The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide To Character Expression

We know by now the "Show, Don't Tell" idiom professed by almost every how-to book on writing fiction. Where we stumble is in the `showing' of emotions, especially showing the same emotion in varying degrees of intensity, and often end-up writing clichés. The Emotion Thesaurus breaks new ground by providing alternatives to body language cues, thoughts and visceral reactions. Unlike a word thesaurus that we open at a specific page to find alternatives for a word, this book can be read in its entirety not just to derive inspiration, but also to improve your storehouse of `emotion descriptions'. But if all this information is available free on the web, why buy the book? I bought it because I prefer to shut down my internet connection while I write and edit, to prevent distractions and the book comes in handy. Also for those times late in the night when I'd rather reach for this book than boot up the laptop and fire up the modem.

I originally purchased this book for an 300-level Advanced Composition course as part of a review assignment on writing guides and manuals. Initially, since Amazon listed the book among the Top Ten New and Popular under Writing, Research, and Publishing guides, I assumed it might be helpful.

This book is almost exactly as should be expected of a thesaurus. There are 75 emotions that the book focuses on with each being separated into five distinct categories.

-Physical Signals
-Internal Sensations
-Mental Responses
-Cues of Acute or Long-term [Emotion]
-Cues of Suppressed [Emotion]

At the bottom of each entry, the authors have also included a "Writer's Tip" section which briefly suggests some useful tips regarding how to convey the emotion.

Each of the categories list possible alternatives to the basic emotion. But, you should note that some entries lack alternative emotions in comparison to those more extensively covered. For example, DOUBT has an entire page dedicated to the PHYSICAL SIGNALS while only providing one expression for INTERNAL SENSATIONS. This is compared to the eleven that can be found for FEAR. I also wonder why some combinations were left out such as the combination of FEAR AND DOUBT.

In contrast to the glowing reviews by others, the helpfulness of this books should be taken with caution. It may be useful to those who are new to writing or are in the beginning stages of their novel writing careers. However, if you are slightly more experienced and have taken a introductory composition course, the value of this book quickly diminishes. Those of you looking for a more in-depth analysis and explanation into how to use various emotions, this book may come up a little sparse. Thus, this book should be used as a supplement but definitively should not be used to supplant manuals or writing guidebooks.

The best 5 bucks a writer could spend. I could see the emotions in playing out in my head, but lacked the words. Just skimming the book, I can and will take my writing from "Good" to "Amazing" Now I finally understand Show don't Tell your reader. Even my daughter was impressed with the book. I would recommend this book to new writer like me and even the seasoned writers. I don't think you will be disappointed.

This book provides a definitions for more than 70 different emotions and lists of typical ways to show that certain type of emotion. I found it unhelpful. Below is the section about disappointment.

Disappointment

Definition: a state of dismay or dissatisfaction; feeling let down

Physical Signals:
Lips pressing tight
Shoulders dropping or slumping
a hunched posture
Looking up with hands raised in the why me? position
Collapsing onto a chair or bench
Weaving slightly
A bitter smile

Internal Sensations:
A heart that feels like it's shrinking
a clenching stomach
Sudden onset of nausea

Mental Responses:
Negativity
A feeling of dread or hopelessness

I promised my wonderful and long-suffering wife that I wouldn't buy any more book until I'd read everything on our shelves. Now, here I am buying a new thesaurus after reading only 31 of the original 188 titles awaiting my attention. Why? Well a friend (she's a friend, and she made me break a promise to my wife?) passed on a review of this book. I'm afraid I can't now find the link to that review, but thanks to whoever it was! It was the review that persuaded me to bend my knee and ask my lovely other half to bend the rules. Being the woman she is, she agreed, of course.
So, what's this reference work like?
Well, surprisingly, it's in the form of a thesaurus: novel, eh? There's a short introductory section that provides a brief overview of emotion and its place in writing. A short article on avoiding common problems in conveying nonverbal emotion follows. And a short explanatory piece then explains how best to use the thesaurus. After these pieces come the listings.
Now, I don't know about you, but perhaps because I'm a man and therefore emotionally challenged, I'd have found it difficult to come up with a list of more than ten emotions. So it was something of a surprise to discover 75, yes seventy five, listed here. For each of these, the authors have provided a definition of the emotion, a list of physical signals, the internal sensations experienced, the mental responses felt, cues of acute or long-term encounters with and cues of suppressed experience of the emotion. The final piece on each is a short writer's tip.
The book sets out to enable writers to convey emotion in the time-honoured fashion of `showing' rather than the easier and less satisfying `telling'. By equipping the writer with a variety of physical signs (body language), visceral experiences (the true and unavoidable internal responses) and degrees of response, the authors help writers to bring deeper feelings to the readers of their works. It succeeds in its stated purpose, by the way.
I shall keep this book beside me as I edit in the future, ensuring I create real emotion on the page rather than allow cliché and familiar expression to convey the feelings of my characters.
My thanks to the unknown reviewer and my great thanks to Angela and Becca for a super little reference book that I expect to improve my writing for years to come. I think it's probably redundant for me to say I recommend this book, but, there, I've said it anyway.

