Tag: character emotion

Categories
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

Authors as Psychotherapists – Getting into the Mind of Our Characters

mystery suspense thriller

What can authors learn from the world of psychotherapy?

According to the Microsoft Bing definition, a psychotherapist “treats mental disorders by psychological rather than medical means.” Korin Miller offers the reason. “The goal of therapy is to give you the tools and strategies for navigating whatever is going on in your life.”

While I earned my college degree in Human Relations and Psychology, I am no expert, but I can research and ask questions of those who are. Applying psychotherapy technique to our characters is an interesting exercise and may bring an affirming nod from agents, publishers, and readers.

Sitting behind the comfort of our keyboard, we novelists can psychoanalyze our characters’ lives. Of course, we have the advantage since we created those lives! We push them through internal lies, flaws, and wounds as they navigate the storyworld with the tools we provide. The more intriguing the ‘disorder’ we assign our characters, the more invested our readers become.

If our goal is inspiration, our characters journey through hardship and into the light of emotional and spiritual growth. If we leave them in darkness, we may provoke thought, as some novels do, but that makes for a different story than I write. But I recognize the technique.

Most protagonists, and certainly our antagonists in the mystery, suspense, and thriller genre, possess some sort of disorder. The ‘disorder’ falls somewhere on a scale, from what pushes an unassuming village librarian to unravel a cozy mystery to a psychopath bent on world destruction. No matter the genre, our characters’ world is out of kilter and needs righting. A ‘disorder’ can add an interesting element to the process.

Let’s consider a few psychotherapy angles.

Fear, frustration, or hurt

Much of how we respond to life falls under these three emotions. They must be worked through before they lead to anger. If not, anger turned inward can develop into depression, and turned outward, into rage.

For our protagonist – fear, frustration, or hurt can jump-start their journey. They want to solve the murder, figure out the riddle, defeat the bad guy, stop the assassination, wipe out the terrorist. These will either explain their reluctance in acting or push them into their journey. Or it can alter their quest if they spiral into depression or explode into rage. Use this to create twists.

For our antagonist – if they view the protagonist as having initiated fear, frustration, or hurt or one of these emotions has carried over from a difficult childhood, their motivation becomes understandable. Even bad guys can’t be completely bad or they become one-dimensional, boring stereotypes. Everything fuels their rage. Apply these to dig deeper holes for our protagonist.

Reframing the Past

Events stay the same, but the way they’re interpreted depends on the individual and can change the present and future.

For our protagonist – throughout the story they rethink past events. Clues become clearer and redirect their choices, bringing fresh insight. Confidence grows and defeating the foe becomes attainable.

For our antagonist – their reframing is all about putting events in the worse possible light. They see bad where good is, and negative instead of positive, and rush to act. These can create devastating consequences for our noble protagonist.

Three Types of Anxiety – Existential, Chronic, and Acute

Existential anxiety seeks answers for life’s big questions – what’s my purpose? What happens after I die? Ongoing, trying events with no simple resolution lead to chronic anxiety. Acute stress results from a late payment or a mix-up with insurance – something that sprouts up, aggravating but is more easily solvable.

For our protagonist – anxious thoughts drive their actions, and ratchet up tension and conflict. They may stress over life’s purpose or the opposite, feel confident about eternity because of a certain worldview. The chronic effects of a poor childhood may bubble up and alter their journey for a time or they experience a flat tire while rushing for a job interview. Utilize these for cliffhangers.

For our antagonist – the future matters little as making others miserable in the here and now is paramount. Pain from their past drives their actions. Every new decision by our lovely protagonist throws their plans awry, while raising the stakes and their level of rage.

Putting into Practice

Character-building is a challenge for even the seasoned author. Do your research. Throwing in a ‘disorder’ may raise your story’s stakes and create memorable characters. Consider the techniques psychotherapists offer as another avenue to set your story above the rest.

Write well, my friends.

PJ Gover encourages her readers to live the thrill one story at a time. She wrote her first thriller at age nine, all of six pages, but only returned to creating suspense/thrillers years later after unearthing her deceased father’s secret work designing missiles for the government. After thirteen writing awards, including five for first place, her high school English teacher must be shaking her head in disbelief. A ranch in Texas serves as home base. Offer her well-crafted chili rellenos or anything gluten-free and you’ll have a friend for life. Jim Hart of Hartline Literary represents PJ.

