How to write emotion: show don’t tell
When I received some feedback on the first draft of my first fantasy manuscript, one reply stood out more than any other. My characters were 'emotionally clinical'. I reeled. I'd thought my characters had gone through a full spectrum of emotion. I was sure their feelings revealed depth and complexity and how clever I was.
When you suck, get better
I started delving into the craft of writing fiction and realised that the feedback didn't relate specifically to my characters, but rather to how I had written their feelings.
To be blunt, I'd been blunt about it. "Del clenched his firsts in frustration", "Righteous anger boiled in him", "An emptiness opened in her, the sorrow so deep that..."
Sin #1
I'd committed sin number one. I was telling, not showing.
Neil Gaiman said "I won't tell you what to feel, I'll tell you what happened and let you feel" (or something similar).
I was doing the opposite, naively thinking that by telling the reader what the character was feeling, the reader would empathise and relate.
Rule # 1
I gave myself a hard rule to get around this nasty habit:
Never say what emotion a character is feeling.
The only exception is when one character is observing emotions in another character, such as "Odem could see that he was furious.”
Using your 6th sense
A hot tip I picked up is the ‘6th sense’. No, not seeing dead people, but the way a character interprets their five senses based on how they're feeling.
For example:
A practice sword might feel heavy in a squire's hand as he trains, suffering the criticism of an instructor. Once offered praise, or after landing a strike, the sword might suddenly feel lighter, or fit his hand better, or the blisters might not hurt as much.
A wind might be soothing and cooling to a character who is relaxing after a hard day's work. Upon receiving some bad news, that same wind becomes biting cold, or blows dust into their eyes.
How to show and not tell
Write a short paragraph where a character experiences a strong feeling, or take it from an existing project. Be blunt, explicitly telling what emotions are going on.
Close your eyes and recall the last situation where you felt that emotion. Be vivid, try to relive it.
Pay attention to your body and what you feel, or how you start to interpret the world around you.
Now you know the effects of that emotion, how it shows up.
Anger could make someone's chest feel tight, or make them clench their hands into fists, or they feel heat spreading across their shoulders.
Replace every explicit mention of an emotion with the physical feeling of it. Show it.
Build on how the feeling by using the '6th sense'.
Show a bit more
If each of your characters have unique responses to emotions, they stand out as individuals. This can also lead to unique quirks and 'sparkle' for each character, influencing how they dress, act and speak.
Dialogue can change to highlight an emotional change. A character who is typically calm and soft spoken will sound different when they get worked up into a rage. A chatty, spoiled character might become silent and sullen if they don't get their way.
My results
I applied these steps to the following passage:
Odem stared at Ka'Mar, anger boiling within him. He spat, his fury hot in his mouth.
And got this:
Odem stared at Ka'Mar, his jaw tight against the heat boiling up through his chest. He spat, but it did little to release the pressure. His eyes narrowed, the pulsing vein at his temple feeling ready to burst.
It’s a bit wordy, and I liked the sound of ‘fury hot in his mouth’, so blended them:
Odem stared at Ka'Mar, his jaw tight against the heat boiling up through his chest. He spat, fury hot in his mouth.
The takeaway
By showing and not telling, I can see my characters developing the depth that they were missing. They act like people, not robots spelling out which emotional program I want them to run.
So:
Don’t tell what the emotion is. Show it through sensations, action, dialogue and the way the character interprets the world around them.
