# Writing Workshop 5/21/2010: Emotion (early posting)



## kitreshawn (May 21, 2010)

Yes, this is early, but I expect to be busy this Friday and Saturday so I figured I would get the next one up early rather than risk missing getting it up on time.  The schedule isn't changed, just a special circumstance.

So today we are going to deal with a nice exercise that falls into a "show, don't tell" category.  Today we are going to be writing about emotions.  There is a whole spectrum of emotion and they can have quite subtle differences and relations.  For example cowardice and fear are two distinctly different things but are very closely related.  Same for rage and hate.  Things can even get more complex.  People love their parents differently from how they love their siblings, both of which are completely different types of love from how you love your SO.

Hopefully this will help you investigate this area.

*The Exercise:*

Describe a character as they experience an emotion.  You can describe it either externally (what the emotion looks like in others) or internally (what the emotion feels like when experienced).  This can be 1st or 3rd person as you like, and can even be about a time you personally experienced the emotion.  Try to keep it to a paragraph or two.  Oh, and one catch.  You cannot use the emotion's name in your submission (so you may want to tell us what it is before hand).

Here is a list of common emotions to pick from:
Lust
Anger
Embarrassment
Jealousy
Resentment
Betrayal
Rage
Hate
Love
Compassion
Fear
Triumph
Hope
Bravery
Cowardice
Forlorn
Any other of your choice!


*The Objective:*
A lot of time people just label emotions up front in writing.  While this is often fine, especially in dialogue or when trying to keep the plot moving without getting bogged down in description, it isn't always the best way to convey emotion.

For example, it may work just fine in your story to say that So and So was angry, but how do you know if someone is angry?  If instead you show the character stomping around, slamming doors, and yelling at people who ask what is wrong people will figure things out on their own without you ever having to tell them what emotion the character is feeling.

This is especially important when you use a 1st person or close 3rd person perspective to describe characters other than the one being followed.  They can never tell for certain what someone is feeling (everyone expresses their emotions differently) but they can certainly observe how people react to their emotions.  Maybe one character expresses their fear by talking a lot really fast, trying to distract themselves, while another keeps quiet, straining his hearing.  You get the idea.


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## Kindar (May 21, 2010)

Sebastian was curled up in the corner. 
He wasnâ€™t crying anymore, but it wasnâ€™t because it had stopped hurting. His tear ducks had simply run dry. They had been threatening to fall from the moment he told Malcolm to access the file, but heâ€™d been able to keep them back. He was able prevent them from falling during the trip back and even through the accolades and the exchange of pleasantries after they landed and went their separate ways. 
And until he was home.
Once heâ€™d closed the door they had come, and hadnâ€™t stopped till now. He didnâ€™t know how long they had fallen, he didnâ€™t even know when heâ€™d crawled from the door where heâ€™d initially crumbled to this corner, where heâ€™d tried to make himself as small as possible; as small as he felt.
He knew heâ€™d have to move, probably soon, to use the bathroom, and to eat, but his body wouldnâ€™t move. He wished he could just disappear, maybe go in a black hole like Black did, but never come out of it. Or maybe get black to unleash the horrors contained within his black hole on him. Maybe that would be proper punishment for what he had done.
He didnâ€™t know why this betrayal hurt so much.
At one time or another he had betrayed everyone heâ€™d cared about, fiends, family and even lovers. Most in small ways, but some in not so small; it was part of who he was, seeing the angles and how to take advantage of them. No matter how close he got to someone, it never affected him like this.
So why was it that betraying Malcolm as he had cut him so deep that he could hardly breathe anymore?
How could that one small act leave him curled up in this corner, unable to figure out how to make the pain go away.


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## Seiiki (May 23, 2010)

Sorry if this seems corny at all. I decided to do two emotions for my Pomeranian/Rabbit character Lilly and another that's a WIP, Gwen.

	Lillian sat at her hard wood desk nestled between the rows of books that had surrounded her evening after evening. As a librarian aide, she never had much company other than the books that surrounded her. She laid her face down into the smooth pages and closed her eyes. A loud sigh escaped into the desolate room. She cursed herself. She was never enough by the judgment of her mother. She was supposed to be in sports, popular, and outgoing. She was athletic, but her interests laid within the leathery covers lining the walls. She kept to herself, but she wished she was brave, wished she could just talk to the other girls. â€œThey wouldn't understand...â€ A tear slid off her face and blurred some of the letters beneath her.  

	â€œExcuse me...â€ uttered a soft voice. Lilly pretended to have just woken up and wiped her eyes of any remaining tears. She looked up at the voice. A tall owl girl with brown feathers stood before her. â€œS-sorry...I must have dozed off.â€ Lillian stuttered, she even threw in a fake yawn. The girl smiled slightly and spoke in that same soothing, melodic voice. â€œCould you show me where the art books are...?â€ Lillian felt warmth rush to her face as she stared up at the girl's smile. It was nothing she ever felt before, she couldn't explain how her stomach churned and her body weakened. She soon realized she had paused for too long and jumped up. â€œYes.â€ She hurriedly walked off towards the art section and soon after, hid away behind her book. She couldn't comprehend what just happened. She just knew she wanted this warmth to stay.