She’d love to hear from you!

Categories
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense

The Power of Facial Expressions

mystery suspense thriller

Facial expressions speak louder than words, and yet, they don’t make a sound. In most cases, faces convey an approachable or unapproachable signal and can clarify whether people are happy, intrigued, afraid, or angry. Solemn looks can be more complicated and may show stress, plotting, deep thinking, or sadness. Only a few set expressions easily identify moods. Even a smile can come across as deceptive and filled with revenge.

Eyes play a significant role in reading attitudes. When people smile, their eyes brighten and may curve upward. The opposite happens with a frown. Rolling eyes indicate annoyance with another’s actions, but shifting eyes at a crucial moment could expose a lie. Wide eyes can withhold their blinks when tension rises, while uncertainty or fear holds them captive in a frozen stare.

Challenge: During a suspenseful scene in a movie theater, turn around and examine the audience’s expressions. Some may bite their fingernails. Hands might cover faces as they catch a peek between their fingers. Others slide down in their seats, squinting and waiting for the villain’s attack. Watch their actions, posture, and facial expressions and jot them down. This information will be an asset when describing a character’s emotions.

Furrowed brows with wrinkled foreheads may show displeasure, sadness, or worry, maybe even confusion, sympathy, or pain. However, used with red cheeks, flared nostrils, and tight lips, one can suspect anger or rage, especially if it comes with a fist punching a wall or the slamming of a door, and many other scenarios.

Every chapter in Character Expressions by Dahlia Evans gives examples of descriptive facial expressions in writing fiction, which helps engage the reader’s imaginations. Who knew there were so many ways to express moods or emotions, or that entire chapters could contain so much information?

Here are a few of the chapter titles from Dahlia’s book.

  • Frown
  • Glare
  • Grimace
  • Pout
  • Scowl
  • . . . and many more

Valerie Howard’s 1,000 Character Reactions is another great asset to a writer’s literary collection. She states your characters can do more than nod and sigh. If all your character does is smile through the entire story, where will the reader see conflict or tension? No one smiles all the time, so make sure there are other emotions involved.

Challenge: Stand in front of a mirror and think about how you’d respond in different situations. Describe your reaction to fear, surprise, shock, horror, sympathy, compassion, admiration, love, etc. Build a personal list of facial descriptions that you can refer to when writing a character’s silent response.

What first comes to mind when you see pursed lips, a clenched jaw, or the quivering chin? You see people at a distance and may not speak to them, but you read expressions every day without realizing it.

Challenge: Describe the mood of your character in each expression:

  • One eyebrow lifted, sporting a smirk
  • Color draining from one’s cheeks with eyes widened in a frozen stare
  • Slightly narrowed eyes while biting the lip
  • Blank expression and shifting eyes
  • Bright eyes and a big smile
  • Lowered brows, tight lips, and flared nostrils
  • Red face, glaring eyes, jutting jaw
  • Rolling eyes

Study and discover what’s behind a sneer, open mouth, or closed eyes. Not every facial expression is suspicious. Widened eyes give off the signal that you have nothing to hide. A flash of the eyebrows raising and lowering suggests familiarity or a sign of attraction or interest.

Have you ever heard of the Duchenne smile? According to www.scienceofpeople.com/microexpressions/ The Duchenne smile is a genuine smile that comes from true enjoyment and can be distinguished from a fake smile by the orbicularis oculi muscle, which forms crow’s feet wrinkles around the eyes. Who knew?

Facial expressions are part of life and a significant part of showing every character’s reactions, along with their body language. In writing, it’s imperative to show the correct facial responses and descriptions to match the intensity of the scene.

What expressions have you used when writing a suspenseful scene?

Loretta Eidson writes romantic suspense. She has won and been a finalist in several writing contests, including first place in romantic suspense in the Foundations Awards at the 2018 Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, a finalist in ACFW’s 2018 Genesis, was a finalist in the 2018 Fabulous Five, and a double finalist in the 2017 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence.

Loretta lives in North Mississippi with her husband Kenneth, a retired Memphis Police Captain. She loves salted caramel lava cake, dark chocolate, and caramel Frappuccinos.

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Categories
Romancing Your Story

The Romance Point of View

Point of view (POV) is essential in all forms of fiction to describe the action as the character experiences it, including emotional responses, thoughts, and reactions. Point of view is especially vital in romance fiction as we build a story around two people falling in love.

