A Quick Start Guide To Writing Emotions

In this post, we explore how to write emotions in fiction – with examples. We’ve created a quick start guide to writing emotions.

Read the other posts in our Quick Start series:

1. A Quick Start Guide To Creating Characters
2. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Fantasy
3. A Quick Start Guide For Beating Writer’s Block
4. A Quick Start Guide To Writing For Children
5. A Quick Start Guide To Writing YA Fiction
6. A Quick Start Guide To Writing A Memoir
7. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Descriptions
8. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Romance
9. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Science Fiction
10. A Quick Start Guide To Foreshadowing
11. A Quick Start Guide To Writing An Inciting Incident
12. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Dialogue
13. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Crime Fiction
14. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Emotions
15. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Revenge
16. A Quick Start Guide To Writing First & Last Lines

A Quick Start Guide To Writing Emotions

Emotions matter. They are built-in automatic responses that can be critical for our survival. They are the drivers behind why we do the things we do.

The 2 Most Important Things To Remember About Emotions

1. Emotions always begin internally and they are the result of:

1. News received
2. Something overheard
3. Something seen
4. Something experienced and whether that was a surprise or expected
5. Something read
6. Lack of sleep, food, shelter, help, and health
7. Medication or alcohol
8. Expectations of other people and whether they are met or not
9. A character’s assumptions
10. A character’s beliefs
11. Imminent danger
12. Memories
13. A change of scene for good or bad
14. The character’s ability or thwarted ability to bring change to a situation or another person
15. Other people’s actions or reactions
16. How finely tuned is the character’s fight or flight response
17. A character’s self-belief or self-image

2. Emotions are always expressed externally:

How a person controls, or doesn’t control, their emotions will have an impact on your plot.

• In the character’s body and face.
  People can have a ‘poker’ face where they express no emotion, they can ‘mask’ and pretend an emotion they don’t really feel, they can mimic the emotions of the person in front of them. Or they can be ‘read like book’, unable to hide their emotions. Even thoughts can change the expression on their faces, revealing their emotions to others.
• In the character’s actions.
  The body doesn’t lie. No matter how much a person tries to suppress an emotion, there’s always what is known in Poker as a ‘tell’. It can be as subtle as a muscle twitch in someone’s face. But the truth will come out in the end. The curtain drops, the politician goes home, the spy comes in from the cold, or the police find the bodies. 

17 Basic Emotions

Depending on which study you read, the number of emotions a living being can experience varies from 9 to 27. Here are 17.

1. Anger
2. Anxiety
3. Compassion
4. Depression
5. Envy
6. Fright
7. Gratitude
8. Grief
9. Guilt
10. Happiness
11. Hope
12. Jealousy
13. Love
14. Pride
15. Relief
16. Sadness
17. Shame

A good exercise for writers is to see how many synonyms and antonyms they can find for each of those listed above.

Writing Tips

Getting To Know Your Character

1. Inner life: Create your character’s inner life before you decide on their physical attributes as this will impact your plot far more than their hair colour.
2. Emotional quirks: These are the ‘tells’. How does his body reveal truth? Does he always look away when he tells his wife he loves her. Do the corners of his mouth lift when she walks into the room? Does he always hold his breath before responding when he’s angry.
3. Use ‘tics’ to reveal inner emotions when an outburst isn’t realistic. For example, the couple is at a very important state dinner, and the husband has just discovered his wife is having an affair with the Prime Minister. Erupting in anger will embarrass everyone at the table, inevitably be all over the papers tomorrow and he may very well be posted to Kathmandu by the end of the week. He doesn’t like Kathmandu.
4. Drama queens and James Bond: When something happens to your character, their reaction should be founded on the instinctive emotion they feel. There’s no need to write drama queens though, unless your plot specifically calls for one. Remember, even silence is an emotional response, as is turning and walking away. Every emotional reaction you write must be true to the character. For example, having James Bond lose his temper with house-keeping staff because there weren’t enough towels would be ludicrous.
5. Show don’t tell. Don’t tell me Marianne is sad, and being a typical teenager, show me by having her walk up the hill in the rain until she collapses.
6. Take the character into account. Take into account the age of the character, their background and upbringing, their job, their love or dislike of other people in the room, and the outcomes of various reaction options – for himself and everyone else. Find the reaction that would tell the reader the most without being on the nose, and while also telling them the least.

3 Ways To Reveal Your Character’s Emotions

1. Their thoughts

The best way to reveal a character’s real self, is to show the reader their thoughts – literally what they’re thinking or in related action.
Example: ‘I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus.’ The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. This reveals the character’s deep, raw feelings of detachment and numbness, and her emotional vacuum that is sucking her down.

They are used:

1. To create intimacy with the reader, help the reader see and possibly sympathise with the character’s point of view, and so bring the reader deeper into the story, or to throw readers off the scent, as it were.
2. To increase suspense – the reader knows what the character is really thinking, something the other characters don’t know.
3. To reveal the contrast between a character’s public persona and private persona.
4. To To move plot along. For example, you could have the character think, ‘Starting over sounds great. A new hairstyle, a new…name, and a new country! Right, where was that brochure for Italy?’ And the next chapter starts with them opening the shutters on their new apartment in Rome.

2. Their dialogue

Example:
“You do not grieve for your father?” 
“I do. I grieve that I never met the father everyone told me I had.” ~Circe by Madeline Miller

It can be used:

1. To reveal truth by what is said and what is left unsaid – the speaker is basically saying, ‘You never knew the man I did, and he wasn’t what you think he was’.
2. To reveal a depth of loss and longing without using ‘on the nose’ dialogue.
3. To reveal two sides of an emotion. One that is public, and one that is private. How often have we heard that those closest to serial killers had no idea of what they were doing. Ted Bundy’s wife still refuses to believe he was guilty.

3. Physical action

Example: In Beloved, Toni Morrison gives her characters mundane, repetitive, and heavy tasks, such as cleaning, which mirrors their deep emotional, psychological, emotional, or historic pain.

It can be used:

1. To reveal the emotion without telling the reader what the emotion is, for example. “This is all your fault!” John slammed his fist on the table. It’s obvious that John is furious. We see it. We don’t need to be told.
2. To move the plot along. He knew she was lying. He handed her the envelope of pictures and stepped out of the taxi, closing the door behind him with heavy thud.

The Last Word

Emotions matter. They make us human. They reveal our true selves. Use these tips to help you write better emotions in your fiction. You can also sign up for one of the rich and in-depth workbooks and courses that Writers Write offers, to inspire your writing.

by Elaine Dodge. Author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter, Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, including ghost writing business books, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.

More Posts From Elaine

1. Why A Good Vocabulary Is Important For Writers
2. What Is Cozy Fiction? & How To Write It
3. What Is A Cozy Fantasy?
4. What is Romantasy & Why Is It So Popular?
5. How Much Personal Experience You Need To Write Fiction
6. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Crime Fiction
7. What Can Jane Austen Teach Writers Today?
8. A Quick Start Guide To Writing Dialogue
9. What Is Deus Ex Machina in Storytelling?
10. What Is True Crime & How Do I Write It?

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