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## Hauke (May 24, 2010)

I picked one that was not in the list:  contempt.  Then I felt sorry for my choice, because I found that I could spend a lot of time explaining why the emotion was there.  But it's almost as an afterthought that I spent much time going into how it was expressed.


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	There was another sounding of the hunting horn.  It was now so far away that I almost didnâ€™t recognize the sound for what it was.  I doubted Iâ€™d hear it again today.  Less and less familiar parts of the woods flashed past me as I ran, until I came to a loop of the brook.

	Leaping in a zigzag pattern back and forth across the narrow points of the brook, I quickly laid two obvious false trails, then one deceptively realistic trail.  Just in case, I jumped back and forth between two locations on each side of the brook, pressing my paws down hard.  None of the trails led back to my vixen; at this point, I was concerned only for my own hideâ€”and a hiding place.  The snarls and barks of the pack announced their arrival in the clearing on the far bank.

	Milling about for a few moments, their confusion grew to almost absurd levels.  They didnâ€™t even notice one of the false trails, and they began debating bizarre theories about what I must have done.  One of them even suggested that I was in the trees, like a farm cat!  A very small part of me wanted to dart out and dash through the thick of this sorry lot of hunters to give them another chance.

	Hunters?  Noâ€¦they had descended from true hunters, and describing it as descent was accurate concerning ability as well as heritage.  Now they were just looking the part; they were shadows of their ancestors.  It would take more than fast feet and a sharp nose to catch a fox like me:  it would take an equally fast and sharp mind.  All they had to make up for that mental deficiency were loud braying mouths.

	My muzzle wrinkled, and I could taste and feel them across my fangs and tongue as I sneered at them.  It was almost enough to make a fox angry.  All that effort, wasted on a gang of bumbling stooges.


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## Shouden (May 25, 2010)

Kerry had never been so angry in her life. The fact that someone would have such complete disregard for any sort of life in general made her blood boil. Her normally gentle hands clenched into tight, fury filled balls that felt to her like they were capable of knocking through solid steel. A uncontrollable growl oozed from her clenched teeth as her lips curled over her large canine teeth. There was a fierce glare in her eyes that she knew came from the wolf genes that helped make her what she was. Ears laid back, hair stood on end, muscles tensed and she prayed that he would make a move towards her and give her an excuse to rip out his throat. As it was, she dared not move for fear of what she might do. No, she simply stood her ground and shook visibly from her rage. But the human didn't even notice. Although, that just made her more angry, she was secretly glad when he finally left the hospital. Although, she knew he'd be back. But she made a mental note to be sick during those times.


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## Nerdywolf (May 25, 2010)

Jack sat at his computer typing fiercely on the keyboard a message to his friend Katherine. As he pressed send he already was ready for her to respond. He so desperately wanted to keep talking to her all night, but he knew that he had school early in the morning and would have to leave for bed soon. His inbox flashed, indicating that he had received a message. Anticipating the message to be from Katherine he moved his mouse toward the received mail button in the top right of his computer screen and clicked. He was extremely disappointed to discover that he had only received a junk e-mail from his mother. His ears dropped in disappointment as he clicked out of the page. He knew that tonight would be the night that he would tell her how he felt, but could not decide the proper thing to say or when to say it. His inbox flashed again, and just as quickly as before Jack moved his mouse to click the received mail button. His heart skipped a beat as he saw that it was in fact from Katherine. He opened the message that she had sent and read it hungrily. It read "So I've been meaning to tell you something lately, but I am not sure how to put it. So I'll just come out and say it. I need you Jack. You make me more happy than anyone else I know. Please respond to this as quickly as you can I need to know how you feel" 
 As Jack read this he felt his jaw drop and things went blurry. His dream was coming true. He attempted to right a message back but his hands were trembling far too much to work the keyboard properly. He thought about calling but realized that he wouldn't be able to speak. So Jack sat in his chair, waiting until he could calm down enough to tell Katherine how he felt.

I really hope that got my emotion across well enough. I don't want to say on here, but if you want to know message me and I'll be glad to tell you


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## totalbottomfororcs (May 25, 2010)

He was no paladin, no warrior, or wizard.  But he was here, sword in hand, ready to face the evil that threatened everything, the evil that had already consumed much of what he held dear.  The young bard would not stand down, not when the world rested on the edge of midnight.  Someone had to fight.  From the moment Alendan lifted his sword, he knew there would be no turning back, and at so many moments he wished he could... but now, when everything was in peril, he knew the weight upon his shoulders was not a burden, but a boon, for that weight was what the world needed now, more than ever.  That weight was what brough armies victory in the bleakest of trials.  

Against the blackness that stood before him... the horror that had once been a part of him... his blade would sing out in triumph, ringing into the shadows that the devils within were not welcome here.
*****
Here, Alendan the bard feels... well, I'm not totally sure how to put it.  Righteous zeal?  Hope?


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