Being a Better Writer: Body Language · 7:43pm Jul 11th, 2016
How do you show that a character is angry? Or nervous? How do you show that two characters are not on the best of terms with one another while they are on decent standing with another member of their group? Or that one of them is nervous? Jumpy?
Now, note my usage of show in the questions above. I didn't ask how a writer could tell a reader of any of those things. No, I asked how they could show them. Once more, we come back to the old show versus tell discussion, except this time, I don't want to focus as much on the mechanics of showing versus tell as I do on one small, simple question: How do you show a character being angry, nervous, or upset without simply telling the reader? How do you get those emotions across without simply pointing out to the reader that "Samantha was angry" or using the dreaded "ly" adverb? Especially if we're writing from a perspective that isn't the focal point of the emotion we want to get across?
Which is why today, we're going to talk about body language in our writing. This might test our observational skills a little (after all, how often do you just watch conversation?), as well as our understanding of social graces and signals. And we're going to look at what goes into a silent conversation.
You can read the rest of this post at Unusual Things
Mm! This is some advice that is applicable immediately.
I tend to only use body language when it's highly obvious, like an action being taken or an expression as a response or replacement for dialogue, but I think it's worth trying to include more of it.
Good stuff.
Ponies don't have hands so how do we replace the balled fist as a indicator of anger?
Are ears moved back and narrowed eyes enough?
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There are other things you can do. It helps if you study horses/ponies and what they do when annoyed or angry. They paw at the ground with their hooves, stomp, grimace ... There's a lot of body language to choose from.