Body Language - A Writer’s Secret Weapon
We’ve all heard “show, don’t tell”. It’s pretty much the first piece of advice a new writer hears. But how best to make that truism come to life?
One way is to give your characters a vivid body language. How we move, manipulate our facial muscles, even cross our legs tells a great deal about our inner dialogue. As a writer, the more you understand about body language, the more you can avoid telling, and really begin showing.
Here’s an example:
Emma didn’t trust Martin. She thought he was a liar. When he told her that he wasn’t responsible for the broken glass, she knew he wasn’t telling the truth.
Now, here’s the same exchange with body language incorporated:
Martin’s eyes darted around. He couldn’t look Emma in the face. “I didn’t break that glass”, he muttered. Emma watched him silently. Martin could only stare at the ground, slowly making a circle in the dirt with the tip of his sneaker.
We all have what poker players refer to as “tells”. Give your characters their own “tells” and they’ll become more vivid and memorable, and your writing will grow sharper.
Here are some excellent resources for learning about body language:
http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Body-Language
http://www.ismckenzie.com/05/15/control-your-body-language-for-effective-communication/
February 25th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Hi Jon,
Love this post: your intriguing title brought me over from Twitter; appreciate the insight and resources you link to, too.
Look forward to reading more!
@MarlaBeck
March 1st, 2009 at 1:01 am
[...] Body Language - A Writer’s Secret Weapon Posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 in writing tips - Comments: (1) We’ve all heard “show, don’t tell”. It’s pretty much the first piece of advice a new writer hears. But how best to make that truism come to life?One way is to give your characters a vivid body language. How we move, manipulate our facial muscles, even cross our legs tells a great deal about our inner dialogue. As a writer, the more you understand about body language, the more you can avoid telling, and really begin showing. [...]
March 1st, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I invite any looking for more info on expressing emotion through body language to check out the Emotion Thesaurus at our blog. We have over 30 different emotions and all the associated actions a character might use to show it. This thesaurus was built to get writers out of the shrugging/eye rolling/smiling vortex and get them thinking about all the different ways to express individual emotions.
Each emotion is in the sidebar, and here’s the introductory post:
http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/2008/01/introducing-thesaurus-thursdays.html
Hope this helps!