The Emotion Thesaurus is in a special pile of "resources I can't write without" that sits next to my laptop. I bought this after I finished my novel and needed to vary my characters' actions. My characters sighed and breathed and nodded thoughtfully a lot. The thesaurus was so helpful. I looked up the emotion a character felt and found a long list of physical actions, internal sensations, mental responses to illustrate that emotion--as well as evidence that the character has felt the emotion for a long time, what the emotion may escalate to, and evidence the emotion is being suppressed. For example, let's say my character is conflicted. Instead of taking a deep breath or holding his breath (which is a crutch when I write), the thesaurus gives me better options. A physical action may be opening/closing of the mouth as if struggling to find the right words. An internal sensation may be tightness in the chest. A mental response may be feeling guilt because others will be negatively affected by the character's decision. Evidence my character has been conflicted for a long time might be sleeplessness. Feeling conflicted may escalate to feeling overwhelmed (I can then look up overwhelmed in the thesaurus). My character may joke around and avoid the subject as he suppresses his conflicted feelings. The thesaurus helps me visualize my character and get inside his head, so I can write with more interest and freshness. I highly recommend this "can't-write-without" resource.

Since I have trouble showing emotional reactions in my fiction, I requested this book and received it as a gift before I had a chance to really peruse the pages and the contents. I don't like to be negative, but I do feel extremely negative about this book as a guide to writing character emotions. If a writer followed it, there'd be nothing in a piece of fiction but things like 'clenching stomachs', 'excessive saliva' (how in the world do you SHOW that?) and 'huffing and puffing'. Of course there would be other emotional reactions, there are lots in the book, but they'd all be just as cliched and hackneyed as "his stomach clenched". I skimmed this thesaurus again and again, looking for some fresh ideas on conveying characters' feelings, but ended up chuckling at the suggestions in the Emotion Thesaurus, thinking the authors couldn't really be serious about their suggestions.

I literally bought this book about five minutes ago. I'm in the middle of my next mystery novel and had a scene where my character needed to show how lonely he was feeling and thought I had a way to handle the scene. I remembered seeing this book being recommended recently and how I'd been determined to buy it. Decided to track it down. Got the Kindle version. Opened it up. Looked in the index for lonely. Not there, but loneliness was. Went to the topic. I immediately had dozens of ideas for physical signals, internal sensations, mental responses, cues of acute or long-term loneliness, cues of suppressed loneliness, what loneliness may escalate to, and a tip: "Body movements should never be random. Everything a character does should have a specific intent: to achieve an end, reveal emotion, or to characterize." It took me longer to write this review than it did to get the solution to my dilemma. Worth it? Not a doubt in my mind.

Actually I finished THE EMOTION THESAURUS earlier than admitted, but I hesitated on the review because it is not an easy work to define in its entirety. This reference work by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, however, is an excellent follow-up to SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS since both deal with the importance of showing instead of telling. Both works start the same, but the book by Renni Browne and Dave King, which I reviewed prior to this book, continues as a lecturing text giving extended advice to writers of novels and short stories. Ackerman and Puglisi, on the other hand, after a lengthy introduction where they emphasize the importance of nonverbal communication (body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc.) so that readers can connect with characters on an emotional level, offer a book of lists.

As a reference tool, this work, like others, belongs within arm's reach of the writer's work station. It is unique in what it offers -- a compendium of emotions with attached subcategories to show how they might be used on the page in a believable manner. This must have been a grueling work to compile, drawing upon, as they mention, other writers in a critique circle.

Two uniformly structured pages are devoted to one particular emotion shown in caps at the top of the left page. Each word is followed by a short definition. The first subcategory is "Physical signals" followed by examples of about 30 words or short phrases. The next subcategories are "Internal Sensations," "Mental Responses," "Cues of Acute or Long-term Determination," "May Escalate to (other emotions and page numbers)," and "Cues of Suppressed Determination."

Writer's tips are provided at the bottom of each right page, supplying advice on how to present or utilize these emotions in a believable manner.

This is not, as I mentioned at the outset, an easy work to read through because it does not flow with the continuity if a typical text. For me, it was a matter of highlighting certain examples of words and phrases which showed what characters could be feeling, selecting words that I might use in my current work of fiction in progress, particularly works that would apply to the immediacy of a situation rather than to those that were more extensive and required reaching beyond a particular scene.

Anyway, use this book as it benefits you. It is certainly accessible.

This is a great resource for writer's. Here are the pros and cons.

Pros:
The print is a great, readable size. (Good to know for those with vision issues, and those who like a larger print). I purchased the second book in this series 'The Negative Emotion Thesaurus' and while it packs in more 'emotion' which is great, I was disappointed the print was much smaller.

The emotions are listed in easy to find alphabetical order.

The introduction section is very well thought out. Very helpful!

There are awesome writer's tips' strewn throughout.

Cons:

Not much, really. The only thing I think they could have improved on is adding more emotions. Apathy, bewildered, daring, docile, rebellious, etc.

I recommend it and would buy this book again.