by Mike Klaassen

Created on: June 26, 2008   Last Updated: February 03, 2009

In published fiction, the portrayal of character emotion may appear to be seamless, almost effortless. In reality the finished product is the result of hard work by an author using six basic techniques for portraying emotion:

* Stating emotion

* Explaining emotion

* Dialogue

* Introspection

* Bodily reaction

* Action

In addition to using the basic techniques for portraying emotion, the author faces other issues and opportunities during the actual process of writing:

* Context

* Sacrifice

* Repetition

* Cliches/Fresh Language

* Setting

* Selection of technique

* Choice of emotion

* Range of emotion

* Intensity

* Melodrama/Sentimentality

* Emotional complexity

* Emotional consistency

* Emotional journey

CONTEXT According to Renni Browne and David King, in Self-Editing for Fiction-Writers, simply telling readers about an emotion may not be the best way. A better way is to show why the character feels as he does. You don't want to give your readers information. You want to give them experiences."

Orson Scott Card, in Characters and Viewpoint, notes that ". . . you increase the power of suffering, not by describing the injury or loss in greater detail, but rather by showing more of its causes and effect."

Emotions usually don't just pop up in a vacuum, they require development. Successful portrayal of emotion depends on context, which requires planning for a buildup to make emotion feel genuine.

SACRIFICE According to Card, "Pain or grief also increase a reader's intensity in proportion to a character's degree of choice. Self-chosen suffering for the sake of a greater good-sacrifice, in other words-is far more intense than pain alone."

REPETITION Also states Card, "Suffering loses effectiveness with repetition. . . . the first time you mention a character's grief, it raises his stature and makes the reader more emotionally involved. But if you keep harping on the character's suffering, the reader begins to feel that the character is whining, and the reader's emotional involvement decreases." By the third or fourth time, the character becomes comic, and her pain is a joke."

CLICHES/FRESH LANGUAGE Emotion, as a fiction-writing mode, is fertile ground for cliches. Examples provided by Ann Hood, in Creating Character Emotion, include:
a heart pounding mad as a hornet one tear rolling down a cheek green with envy butterflies in her stomach a face as red as a beet happy as a clam

"One of the problems with this," explains Hood, "is that cliches simply fall out of our heads and onto the paper. We

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