Emotion: The Bite That Hangs On
April 2003 HODRW Newsletter Article
by Margie Lawson
Do you struggle with capturing emotion on the page?
Do you consciously work to get the nonverbal communication in each scene just right? Body language, vocal intonations, facial expressions, emotional stimulus/response sets, ideomotoric shifts, proxemics, touch, gestures . . . .
Do you try to write it all fresh? Try to viscerally hook your readers?
For some writers, writing emotion fills them with as much trepidation as their first kiss. They keep it quick and simple by reaching into the top of the emotion grab bag, adding the raised eyebrow, the clenched fist, or the pounding heart. When they reach a little deeper, they have the lips draw into a thin line.
A writer's goal is to entrance the reader. Literally lead the reader into a light trance state where they suspend a level of consciousness, suspend belief, suspend reality. The successful writer could be considered a hypnotherapist by their written words.
As readers, we know what it feels like to read a line that pulls us out of a story. In critique groups, it's considered a speed bump. The trance is broken. The reader is jolted into an unwelcome reality, disappointed that the writer didn't carry through on their promise to captivate them - to hold their mind captive - page after page.
Isn't that what the reader wants? To lose themselves in your fictional world? To identify with your characters? To feel what they are feeling? To finish reading the book at all costs, even if it's two in the morning and they have to be at work at eight?
Every character in every scene is communicating verbally or nonverbally. The first axiom of communication is: One cannot not communicate. The writer cues the reader with all the nonverbals. Giving your characters an opportunity to exhibit the full range of nonverbal behavior expands their emotional repertoire-and keeps it exciting for your readers.
Writing Nonverbals Fresh
Have you ever read a book that has so many characters nodding at each other that you picture bobble-head dolls? Or know a writer who should have done a search on the word "grimace?" Or encountered a cast of characters with more adrenalin surging through them than a winning Super Bowl team?
Why didn't the author catch it? We all fall into easy writing on the first pass. The more we read and reread our own work, the more natural and right it sounds. We are lulled by the cadence, the image, the feelings - and we miss the repetition.
One New York Times bestselling author had different characters' eyes glitter seven times in the first three chapters. Characters' eyes glittered at various times with joy, rage, tears, and anger. How many other readers were distracted with the repetition of that one word, pulling them out of the story?
Writing feelings in clear, concise words has its place in every novel. Stephen King, in From A Buick 8, knows how to keep it simple.
"Eddie's shoulders came up in a kind of defensive hunch."
Stephen King is also one of the masters of writing complex nonverbals. An example from the same book shows how he leads the reader with the sagging weight of a gun and segues to a sagging face.
"His gun sagged downward and outward until the barrel was pointed at the floor. It was only three pounds, but his arm could no longer support even that paltry weight. The muscles of his face also sagged, pulling his eyes wide and drawing his jaw down until his mouth opened."
How many ways can a writer describe a character in shock. Tingling? Lightheaded? Woozy? Stumbling? Maybe Robert Crais took that image of a shocky, stumbling walk paired with wooziness to create this gem in Demolition Angel.
"She walked back across the parking lot feeling as if her legs were enormous stilts, pushing her to a height that left her dizzy. She could barely get into her car--taking forever to fold the stilts the way a mantis folds its legs. Nothing fit anymore."
That's a rich lesson for writers. Take two components of a feeling state and combine them in a creative way. Mix and match until you have an image that works for you.
Ninety percent of nonverbal communication is conveyed through the face. Many of the masters show the sequence of feelings that parade across a character's face. In the following example, Mark Sullivan, in Labyrinth, covers three feeling states in one sentence.
"The skin on Finnerty's face tightened toward fury, then he got a puzzled expression that broke over into a smile."
Jeffery Deaver in A Maiden's Grave describes three sets of eyes.
"Now, she interested him. Suze did. Good old Donna had her muddy eyes that told him nothing, and the younger teacher had her scared eyes that hid everything. But Miss Teenager here . . . Well, her eyes said a lot and she didn't care if he read it. He figured that she was smarter than the other two put together."
A new mother/daughter writing team, writing as P.J. Tracy, provides the reader with fresh images. Here are two examples from their debut novel, Monkeewrench.
"And now all Roadrunner's body parts started moving at once. His eyes shifted from side to side, the corners of his mouth tightened in a guilty smile, his head bobbed, and his shoulders kept going up and down. Pinocchio manned by a mad puppeteer."
"Annie Belinsky's eyes shot up to his in a panic. A movement in her lap caught his eye, and he glanced down and saw her wagging a finger back and forth almost imperceptibly, warning him to back off. That wouldn't have stopped him, but the naked plea in her eyes did."
Karin Slaughter, in her debut novel Blindsighted, combines two components of paralanguage - tone and rate - to inject a touch of humor and create a memorable margin character.
"Her nasal tone and the fact that she spoke sixty miles an hour gave Jeffrey the impression that he was talking to a French horn. Every response Jeffrey gave her was slow in coming because he had to wait for his brain to translate her words."
Writing emotion so it's the bite that hangs on - searing feelings in the reader - requires reaching deep and writing it fresh. Analyze how your favorite authors convey emotion, then analyze your own work and beware of overusing the basics. Shoot for complex emotions as you build to a scene climax and take your writing to a higher level.
Margie Lawson practices psychotherapy for a living and writes suspense to maintain her sanity. She applies her analytical focus to the nuances of writing craft and the psyche of the writer. She's teaching a COFFIN class, Empowering Characters' Emotions, for KOD in May.