Last week\u2019s email was all about staying close to character and I ended, in a way I seldom do, by being a bit mean about another author\u2019s work. Specifically, I wasn\u2019t keen on the amount of clenching, contorting and panicking that went on. We wanted to rustle up other ways to convey inner state. I gave some examples in that email, but today I want to give a more comprehensive, more fully ordered list of options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Honestly, I doubt if many of you will want to pin those options to the wall and pick from them, menu-style, as you write. But having these things in your awareness is at least likely to loosen your attachment to the clench-n-quake school of writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s say that we have our character \u2013 Talia, 33<\/strong>, single. She\u2019s the keeper of Egyptian antiquities at a major London museum, and the antiquities keep going missing. She\u2019s also rather fond of Daniel, 35<\/strong>, a shaggy-haired archaeologist. Our scene? Hmm. Talia and a colleague (Asha, 44<\/strong>) are working late. They hear strange noises from the vault. They go to investigate and find some recent finds, Egyptian statuary, have been unaccountably moved. In the course of the scene, Asha tells Talia that she fancies Daniel \u2026 and thinks he fancies her back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the course of the scene, Talia feels curious<\/strong> about the noises in the vault, feels surprise and fear<\/strong> when she finds the statues have been moved. And feels jealousy and uncertainty<\/strong> when Asha speaks of her feelings for Daniel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to find ways to express Talia\u2019s feelings in the story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s one way: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Direct statements of emotion<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Talia felt a surge of jealousy, that almost amounted to anger<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bingo. Why not? That\u2019s what she feels, so why not say it? No reason at all. Some writers will panic that they\u2019re telling not showing, and they\u2019ve read somewhere that they shouldn\u2019t do that (at all, ever), so they\u2019ll avoid these direct statements. But why? They work. They\u2019re useful. They help the reader. <\/p>\n\n\n\n More complicated but still direct statements<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhere, she felt a shadow-self detach from her real one, a shadow self that wanted to claw Asha\u2019s face, pull her hair, draw blood, cause pain<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s still saying \u201cTalia felt X\u201d, we\u2019ve just inserted a more complicated statement into the hole marked X, but it still works. And that dab of exotic imagery gives the whole thing a novelly feel, so we\u2019re good, right? Even though technically, we\u2019re still telling not showing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Physical statements: inner report<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Talia felt her belly drop away, the seaside roller-coaster experience, except that here she was no child. There was no sand, no squinting sunshine, no erupting laughter<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now as you know, I don\u2019t love text that overuses physical statements as a way to describe emotion, but that\u2019s because overuse of anything is bad, and because the statements tend to be very thin (mouth contorting, chest shuddering, etc). If you don\u2019t overuse the statements and enrich the ones you do make, there\u2019s not an issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Notice that here, we have Talia noticing something about her physical state \u2013 it\u2019s not an external observation. But both things are fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Physical statements: external observation<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Colour rushed into Talia\u2019s face. She turned her head abruptly to prevent the other woman seeing but Asha was, in any case, more interested in the case of funerary amulets<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, we\u2019re only talking about physical changes that are apparent on the outside, and that snippet is fine too. It doesn\u2019t go very deep and, for my money, it feels like a snippet that would best go after a more direct statement. \u201cTalia felt a surge of jealousy, anger almost. Colour rushed into her face, and she turned her head \u2026<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dialogue<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDaniel?\u201d said Talia. \u201cBut he\u2019s so much younger. I really doubt that he\u2019d \u2026\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dialogue conveys emotion. It can also provide text and subtext in one. So here, the overt meaning is Talia\u2019s doubt that a mid-thirties Daniel could fancy a mid-forties Asha\u2026 but the clear sub-text is a catty jealousy on Talia\u2019s part. And readers love decoding those subtexts, so the more you offer them, the better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Direct statement of inner thought<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDaniel?\u201d said Talia. \u201cBut he\u2019s so much younger. I really doubt that he\u2019d \u2026\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Doubt what? That he\u2019d fancy the glamorous, shaggy-haired Asha, with her white shirts and big breasts and pealing laughter?<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The second bit here is a direct statement of Talia\u2019s actual thought. We could also have written: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Doubt what, she wondered. That he\u2019d fancy \u2026<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n That inserts a \u201cshe wondered\u201d into things, but as you see, we can have a direct statement of her thoughts with or without that \u201cshe wondered\u201d. Either way, it works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Memory<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Talia remembered seeing the two of them, at conference in Egypt. Holding little white coffee cups on a sunny balcony and bawling with laughter at something, she didn\u2019t know what. Asha\u2019s unfettered, unapologetic booming laughter and all the sunlit roofs of Cairo<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That doesn\u2019t quite go directly to emotions, but it half-does and we could take it nearer with a little nudging. And, for sure, if you want a rounded set of tools to build out your emotional language, then memory will play a part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Action<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n When Asha spoke, Talia had been holding a small pot in elaborately worked clay. It would once have held a sacred oil with which to anoint a new bride. Talia felt Asha looking sharply at her, at her hands, and when she looked, she saw the pot was split in two, that she\u2019d broken it, now, after two thousand three hundred years<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n OK, is that a bit on the nose? Breaking a marriage pot. Well, maybe, but it\u2019s better than quaking, clenching and contorting all the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Use of the setting<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n They were in the vault now, marital relics stored in the shelves behind them, funerary relics and coinage on the shelves in front. Leaking through the walls from the offices next door, there was the wail of Sawhali music, the mourning of a simsimiyya<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At one level, that snippet is only talking about hard physical facts: what\u2019s stored on the shelves, what music they can hear. But look at the language: we have marital<\/em> and funerary<\/em> in the same sentence. The next sentence brings us wail<\/em> and mourning<\/em>. This is a pretty clear way of saying that Talia\u2019s not exactly joyful about things. Every reader will certainly interpret it that way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And there are probably more alternatives too, and certainly you can smush these ones up together and get a thousand interesting hybrids as a result. I said you probably won\u2019t want to pin this list up on a wall anywhere, but honestly? If you do<\/em> read back a clench-quake-contort passage in your own fiction, then you might want to (A) delete nearly all of that that clenching and quaking, then (B) check back here for alternative approaches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your writing will get better, instantly, if you do that. And \u2013 you\u2019ll have more fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n *** <\/p>\n\n\n\n FEEDBACK FRIDAY<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Take any passage in which you\u2019ve got excessive dependence on physical statements about your character and rework it, using any mixture of the tools here. You\u2019re welcome to keep some physical statements in your scene, but make sure you keep a nice balance overall. We want to get a rich and rounded sense of the character\u2019s emotion \u2013 written in a way that doesn\u2019t make me want to scream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What I need: <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll give feedback to a good handful of you. All are welcome to participate, but I\u2019ll only offer feedback to Premium Members. When you’re ready, upload your material\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0If you\u2019re not yet a Premium Member but would like to be, then you can join us\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *** Til soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Harry <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week\u2019s email was all about staying close to character and I ended, in a way I seldom do, by being a bit mean about another author\u2019s work. Specifically, I wasn\u2019t keen on the amount of clenching, contorting and panicking that went on. We wanted to rustle up other ways to convey inner state. I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":98318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29292],"tags":[29213],"class_list":["post-150019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harrys-friday-email","tag-harry-friday-email"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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That\u2019s it from me. We have a new puppy in our lives. He\u2019s called Dibble, and he\u2019s a black-and-white poodle \/ papillon cross. He has four white socks, a white bib, a touch of white on his nose, and the end of his tail looks like it\u2019s been dipped in white paint. The little lad is an absolute darling. My girls are smitten, but I\u2019m not exactly unsmitten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n