How to Show Emotion

Showing emotion is often one of the toughest things to do—in the sense of having the reader feel and identify with the feelings of the character.

You can do it by “He was sad,” but that’s not showing the emotion—that’s just telling the reader your take on the character’s mental condition. Look at the image above. If you describe what the person in the middle picture is doing rather than labeling it, you might come up with, “He dabbed a handkerchief to one eye.”

While that description doesn’t necessarily tug at the heart strings, it could be the beginning of a more effective scene.

“I can’t believe she’d do that.” He was sad.

Versus

“I can’t believe she’d do that.” He dabbed a handkerchief to one eye.

See, there is a subtle difference. It is easier for the reader to connect with the character’s action than with the writer’s description of it.

Emotion is tough

Here are some thoughts about how to get better at emotion in your characters.

Be specific. As in the example above, describe the action rather than your interpretation of it. Not He was pissed but His lips straightened into a thin line.

Don’t name the emotion. In one of those perverse things that is just life, the most effective way to show emotion is never to use the name of the feeling you are going for. That is, you don’t say he’s bewildered, you show how a person would act in that state. It’s not always easy to do but if you can’t picture it enough to describe it, how can you expect the reader to get it?

Differentiate between you and the character. In order to have fully realized characters, you need to depict how the character feels in the situation not how you would feel. Your villain might chortle with glee when the heroine falls off the cliff; you might gasp. You want to avoid having your characters acting/feeling as you might—it makes for a homogeneous emotional landscape and is therefore boring.

Be in touch with your own emotions. This one follows on from the previous point. If you don’t have a visceral connection to your feelings, its lack will show up on the page in a mysterious way. If you are hiding you from yourself, it’s harder to create characters that have access to the full range of emotions. I know this is a big thing to lay down and then walk away from, but how you get truly in touch with your feelings is outside the scope of this blog. But is nonetheless very worthwhile pursuing, quite aside from the benefits to your writing. See, I told you this is hard.

You don’t need to do it all the time

When the characters’ emotional state is an important part of the story, then you’d probably be better off showing than telling. But when it is not, and this is likely to be the majority of the characters the majority of the time, you don’t need to. And in fact, an exhaustive description of how everyone is feeling will likely slow down the action and bore your readers.

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020

Creating a Page-turner when the Ending is Known

The stage musical, Come from Away shares a phenomenon with movies like Titanic, Apollo 11, and Argos. That is, from the start, you know how the story is going to turn out. The ship will sink, the astronauts will land safely, and the American diplomats will be rescued from the 1979-1981 Iranian revolution. In Come From Away, the airline passengers get safely home.

The problem is that a story often gets a lot of its uumph from the reader wanting to know how things turn out. Will the villain get her comeuppance? Will the lovers get together? Will Mary find her lamb? Who killed Cock Robin? (Sorry, got carried away a bit).

It’s tricky to write a plot with a known ending because you lack the element of surprise/satisfaction/ etc. at the climax. Readers can get impatient because they think they know where things are going.

This happened to me with Titanic. By the mid-movie, I was thinking, “Yeah, yeah. Sad story. Boo-hoo. When is the sucker gonna sink?” Also cut down on my empathy for Leonardo DiCaprio’s watery fate, as you can imagine.

So, it can be a difficult task to keep reader interest with one hand effectively tied behind your back.

Writing a page-turner with one hand tied behind your back

First off, you need all the regular story-telling skills I’ve been talking about in this blog. But now, you need to put in special effort to keep the reader entertained until she gets to the ending. Here are some ways to do it.

Tension in every scene.

You can focus on how difficult it was to achieve the end goal and/or how easily things could have gone off track. You can ratchet up the tension and rivet the reader by detailing these trials.

Fate of (fictional) main character unknown.

Often, even in a true story, the main character (let’s call him Tom) is fictional—inserted in the story as an anchor for the reader to identify with. This allows you to play with that Tom’s fate. He can be instrumental in achieving the end (rescue, safe landing, etc.) and still himself come to a sticky end. Thus, assuming the reader identifies with him—and if she doesn’t, we have a whole different issue—but assuming she does, she is going to want to know how things work out for him. And thus you have a more typical story with an unknown climax. ‘Course, doesn’t work as well for memoirs.

