Show, Don’t Tell: How What Your Character Notices Reveals Emotion

From Edie: Ane Mulligan shares how the details your POV character notices can reveal emotions, strengthen point of view, and help you show, not tell, in your fiction.

Show, Don’t Tell: How What Your Character Notices Reveals Emotion

by Ane Mulligan @AneMulligan

You really can teach an old dog new tricks—or in this case, an old author. I’ve picked up a new tip recently that I think is one of the best I’ve learned in a while. 

It’s showing what my POV character notices, because that shows emotion or state of mind. Gleaned from Writers In the Storm blog, a frightened character notices the shadows in a room, its corners where danger could hide. A happy person would notice the sun streaming through the window, and the butterfly on a meadowsweet bush outside that window.

Perhaps your character had a bad night. He would notice the silences in the office. I know if I have a great night, I walk into my office and see coffee, books, and sunlight.

So, what if you have a character enter a slightly creepy place, yet her curiosity is piqued, her romantic creativity jumps into hyperdrive. Then she’d notice possibilities in the antiquity of the space. In each nook, she’d see how she would use it if it were hers. 

Now, let’s say your character feels guilty. They might have trouble meeting the other person’s eyes and instead focus on how that person’s belt buckle pulls at the leather hole as if it’s too tight, or scuffs on the floor, or is one curtain is shorter than the other or is the rod crooked?

Basically, this tool is used instead of telling the emotion. I could say: “Marjorie entered the room and stopped cold. Something was off. The hairs on her arm stood up and her armpits prickled.” I have actually named the emotion, which is okay. But what if I showed what she noticed? Will the reader get that she’s frightened?

“Marjorie opened the door and stopped on the threshold. The desk chair wasn’t where she left it. A curtain fluttered with the breeze coming through the window she’d closed before she left her office.”

That would put the reader on high alert, and then I could add her armpits prickled, if I wanted.

For too long, I’ve told emotions to some extent as I did in, “Marjorie entered the room and stopped cold. Something was off. The hairs on her arm stood up and her armpits prickled.” 

But it’s time to take things up a notch. Now, it’s your turn. Join the conversation, please! Tell me what new trick you’ve learned.

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Show, Don’t Tell: How What Your Character Notices Reveals Emotion from @AneMulligan on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Ane doesn’t just wear many hats—she owns the entire store. Author hat. Theatre hat. Artistic peacemaker hat. “Let me tweak that blurb one more time” hat. Somewhere, there’s a stage manager looking for her, because she accidentally rewrote Act Two while adjusting the lobby lighting. Ane has retired more hats than most people own. She lives in Sugar Hill, GA with her artist husband, a marshmallow of a rottweiler, and a neurotic rescued German shepherd. Find Ane on her website, Facebook, The Write Conversation, and Blue Ridge Conference Blog.