I avoided saying 'Body Language' in the title, because I don't mean reading emotions based on quirks and facial expressions. I'm talking about full-blown charades action, basically what Angel does. I'm curious, how much of a conversation can you get across to the reader without actual written dialogue, and how much can you reasonably expect the reader to understand without explicit explanation? Obviously you could write an entire conversation with silent cues if you wanted, but it does no good if the reader doesn't get it.

The reason I ask this, is because I've read too many stories with Angel involved where a line like this appears:
Angel tapped his foot as if to say "Where's my sandwich, get in the kitchen, I'm hungry."
Yeah, he didn't say all that. If you can't explain it through his actions, then he didn't say that. I know it's possible though, just look at his performance in Keep Calm and Flutter On. He was using props and everything to get his point across, and still he struggled to deliver his message. Despite this, I know that a similar scene in the average fanfic would be him simply pointing out the window and Fluttershy saying "Oh, there's something bad happening at Sweet Apple Acres? Let's go everypony!"

So, is it a problem with the written versus visual medium? Could you write a convincing and complex conversation between Angel and a pony without using the "It's okay, Fluttershy magically knows exactly what he's saying and explains it to the reader" method? I'm honestly curious about this, and would love to see if anyone has any good examples of this.

To be honest, it's tough to do this. I've never tried it, but if I ever did, I'd probably fail. It's a grey area for many, and sometimes, doing things as if Fluttershy or whoever knows what whoever is saying really is the best thing to do. Makes things easier for yourself and the reader...

I don't remember if I've seen it before, but it shouldn't be that hard. All you're doing is writing an action. You said it yourself. Plus, if I recall correctly, sometimes it even takes Fluttershy more than once to understand what Angel's saying, so the problem of being difficult at times is part of it.

I have been working on this myself lately in my story 'story for a sick pony'. See, for most of the fic, Sweetie Bell is mute and she can only speak with her flute. What I try to do is, just write down what she meant in code. It also helps that I have seen a lot of cartoons with mute protagonist and it makes it easier for me to write for her

952816 Well I'm putting Angel in as Fluttershy's companion in my fic (she's travelling with some of her friends too), and I have him convey his questions / responses with signals only. For example I have him salute in response to a serious demand from Fluttershy, and had him point rapidly between some food and somepony who hasn't eaten recently to signal that they need to eat something, simple stuff like that. Don't know what I'll do if things get much more complicated though.

Angel wants a sandwich...

The little white bunny stomped his fluffy little feet as he marched up to Fluttershy. She turned to regard her cute little pet, but instead found an angry Angel Bunny.

"Oh what's wrong Angel?"

He merely crossed his arms and impatiently stamped one foot repeatedly.

"You want something?"

Angel nodded his head quickly and pointed to his belly, which growled on cue. Using his paws, he mimed holding a sandwich as big as him and taking a huge bite out of it.

"Oh! You want your carrot and lettuce sandwich? Is it past twelve already?" Fluttershy said to herself as she trotted over to the food room to start preparing the all-important sandwich.

There. Work for you?

You can describe a lot just through actions. Ideally what would happen is that a non-speaking character indicates something by either pointing to it or implying through an action that makes the other character think about what character 1 is trying to imply. It is a very difficult concept to explain with words, so here's an example:

Twilight watched as Owlowicious flew over to his perch. His stomach growled and he looked at Twilight, then at the kitchen, then back at Twilight. Twilight stared at the bird blankly for a few moments.

"OH!" Twilight exclaimed, "You're hungry! That's what you've been trying to tell me."

"Who," the owl hooted, pleased.

"Why you, of co-... Gah! That's right," the mare said, irked that she fell for it yet again, "You say 'who' no matter what the context."

Owlowicious fluffed his feathers happily and followed Twilight as she made her way to the kitchen to prepare food for the bird.

I hope this helps.

952816
Two good examples of this would be a character in the Belgariad series and the Dabus in Planescape: Torment. In both, they had an interpreter (and in one, actually did have a magic interpreter who simply knew what he was saying) but both tended to start a conversation with a bit of miming (or in the case of the Dabus, shapes)

If you've seen Rise of the Guardians, they speak the same way Sandman does.

Anyway, after a few iterations of act out, interpret, get asked question, repeat; the miming character tends to just stop (or his actions become fewer and farther between) and the interpreter takes over the conversation.

For Angel, given what you'd put, I'd make it vaguer (omit the sandwich) and have Fluttershy verbally work through it.

