Introduction:
Writing emotion through character is perhaps the most classic way of “showing, not telling”. One can say “John was sad,” but the true meat of writing, how we get our audience to really care, is to describe the specific ways in which our characters display their emotions. Real people experience feelings differently, after all, so showing that our characters do too gives them more depth and something concrete for the audience to relate to. Does John become cold and distant when sad? Does he cry? Does he lash out at others? Emotions affect our body language, our thought process, and our relationships (among other things), and so these are all descriptive ways we can write emotions without explicitly naming them. Additionally, writing your characters’ emotions out as above is a great way to subtly build their personalities: who a character is as a person informs how they experience an emotion, and so how a character experiences an emotion in turn helps readers learn more about them.

If you’re feeling like this is a lot, don’t worry— we’re going to break it all down before we put it all together again. Onward!

Part 1 - Body Language:
People very rarely openly communicate everything through just their words, and that’s where body language comes in! When openly writing out your characters’ thoughts may be clunky, or impossible in the perspective (hello third person objective), body language pulls a lot of weight in conveying characters’ true thoughts and feelings.

Even subtle things can convey an emotion, if you are careful enough with your description: is your character holding themselves rigidly or loosely? Are their eyes glazed over or focused? Are they sitting tightly with their feet on the floor, or are their limbs splayed all over the couch? We could go on and on about what specific actions convey which emotions, but some general rules of thumb are that people with heightened emotions will move more suddenly and energetically, while more lethargic emotions will cause people to be more reserved (and possibly even curl in on themselves). For more specific actions, the chart here is a decent (but not comprehensive) resource.

Keep in mind your character’ intentions while writing too! If they’re in a tense situation and don’t want to give their emotions away, they’ll most likely stand/sit stiffly, or have an expression flash over their face for only a second before letting the mask settle in again. If a character is trying to act happy while not really feeling so, you could say “their smile didn’t quite reach their eyes” or “their gestures were strangely mechanical.”

Body language can sometimes come naturally to us, so even when you think there might not be much to describe I promise you there is. Even in a completely neutral conversation, how do you hold yourself when you’re talking to your friends versus your parents? In a formal setting, how do you stand compared to if you were at home? Add in emotions, and then you have something to work with.

Body language is also a great way to tag and add context to your dialogue! Because we can’t hear tone through the page, body language is the main way to imply tone without explicitly writing out “he said, annoyed.” Consider:

“He won’t listen to me.” Alex rolled her eyes.

versus

“He won’t listen to me!” Alex crossed her arms.

I would be careful to not overdo the body language too much, as with any description if you go on for too long the pacing of your story will get a bit rough. You don’t need to write out every minute detail, but choose the most important ones for what you want to convey: big actions (rolling eyes, a flourish of the arm) perhaps, but smaller actions as well (an eye twitch, tense hands) if you’d like to be more subtle, show that a character is trying to control their body language, or that your narrator is attentive.

Part 2 - Perspective:
Perspective is the framework through which our stories are told (unless, once again, you are writing in third person objective). How your character sees the world is the lens through which your audience sees it too— and perspective is affected by, you guessed it, emotion! As a result perspective is yet another way to convey a character’s current emotions to a reader. An event will come across differently to someone who is feeling pessimistic compared to someone who is feeling jubilant.

Take the following two examples from this site here, which outlines a useful technique to practice this idea; take a seemingly unrelated event and write out a small paragraph detailing your character’s thoughts about it. In this case, the author Marisa D. Keller used the event of leaves coming out in spring.

“The leaves came out today. It breaks my heart to look at them, all new, innocent, untouched by the ravages of entropy. I think about their future, chewed by insects, spotted by disease, stripped from their twigs by a careless child who hasn’t learned what death is.”

“Overnight, the leaves had come out, and even though {I} knew they had their own schedule, it was easy to pretend they had arrived to celebrate with {me}, green fireworks exploding all around, flags waving, tiny hands clapping, the birds all aflutter with the news, flying back and forth joyously to relay the story: {I} kissed {her}! {I} kissed {her}!”

It’s the same event, but interpreted very differently based on the characters’ mindsets.

It’s worth noting that this all still applies even in third/second person! Just because the pronoun changes doesn’t mean the thoughts do.

I lingered at the cliffside, eyeing the harsh white cut of the stone and the sea beyond it— water as far as the eye could see. It was a perfect mirror to the indescribable pit in my heart that had drawn me out here in the first place. Water and salt and clouds and the inescapable blue out and out and out, enough for me to drown in. I was already drowning in it, perhaps.

You lingered at the cliffside, eyeing the harsh white cut of the stone and the sea beyond it— water as far as the eye could see. It was a perfect mirror to the indescribable pit in your heart that had drawn you out here in the first place. Water and salt and clouds and the inescapable blue out and out and out, enough for you to drown in. You were already drowning in it, perhaps.

