviously don’t want to bore the reader, but rather draw them in and have them engaged. On the other hand, we as writers agonize over things some readers never even notice or pay attention to.

    And I do get in trouble with tired phrases that convey emotion. On the other hand, I’ve read stuff where the author tries too hard to be unique in conveying emotion. To me that’s no better than too much telling. If you’re trying too hard to be unique in your writing, sometimes it stands out in a way that isn’t great. I like Cynthia’s suggestion of making a list of possibles to find the word or phrase that will hit that sweet spot between not cliche and not over the top.

    • Yes, BK, the writing of emotion is one of the trickier parts of the craft. What you say resonantes. But when it works, it is so worth the effort.

  7. Jim, I remember that passage from Your Son Is Alive. The last line Mickey was all alone in the sky with no one to help him. Unmoored. got me straight in the heart b/c it was simple and understated yet powerful.

    Histrionics don’t move me. But a vivid image like that does.

    The Emotion Thesaurus by Ackerman and Puglisi offers ways to “show” that go beyond the cliche sweaty palms and pounding hearts.

    In first drafts, I often “tell” as a placeholder to avoid slowing down writing momentum. On rewrite, I go back and find a more effective way to show.

    • Thanks for the kind words, Debbie.

      That’s a good priactice, putting in a placeholder for later. You know so much more about your story when you finish a draft, and thus have a better “feel” for the feelings.

      I also recommend The Emotion Thesaurus.

  8. Nancy is worried about how the meatloaf will turn out, you don’t have to go into sweaty palms and racing heart. That’s too much (unless the meatloaf is being prepared for Hannibal Lecter and the cops are nearby). Just write, Nancy was worried about the meatloaf.

    This says to me, context, context, context matters. (Plus, the reference to Hannibal is darned funny . . .)

    Go back to my WIP and ferret out the scenes where emotion is above or below 5, and tune them up, I say to myself. With no sweaty palms . . . 🙂

  9. The examples you cite are wonderful, Jim. I long to write a scene like the one from “Hills Like White Elephants.”

    I find writing in first person is a fine way to use the character’s thoughts to show emotion as well as further define the character by his/her own voice.

    And I am going to find a way to include
    “That’s the last time I pet a lion,” said Tom offhandedly.
    in a book. 🙂

  11. Fantastic post, Jim. The Emotional Intensity Scale is a very insightful and handy tool. Nancy’s five ways of showing emotion pairs beautiful with it. Your question about looking for a way to “originalize” the showing is the perfect prompt to get us to a truly original showing of that emotion. A high bar, but worth it.

    This also scales well for genre–with thrillers often high in intensity and showing, and cozy mysteries (for instance) often having scenes in the telling zone, but spiking into showing at crucial moments, especially the confrontation/reveal of the murderer.

  12. Jim,

    Great post! The intensity scale is very helpful as well as the examples.

    Have you ever written a character where you’re trying to get him to show his emotions but he seems to want to keep them locked up? I struggle with that sometimes and can’t figure out why. I wonder if I’m projecting my own way of hiding emotions onto my character?
    Thank you!

    • Good question, D. It does sound like there may be a little writer’s fear in there. Just keep telling yourself you’re safe, you can write with wild abandon and no one is there to stop you. When I was an actor, the first thing I had to learn was to let go in front of other people, but soon learned we were all in this together and it was the way the break free.

      Try the page-long sentence practice. Pick an emotional moment and write about the emotion as if the character were talking to you in first person, without stopping, just letting it rip, don’t edit yourself. You’ll begin to find some of your best stuff this way.

      Carpe Typem!

  13. Excellent as always, Jim. Glad I went back to read it today. Like Debbie, I often tell while drafting. It’s easier than having to stop to think of ways to describe the emotion. Unless, of course, it comes to me immediately, but even then I’ll tweak it later.

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