Fluttershy turned to the noise and saw Angel Bunny standing there, little arms crossed and his foot beating impatiently on the floor.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Angel. Did you want something?"

The bunny glowered at her as he uncrossed his arms and rubbed his belly with his little bunny hands.

"Are you hungry?"

Angel gave her one brisk, angry nod, then jerked his thumb toward the kitchen.

"Oh... right. How about I make you something to eat..."

952990
Yeah, that works for the example. The example I gave with the sandwich was more to illustrate the laziness of explaining a concept that's already simple to get across through actions, though. I'm really interested in just how complex the interactions can get before losing the reader, preferably without even needing the other character to clarify what he meant. Something like:

Angel does something.
"Oh, no, I'll take care of that tomorrow."

And have the reader know exactly what they're talking about without needing to come out and say it. You know, like the two characters are having a perfectly natural conversation.

952816
Well I am currently studying ASL (American Sign Language) and that consists of both actual hand signs and acting out what you mean. If you were to describe his actions in depth then you could easily have a nonverbal speaking role in your story. You just can't forget the details because they mean everything.

Nonverbal communication speaks volumes, more so I would say than dialog. I tend to like writings that are heavy in nonverbal instead of dialog so that it is easy to envision the character. If it's just dialog, you don't have as much of a mental picture to go of of.

952816 You're talking about Lassie, the most famous cross-dresser in the world!
"Lassie, what's wrong girl?"
"Bark! Bark!"
"Timmy fell down a well and needs our help?"
You are talking about the clasic Lassie Syndrome where any animal can magically comunicate what is going on with only afew little movements or sounds. Then the sapient creatures around it suddenly have whole stories about what the animal wants.

953286
Is that what that is? That'll make it easier to explain in the future.

You learn something new everyday.

You can convey a lot without dialogue. Body language and choreography actually carry more information in real life than your words do. If anything, spoken language should supplement the unspoken language. I don't think that I've seen any stories here that work without dialogue, but I don't know of any good stories that ignore choreography. With choregraphy and dialogue, sometimes what is just as important as what is being done or said is what is not being done or not being said.

953332 I made it up Maybe it will catch on...
But Lassie was the best example I could come up with and really the ridculouslness of those shows.

953079 Sadly, the only way to let the reader know what's being communicated is to either, A. specifically describe the body language, or B. reveal it in the speaking character's dialog. (Or C. have the narrator just say what is being communicated.)

A. Angel mimes wanting a sandwich. Fluttershy says "Ok, just a minute."
B. Angel stares at Fluttershy. She says "I'll have your sandwich ready in a minute."
C. Angel stares at Fluttershy. She says "Ok, just a minute." Angel wants a sandwich.

The last one is a cop-out if you ask me. The narrator shouldn't have to just say stuff like that.

You could, of course, do none of those, and simply leave the audience to their own devices to guess, but that's not always right.

953503
Actually, example C is kind of what I'm looking for, minus the last part.

Angel stares at Fluttershy. She says "Ok, just a minute." Fluttershy leaves the room and comes back with a tray of sandwiches a few minutes later. Angel and Fluttershy partake in the sandwiches.

A pretty simplistic example again, but the whole point is to let the context of the conversation tell the reader what's going on without any character or the writer having to say it outright. I suppose it would be like writing out a conversation with normal dialogue, then replacing all of one character's lines with non-verbal cues without needing to modify the other character's lines at all while still retaining the meaning of the conversation.

953547 Well... looks like you just answered your own question, doesn't it?

954551
Not really. My question is how complex can such a conversation get before losing the reader. How much can you reasonably expect the reader to understand, and is it fair to expect the reader to be able to figure it out on their own.

955064 It depends on your writing. You could make it all as complex as you want, and if you write it well, it'll work fine.

As for how much you can expect the reader to understand: the answer is not a goddamn thing. You'll find that plenty of readers here are complete morons, and you literally need to spoon-feed them everything. The sad thing is that most of your readers aren't morons, and if you dumb down your writing too much, it will become boring for the more intelligent readers. So you have to find a balance between the two sides. By trial and error probably.

A little trick I like to do, and I don't really know if it works 100% yet, is to simply write out the part as you would for an intelligent reader (who's actually paying attention, and not just skimming) and then at the very end of the part, just blunty say what happened. Say you write 2 paragraphs of Angel making various mimes and gestures, none of which the reader could absolutely pin down for what it really is. Then at the end of those 2 paragraphs, make a new line, just one sentence so it stands out to people who are dumb or skimming over it and have it be simply "Angel wanted a fucking sandwich."