Lauren lingered at the cliffside, eyeing the harsh white cut of the stone and the sea beyond it— water as far as the eye could see. It was a perfect mirror to the indescribable pit in her heart that had drawn her out here in the first place. Water and salt and clouds and the inescapable blue out and out and out, enough for her to drown in. She was already drowning in it, perhaps.

Part 3 - Interpersonal Dynamics:
And now we get to perhaps the most complicated bit. When writing scenes with multiple characters you need to think about the above, but you also need to consider how previously established relationships will affect the emotions people feel and how they express them.

As noted briefly in the first section, how people are with their body language will depend on their relationship with the other characters in the interaction. Are they friends? Enemies? Does one know something the other doesn’t? As a result, are they relaxed and open with their body language, or tense and controlled? Are they trying to act and be deceptive, or natural and honest?

Relationships form the basis of how people view each other, and therefore how they might react to them differently: If a child gets into an argument with a parent, for example, they will express their anger differently than if they get into an argument with their younger sibling. Even when not writing direct interactions, our thoughts can be driven by our emotions surrounding different people: love is an obvious one, but it can be smaller things such as silent gratitude toward someone who helped us, or disappointment at an unfortunate event. These emotions can then, as with the perspective examples in the second section, influence our interpretation of later events. An angry character might see someone else’s actions as more hostile than they really are, and a bitter character might see a harmless offer as someone trying to screw them over. In this way, when two angry (or any other heightened emotion) characters interact, they’ll subconsciously egg each other on and the situation will escalate until something shocking— a hurtful enough phrase, an external event, a reality check from a third party— happens.

It’s important to keep in mind that emotions will not stay static when multiple characters are interacting! As new things are said and topics move, so will the characters’ feelings and judgements of each other. This means, as you might’ve guessed, that characters’ body language and perspective will change too. A dramatic betrayal, a confessed secret, or other such sudden gamechangers will cause body language and thoughts to pivot suddenly as the character processes and changes to reflect the new situation. Slower events with more buildup (a large public announcement or friendship that gradually drifts apart) will likewise result in slower changes in body language and viewpoint.

Part 4 - Bringing It All Together:
Once you’ve got all these pieces, all you need to do is put them together! Be sure to pay attention to flow and pacing: people rarely think in long paragraphs and then engage in quick conversation. They observe and think and move and talk at the same time, so try to write your characters as such.

Here’s an (admittedly long I am so sorry aaa) example from a history project I did recently:

It’s the same every night.

Olga starts putting out the kerosene lamps, ignores the layer of dust building up on the mantel, and at 9 pm sharp there’s the knock on her door. She takes the last lamp to the door and lets Lena in after peeking through the peephole. Her friend hands her some food. Olga scarfs it down. There’s an awkward silence while Lena waits, and then she always asks,

“Still not cooking?”

And Olga always replies, “The kitchen still feels too empty.”

The conversation usually branches from there,
Did you see the nice weather today
How was Christmas did you like the snow
Did you end up cleaning the house today
How are you doing
How are you doing
How are you doing
How are you doing
How are you doing
but it’s always tiring and Olga has been wondering for a while why Lena chooses to come by every night— there’s a distinct exhaustion to both of them that makes this routine seem pointless.

Maybe before Olga would have pointed this out the moment it came to mind, confronted Lena about it, but now the air is heavier and the house is colder and it takes her longer to think about these kinds of things.

It is the fifth day when Olga finally asks, finishing the pirozhok and hiding her grubby hands in the folds of her plakhta. Lena stares, but doesn’t say anything; they are both more comfortable in the silences.

“So why do you come by?” God, Olga hates how tired and desperate she sounds. She hates that she isn’t strong enough to say the implications out loud anymore.
Why do you care
Why do you bother
What’s the point

“…Well.” Lena takes time to digest the points, cocking her head to the side. Olga chooses to think that her friend does this because she can’t think of an answer, and not because she’s trying to put anything into words. “I suppose it’s ‘cause I care about you, Olya, and because no one else is going to any lengths to check on you. Not even yourself.”

A strangled choking noise adds to the underlying tension, and it takes Olga a second to realize that she made it. She shouldn’t have asked but she did she did she did she did and of course no one is checking on her, because Vasenka was always the one checking on her and
he
is
not
here.

“I can’t stay here,” Olga whispers, almost to herself. The smell of oil everywhere screams every time she almost decides to go outside, repeating the name of the lost man who helped bring it up from the ground. Vasenka worked the earth and so he’s still tied inexorably to it, and Olga doesn’t want to but she hates it hates it hates it.

“You don’t have to, Olya.” Lena is whispering too, now, and the breathy, quiet acknowledgement feels like a benediction. “You don’t have to if you don't want to.”

Olga shrinks inward, feeling the oily warmth of her hands against her heart, and rasps, “then where do I go?”

SUN WORKSHOP SUN WORKSHOP SUN WORKSHOP

Is this the workshop you said you were doing?

oms this is gorgeous hi third