The hero and heroine cannot talk about everything they see, feel, want, so the point of view describes what is going on. Without it, your reader will not understand the inner lives of your characters. Their inner lives are especially important when the book is all about emotions. By getting inside the character’s minds, you can give the reader the full story. You can show their attraction, even when they don’t act like they are attracted to each other.

The same is true during action scenes, even when most of the focus is on external events. Point of view interwoven with dialogue and action can keep the romance front and center. Often adding a few lines of into a scene is the easiest way to convey pieces of information the reader needs.

Whose point of view is the right one for the scene? Whose head the writer gets into depends on if the hero or heroine has the most to learn or has the most at stake, at-risk, or the most to tell the reader or have the most interesting take on what is happening around them. If you decide both your hero and heroine are equal, you might choose to split the scene between the two characters. As you switch from one character’s point of view to another, use a scene break to make it easy for your reader.

Use an internal monologue to stay in the hero or heroine’s head longer to convey an important point. The most important use of the internal monologue is during moments of great emotional stress, or when the character realizes they are in love with the other person. That is a huge revelation and a key to everything else that will happen. Your reader needs to know how the hero or heroine feels about this sudden realization. Does it make them happy? Perhaps they are furious because this wasn’t in their plan? Do they think their love interest couldn’t possibly love them back? Maybe there have been so many negative things happening between them that they feel it’s impossible to work out the rocky road of their relationship.

No matter what they feel, those feelings are dramatic, complicated, and fascinating, and you need that extra time inside his/her head to tell the reader all about them. You can also use the internal monologue to convey information like what motivates a character or what the character thinks motivates someone else. These don’t fit well into dialogue.  

Choose the character’s point of view carefully. Ensure there is enough at stake to tell the story from inside the hero or heroine’s head. Make their inner life rich enough, so the story is dramatic and intriguing to your reader.  

As a reference for this article, I used Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies by Leslie Wainger.

Award-winning writer, Rose Gardner’s journey toward publication has come in two phases. During the early years, she was a finalist in thirteen contests and won her category in seven, was a 2007 RWA Golden Heart finalist in the Long Contemporary Category, and 2nd runner up in the 2008 Harlequin Super Romance Conflict of Interest Contest. After a break from writing, she returned to writing with a renewed focus on clean, contemporary heartwarming stories about love, hope, healing, and the power of forgiveness. She has won or placed in several contests for unpublished writers since 2017 as she works toward publication. You can find out more about Rose at her website mrosegardner.com or on social media at Facebook at MRoseGardner/, Twitter MaryGardner6, Instagram mrosegardner/ 

Categories
Talking Character

Five Questions for Portraying Anger

Anger comes in many shades, from miffed to murderous. Each shade looks and feels different. When a person is miffed, he might roll his eyes or make a snarky comment. When a person is enraged to the point of being murderous, adrenaline is pumping through his body, making him tense, flushed, and ready to punch someone.

Anger expresses itself differently in different people. No two people respond to anger the same way. Some tend towards melodrama while others keep a tight rein on their emotions. For example: Some teachers constantly yell at their students in order control the classroom. Others rarely raise their voice. I remember being more terrified the one day my normally serene homeroom teacher raised his voice than I ever was at the threats of the constant shouters.

[bctt tweet=”With all this variability, writers must take care to describe anger in convincing and imaginative ways.” username=””]

Here are five questions to ask when a scene calls for anger.

  1. Where am I in the story? A story builds tension as it moves towards the climax. You want to slowly increase emotional intensity, and peak during the climax. That doesn’t mean your characters can’t be angry in earlier scenes, but do keep the overall arc in mind. You should allow your characters room to let their emotions grow and deepen, especially those that will be significant in the climax.
  2. What nuance am I looking for? Look up anger in a thesaurus and scan the synonyms. Select one that best captures the nuance of the emotion your character is feeling. Next, determine what sorts of physical and mental responses suit that specific emotion. A good resource for this is The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.
  3. How does my character’s personality affect how she responds? Some temperaments are naturally more expressive than others. Some characters have volatile tempers while others have learned to stuff their emotions (until the clever writer forces them into a corner and suddenly they can’t hold them in any longer). Like in the school example above, one character’s shout may indicate frustration while another character would only shout when furious. Try to keep your characters’ responses consistent and appropriate for their personalities. And always keep in mind that your characters’ responses to anger are probably different from your own.
  4. Is the response appropriate for the situation? I remember a girl in high school who acted by using stock emotions that she put on and off like a mask. All angry scenes had the same intensity, regardless of the situation. If I had the emotional sophistication to detect this two-dimensional acting in high school, your readers can detect similar lack of authenticity in your characters. A character should not become irate when someone cuts in front of them in line—unless you have built the story to explain why the character reacts so out of proportion to the offense.
  5. What emotion(s) underlie the anger? Sometimes anger is just anger, but often the root of anger is some other emotion, such as fear, guilt, or shame. Humans often use anger to conceal other emotions, intentionally or unintentionally. Consider a character’s backstory and their inner issues. When is their anger response actually hiding something deeper? Do they realize it or not? How can you bring that deeper emotion to play on the page?

