Writers tutorial entry; How to make your novel emotionally come alive

I know I overdo the smiles and sighing etc.
Could you give me an example of showing
internal workings rather than expressing
something external such as a sigh or
blush? – Samantha, Australia
There are lots of ways that writers slip into
‘telling’ (external) rather than
‘showing’ (internal), especially when it
comes to emotion. There are the obvious
phrases such as:
Bob held the photo of his old friend, and he
was sad.
That’s telling. The writer is stating the fact,
telling the reader what emotion Bob is
feeling. Usually it is much more effective to
show Bob’s emotions rather than just stating
the fact.
Sometimes when a writer wants to show the
emotion, she will use an external sign of an
internal response. Some examples of these
external signs include smiles, frowns, sighs,
shrugs, blushes, looks (such as stares and
glares), and my all-time least favorite, the
furrowed brow. I’m not even sure what a
furrowed brow looks like or what it means,
but I seldom see a manuscript that doesn’t
deploy at least two furrowed brows. If I’m
editing your work, you can bet I will strike
through it or suggest you find a different way
to say it. I’ll probably furrow my brow as I
strike through that phrase.
Bob stared at the photo of his old friend. He
sighed, furrowed his brow and began to cry.
This is now describing Bob’s facial
expressions, body language, gestures and
other external physical responses to
illustrate Bob’s sadness. It’s better than
saying ‘Bob was sad,’ at least most of the
time.
Most of the time this happens when the
writer is trying to show rather than tell, but
it’s only a halfway step. The writer is ‘telling’
the reader what facial expressions the
character is giving, and those facial
expressions then ‘show’ the emotion. It’s still
a step or two removed from the readers.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that,
just like there is nothing inherently wrong
with ‘telling’ the reader some things. It’s all
in when and how something is told or shown
that makes the reader engage with the story
and character. Sometimes “Bob was sad” is
exactly the right sentence. Sometimes “Bob
frowned” may be exactly the right sentence.
Showing will generally take a lot more
words, and maybe it’s not important enough
to spend any more than three words on the
fact that Bob was sad.
But if Bob being sad is an emotional moment
in which readers need to empathize with
Bob, it’s worth a few more words. Describing
facial expressions, sounds or body language
alone doesn’t bring the reader into the
character’s emotions. Adding physical
actions and responses can help show the
emotion.
Facial expressions are external signs of
sadness. It could also be written with
physical actions and responses:
Bob’s hand shook as he stared at the photo.
He thought of his old friend, and his
shoulders heaved with a sob.
Better, but it’s still missing something – it’s
flat. It describes the physical actions and
response. This sentence is part showing and
part telling. The writer tells the reader that
Bob’s hand shook, that he stared at the photo,
and that he started crying, all of which
creates a ‘showing’ scene. The reader is
seeing the scene, better than “Bob was sad,”
but the reader isn’t feeling it first-hand. The
reader is seeing the scene from the external,
not the internal.
So let’s revise again, and write the sentence
from inside Bob’s skin, inside his head,
showing the scene through Bob’s eyes.
The photo trembled in his hand as Bob
remembered his old friend, and the image
blurred behind his tears.
Not saying this is Pulitzer Prize stuff, but this
last version shows the reader that Bob is sad.
It paints a scene in the reader’s mind, and
the reader can feel Bob’s reaction – his
internal response. The external has almost
been completely eliminated. This last
version doesn’t tell me if Bob is frowning or
sighing. It doesn’t even directly tell me that
he is looking at the photo or that his hand is
shaking or that he started crying. Those are
external actions. Yes, all of those actions are
there, but they aren’t ‘told’ or stated as a fact
for readers. This version explores the
internal response. It puts the reader inside
Bob as his hand trembles, he remembers,
and the photo blurs.
These can be trickier, but also easier to
resolve, when writing in first person. The
main thing to remember is that a first-
person narrator does not see her own face to
describe her smiles, her frowns, or her
furrowed brows. A first-person narrator,
like all of us in real life, don’t usually notice
when we sigh. But in first-person, or in a
tight third-person, the character’s thoughts,
feelings, and internal monologue can be
used to show emotions.
Below are a few examples from a
manuscript draft with the original wording
and suggested edits. All suggested edits are
mere examples of one way the sentence
might be revised. There are many different
ways of saying something, and it’s always up
to the writer to come up with the best way
that fits the writer’s style, voice and story.
ORIGINAL:
I shot her daggers and refused to dignify her
remark with a response. She knew how
important my career was to me.
REVISE:
I refused to dignify her remark with a
response. She knew how important my career
was to me.
Sometimes the external signs of an emotion
can be eliminated completely, as the
internal thoughts, actions and dialog show
the emotion. I eliminated the ‘shot her
daggers’ phrase (a reference to the character
giving a sharp glare). It’s not needed. The
rest of this paragraph carries the full weight
of the emotion, the character’s irritation.
ORIGINAL:
The security guard looked me up and down.
‘You his mother or something?’
I glanced down at my suit, then back up at the
guy. ‘Oh, sod off!’
REVISE:
The security guard eyed my business suit.
‘You his mother or something?’
‘Oh, sod off!’
I moved the reference to what she is wearing
to the guard’s actions rather than the
character glancing down at her clothes. She
already knows what she’s wearing. Her
words convey her reaction without her
reviewing her own attire.
ORIGINAL:
I blushed the same way I did every time David
quasi-flirted with me, then realized how
inappropriate it was to be reacting this way
with a dead guy just meters away.
REVISE:
Every time David quasi-flirted like this, it
awakened the giggly, embarrassed twelve-
year-old who still lived inside me, completely
inappropriate with a dead guy meters away.
The revise eliminates the blush but describes
from an internal perspective what she was
feeling, perhaps in a way that readers can
relate to. It also eliminates the filter that tells
readers the character ‘realizes’ something
rather than just letting the realization come
through naturally.
ORIGINAL:
I felt my forehead crease with surprise that
the cop appeared to know me, and took a
closer look at him. I may have come across
him in my work, but nothing stood out.
REVISE:
How did this cop know me? I gave him a
closer look. Maybe we’d crossed paths before,
but nothing stood out.
This revise replaces ‘I felt my forehead
crease’ with the internal thought, ‘How did
he know me?’ That expresses her surprise
from her internal thought rather than telling
readers she was surprised and having the
character describe the feeling of her own
facial expression.
ORIGINAL:
I sighed, slipped off my heels and trudged into
the living room.
REVISE:
I slipped off my heels and trudged into the
living room.
A simple elimination of the sigh. Slipping off
her heels and ‘trudging’ (a great verb in this
sentence) captures her mood. One thing to
remember is that most of the time, a person
doesn’t know when they sigh. Also, people
sigh for a variety of reasons – sad, happy,
satisfied, perplexed, confused, resigned, etc.
Stating that a character sighs doesn’t really
say anything without some additional
information to show the emotion. And once
the additional info is there and the emotion
is shown, the sigh becomes unnecessary.
ORIGINAL:
I flashed him what I hoped was a beguiling
smile.
REVISE:
None. This is a very specific action that the
character does consciously for a reason. It is
her conscious action of flashing a particular
type of smile that is the important point of
the sentence. There are always exceptions,
like this one, where a smile, sigh, or a blush
is the important action rather than only
serving as an external sign of an internal
emotion.
The bottom line – get inside the character’s
skin, inside his or her head, and tell the story
from the inside out, internal thoughts and
emotions and perspective, rather than
external only. Make your readers feel it as if
they are the character rather than watching
the character or being told about the
character. It draws readers into your
character and your story much more
convincingly.