Surprise ending.

Quentin Tarentino did this in Inglorious Basterds. The commandoes plan to kill Hitler in a cinema by igniting the flammable nitrate film. Knowing that Hitler did not die this way, I was intrigued to see how Tarentino would pull off a satisfying ending given this reality. And then Hitler dies in the fire! Despite a niggle that millions of Tarentino fans will have a distorted view of history, changing the ending does perk up the reader/viewer.

Surprise interpretation.

In my novel, SCAM, four out-of-work Canadian actors pretend to be an intact British acting family to win roles on an American sitcom. It took on the feel of a heist movie—i.e. it isn’t one unless you have a heist. Similarly, there is no novel if they don’t get the parts. Since the reader knows this, I interpreted the events in what I think was a surprising way. Please read it to see if you agree! (ADV.)

So, writing a story where the ending is known by the reader before she starts the novel can be tricky. But it is possible to do so if you are aware of the special challenge you face.

February 14, 2020January 7, 2020

Come From Away—Straight-forward Story-telling

Come From Away is a Canadian musical which played on Broadway and toured extensively. It tells the true story of a small community in Newfoundland which had to cope with the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States.

Because of the attack, many planes were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland. This is the amazing story of the town housing, feeding, clothing, and even entertaining the stranded passengers.

As a play/musical, Come from Away has two writing characteristics I want to highlight: one here and one in the next post.

Technique: Straight-through story-telling

This technique is interesting, if only because the pure form isn’t seen that often. That is, the story starts at the beginning (the townspeople’s bucolic existence before the planes landed) and goes to the end in a straight line (the stranded passengers returning home). I know this seems kind of ‘duh’, but most fiction has diversions off that straight path.

For example, a passenger is the mother of a New York firefighter but doesn’t know what is happening to him. The playwright makes the interesting choice in allowing her to speak of her anxiety, but with no flashbacks to show their love. A flashback is as easy to do in the theater as it is in fiction writing—the mother and her firefighter son are in a spotlight and the dialogue shows this is the mother’s memory of her son.

Advantages of the straight-through

Well, for one thing, it’s the way we typically tell stories. What happened, then what happened next, etc. It’s a form we’re familiar with and can take comfort from as we would well broken-in slippers.

It is also more efficient because there aren’t any interludes which might impede the forward action of the story. While I don’t typically advocate for efficiency as goal in writing, when a series of events has to be covered in a limited period of time, you might realistically pursue a little efficiency.

Disadvantages of this approach

In particular, the use of flashback may be the opportunity to connect emotionally with a particular character such as I discussed above with the mother and her firefighter son. A flashback takes you from guessing or assuming what her love is to seeing it for yourself.

Scene setting can also be done in flashback. What if the musical started when townspeople were in the midst of their herculean efforts to help the stranded passengers? It would focus immediately on the central point of the play. How the townspeople got to that point could be done in quick flashbacks which give the reader/watcher the information about the setting or past he needs at the moment needed. This is rather than knocking off the explanations at the top when their significance may not yet be clear.

Which is better?

It’s all a matter of choice—straight-through or a more convoluted structure. One way isn’t necessarily better than the other—but it does shape how the reader/watcher experiences the event.

So when you have a story to tell, take a moment to think whether the familiar straight-through, soup-to-nuts approach best serves or whether you might want the soup at the end and dessert somewhere in the middle.

February 7, 2020January 7, 2020

How to Tell Whether it’s Being Shown or Told

As I covered in a previous post, Let the Reader Participate in the Story, whether a story is shown or told can make a big difference to the reader’s enjoyment. However, writers often have trouble knowing what mode they’re writing in. So, the post is about telling the difference between show and tell.

Shown or told?

Look at the image at the top of this post. Is the story being shown or told? Obviously what the person is saying is very vivid as the other person can picture it. So that makes it shown, right?

I would say not—one person is telling the story to another other. Shown would be relating it from the point of view (POV) of the woman watching the ship. I think this is telling because the story-teller (blue person on the left) has to infer what the protagonist is thinking and feeling. If told from the protagonist’s POV, the chances of it being shown go up.