Anger. It’s a powerful emotion. Use it wisely.

[bctt tweet=”What other emotions does anger hide in your characters? #writer #amwriting” username=””]

Categories
Talking Character

Confused Characters Who Don’t Confuse Readers

The trickiest part about conveying confusion is to convey it clearly, without confusing the reader.  Ann Hood in Creating Character Emotions

From time to time our characters will be confused about something. Perhaps they’ve made assumptions that suddenly turn out to be incorrect. Perhaps someone says or does something that doesn’t make sense. Perhaps another character is intentionally trying to confuse them.

Whatever the situation, the writer must take pains to make sure the reader know what’s going on, even when the character doesn’t.

Two common pitfalls when portraying confusion:

  1. Sensory overload. Hit a character with enough simultaneous noises and actions and they’ll certainly become confused. However, the reader will be just as befuddled by the mass of details.

Example: Halfway to the mailbox, Sara heard her ringtone and rushed inside. Where had she left the phone this time? She almost tripped on a shoe her son had left by the front door, which woke the dog and started him barking. Gritting her teeth, Sara ran past the stupid dog to the kitchen in time to see her two-year-old dump an open box of cereal onto the floor and break into wails.

A vivid portrayal of confusion, but the reader doesn’t understand what it means unless the writer also shows what emotions the chaos creates for Sandy.

  1. Information that is meaningless to the reader. When you confuse a character with information he doesn’t understand, make sure the reader has an inkling of what it means.

Example: Jared unfolded the piece of notebook paper. Who was K. and why had she stuffed a note in his locker? What did she mean by ‘see you after school at the tree’? Which tree? There were like a million trees in this neighborhood alone.

Unless your readers know more than Jared, they will be just as confused as he is.

[bctt tweet=”Don’t make the reader befuddled just because your character is. #writers ” username=””]

Better strategies for portraying confusion:

  1. Let the reader in on the joke. Characters often mistakenly believe an action or comment means one thing, when in fact it means something else. Readers, however, don’t enjoy being purposely led astray, so make sure the reader is aware (or at least suspects) that the character is making a mistake. In example two above, imagine how much better it would work if the reader knows that K’s friend has the locker next to Jared’s. Now, instead of making the same mistake Jared makes, the reader will grin in anticipation for the awkward scenario to follow.
  2. Show the emotional source of the confusion. What readers really want to understand is why a character acts the way she does. I might improve example one by adding some of the emotions underlying the confusion, like this:

Example: Halfway to the mailbox, Sara heard her ringtone. Why did she always forget to put her phone back in her pocket? She hurried inside and almost tripped on a shoe her son had left by the front door. Uh oh. It wasn’t her turn to pick up the kids, was it? She couldn’t afford to forget again. She rushed into the kitchen. Thank the Lord, only one-fifteen. So who was calling at this hour? Had she forgotten an appointment?

  1. Show the character’s thought process as he tries to make sense of things. As the character works through a situation that doesn’t make sense, he naturally portrays confusion without the writer ever having to say as much.

Example: Jared unfolded the piece of notebook paper. Who was K. and why had she stuffed a note in his locker? Kayla was the only girl he knew whose name started with K, and she would never use sparkly pink ink. Maybe someone meant to put it in Tori’s locker instead? But how was he supposed find out? There was no way he was going to show the note to a girl as popular as Tori.

[bctt tweet=”Confused characters. We love them, just so long as they don’t confuse us, too. #amwriting” username=””]

[bctt tweet=”Pitfalls to avoid when writing portraying confused characters. #writetips #writer” username=””]