Once a month, the Authoress holds a Secret Agent contest on her blog, Miss Snark’s First Victim. Writers send her the first 250-words of their completed novel, and an agent and other writers critique it.
A number of reasons exist why entries might not leave the critters wanting to read more. One deals with the reader being unable to connect with the main character. We don’t feel what she’s feeling because she’s not feeling anything. Her boyfriend dies. Not a tear is shed. Zombies attack. There’s no flight or fight response. Definitely not good.
Several things to keep in mind when writing emotions:
- Show don’t tell. Okay, you’ve heard this before, but it’s so true. Show us the tears instead of telling us your character is sad. A great resource is the emotional thesaurus on the blog, The Bookshelf Muse.
- If your character says, “I’m so sad today,” that’s the same thing as telling.
- Forget about adverbs. “I’m fine,” she said sadly. That’s still telling.
- Let your character go through a range of emotions in the scene. She might start off mildly irritated by something at the beginning and be angry by the end.
- Tried to avoid the same old clichés. That’s where The Bookshelf Muse is extremely helpful. And make sure you vary the body parts that respond. In other words, the heart isn’t the only organ that reacts when we’re scared. I’ve blogged about this before.
- Make sure your character’s emotions are appropriate to the situation. Unless your character is a hand model on a Revlon photo shoot, she’s not going to respond to a broken fingernail the same way as if her BFF died. Right?
- Pay attention to the verbs you use. A character who storms off the football field is experiencing a different emotion to one who is limping or sauntering off the field.
Does anyone have any other suggestions? Do you find emotions hard to write in a scene? If so, I hope this helps.