Expressing judgment of an emotion deprives readers from the experience of seeing, hearing, and feeling what was going on—so they can judge for themselves. We make them observers rather than participants. When readers refer to an author, saying something like, “Her novel was well-written, but I really couldn’t get into the story,” we can guess what was missing—no pictures that took our breath away.
In our first draft, we might say, “Benson was angry,” but that’s lazy writing. To evoke reader emotion and keep the pages turning, we must expend more time and energy to visualize what his anger looked like. Describe the picture in what can be seen and heard, and readers will feel the tension.
Emotion can be pictured in any number of ways. For examples:
- “You’re an idiot.” She gritted her teeth and turned away.
- His face reddened as if he were about to explode. “If you can’t do any better than this, you’re fired.”
- His finger aimed at her face, he seemed ready to shoot his girlfriend. “Who is he? What’s going on here?”
First, identify the emotion. Next, picture the scene. Finally, use words to show what that emotion looked like, without saying, “He was very emotional.”
Benson is an easily angered gumball machine who has no problem showing his feelings in the animated series Regular Show. We see him turning red, screaming, and throwing things, but there is no line across the bottom of the screen, saying, “Benson is angry.” The emotion is obvious because of the pictures.