Other examples

This is a deceptively simple concept as I think the example above indicates. I realize that not everyone might agree with my take on it and I accept that opinions can differ on the line between the two concepts. Which just shows you how complex this whole thing is. So, let’s try a couple more examples.

Told

The town has never welcomed strangers. Dunno why. Some say it’s the prairie air. Others think that the townspeople have never gotten over that unfortunate hot air balloon invasion of 1984. But fact remains, the municipality of Dunton Heights is only good for those who were born in it.

Does it surprise you that this is that I consider this a tell passage? It is because the reader is told how to think about the town (i.e. unwelcoming). A way to show this might be a scene when a stranger moves into the town.

It should be noted that tell has its place. If this passage were unimportant information that the reader nevertheless needs to know, it’s a good use of tell. In addition, tell does not preclude the author’s voice coming across.

Shown

Ice crunched under Shana’s feet. She closed her eyes against the blowing snow and thought about how difficult everything was. If only she could banish her problems as easily as she could shake off the snowflakes.

Again, perhaps a bit of a surprise as show often uses dialogue. But not necessary. We are being shown what is physically happening around her. Tell would more likely be something like:

Shana loved winter and usually welcomed it. But her problems are not going to melt as easily as a snowfall would.

See, this is pretty tough. The rule of thumb I use: if what I wrote tells the reader what to think about the situation, it’s more likely tell (e.g. the town didn’t welcome strangers). If the writing lets the reader decide what is happening (e.g. ice crunching underfoot suggests winter), then it’s more likely show. But not always. Sorry.

January 24, 2020January 27, 2020

He Shoots, He Shows!

‘Show’ not ‘tell’ is the mantra of writing. In a previous post, Showing Show and Tell, I’ve discussed it, but it is so central to good story telling and people seem to have so much trouble with it, I think I will do a series on the phenomenon.

Why is ‘show’ important?

Excellent question, even if I do say so myself. Let me give you examples.

Tell: He was livid and Jenny was afraid.

Show: His lips pursed and a hand came banging down on the table. Jenny shivered.

Tell: It was a great game and Andrew was pumped.

Show: Andrew threw the ball in the air and yelled, “We won! Can you believe it?”

On the surface, these might look like relatively minor and even insignificant changes. But the difference is actually quite great. In tell, as you see from the examples, the writer is almost always deciding how the reader should feel. She is, in effect, being told by the writer, trust me, this is how it was.

But when show is used, the reader sees the incident on which the writer had based his conclusion. This allows her to decide how she feels about the events.

Not a big deal in the examples above, I grant you. But what about this example?

A more important example

Tell: Anne was desperate to hide her mistake. After her boss had left for the day, she looked through his desk to find the document. But he returned just as she found it. Quickly, she decided she had to distract him.

Show: “Good night, Anne.”

“Good night, Brad.” Anne watched Brad get on the elevator before she jumped up and headed into his office.

She pulled open the top drawer. There it was. She picked it up.

“What are you doing?” Brad!

She closed the drawer and said slowly, “What do you think I’m doing?”

Okay, is she just stalling for time or is she coming on to him? Presumably, the text following will answer the question but the show example is more compelling because you have put the reader in the situation itself. And even allowed her to engage with the story by wondering what Anne is going to do.

Shows take more effort and thinking

Generally, it is true that showing takes more effort and thinking. You have to go from the easy he was pissed to the more difficult consideration of what someone does or says in that state. How does he look? Does he bang the table or does he hiss his words? Are his eyes blazing or cold?

The added benefit to this approach is you give the reader more on the character. An eyes blazing, table-banging pissed or a hissing, cold pissed, implies two different types.

The good news is that you don’t need to do this with every character, every scene. There will be minor characters who don’t merit big show scenes or events which are not critical to the plot which nevertheless must be covered. These might be good candidates for tell.

I suspect that there may be some discomfort when considering these suggestions, the top one being, “But I want readers to see the story as I intend. I don’t want it to be open to interpretation.”

Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. Readers always put their own spin on the reading—which is part of the fun of it. But I suspect that this is not so easily dispensed with so I will do another post, Readers Participate in Your Story.