Reddit reviews The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression

• "On Writing," by Stephen King (http://amzn.com/B000FC0SIM) - The first half is a good biography, and the second half is great insight into how Stephen King comes up with his stories. Not just the genesis of the story, but that actual "I sit down and do this, with this, in this type of environment." And then what to do when you finish your first draft. He is very critical of plotting, though. If you disagree with him about that, it's still good for everything else.
  
  
• "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White (http://amzn.com/020530902X) - This is a handy little book for proper grammatical and prose rules. How to write proper dialogue, where to put punctuation, and how to structure sentences to flow in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
  
  
• "Stein On Writing" by Sol Stein (http://amzn.com/B00HFUJP5Y) - I just picked this book up, so I haven't finished it--but it seems to be a little more in depth than Stephen King's On Writing. For instance, it looks more at not just what makes a good story, but what makes a good story appealing to readers. So whereas Stephen King preaches a more organic growth and editing process to write a story, this one seems to be more focused on how to take your idea and make it a good story based on proven structure.
  
  Honorable mention:
  
  
• "The Emotion Thesaurus" by Angela Ackerman (http://amzn.com/B00822WM2M) - This is incredibly useful when you're "showing" character emotions instead of "telling" the reader what those emotions are. For example, "He was curious," is telling the reader the character is curious. "He leaned forward, sliding his chair closer," is showing the reader that he is curious.
  
  
• I think it's easy for writers (myself included) to get too wrapped up in studying writing, or reading about writing. The best way to improve your is to write more, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, articles or short stories, novels or book reviews. The same principle applies to most skills, art especially. While reading about the activity certainly helps and is probably necessary at some point, you're going to just have to perform the activity in order to improve. Imagine reading about running more than actually running to practice for a marathon. Or reading about flying instead of getting hours in. Or reading about piano theory instead of actually playing piano. But if you're coming from nothing, it would probably help to read those three books before starting in order to start practicing with a good background right away, instead of starting with nothing and winging it on your own.

This is a neat list, but I agree with some of the other commenters--I think it's easy to mis-use this sort of list as an excuse to slip into lazy writing.

Personally, I suggest Angela Ackerman's book "The Emotion Thesaurus." I like her book because it focuses on the psychological aspects of human emotions, and the physiological effects they can possibly have. She doesn't just list a bunch of physical actions, but rather takes the time to delve into what sort of character would use a certain set of actions, and when might be appropriate to include them. It's only a couple bucks on Amazon, if you want to check it out: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00822WM2M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#navbar

I have a lot of random things I've bookmarked. In addition to the others listed here:
Synonyms for the word very
FoxType editor, similar to Hemingway
Directly access FoxType thesaurus
Interesting application that generates a kind of word-cloud of the most commonly used adjectives in relationship to a noun
Reverse dictionary
Emotional synonyms

There are also some thesauruses that I bought from Amazon for specific things that I really find useful. Two that I use most often are:

Urban Settings
Emotional Thesaurus

I have and really like The Emotion Thesaurus, but I'll check that one out too! Always nice to have more tools in the toolbox.

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

The Emotion Thesaurus by Ackerman and Puglisi. Also their negative and positive trait thesauri.

I think it's valuable to keep a dictionary and thesaurus on your writing device, even though both are quickly available online. But an encyclopedia is obsolete, in my opinion, replaced by the internet, especially Wikipedia.

There's a good book series, hold on I'll link it, bought these for myself, and they're great https://www.amazon.com.au/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression-ebook/dp/B00822WM2M

What are you describing? Are you describing emotions? Physical characteristics? Location? Action? Amazon has all kinds of books that focus on particular subjects and how to describe them; for example, The Emotion Thesaurus and Writing Vivid Settings. If you take a look at those two, it will lead you to other books that focus on how to write descriptions.

I feel ya, I bought the "Emotion Thesaurus" because i was struggling with this. It made me realize I was creating flat, emotionless dynamics between characters because I just didn't know how to express it other than in dialogue.

Honestly the only way to work through that is to experiment. Like try write a scene with an obvious emotional arc, something easy to work with and cliché and on the nose. You kind of get a feel for it as you progress, and then you can work with nuance and hidden motives and overlapping emotions (still working on that myself). It's just one of many tools in the writer's toolbox, but it's critical, without the emotional development and progression, no one cares.

One great piece of advice i read and shared recently (and promptly forgot the source) was that to explore emotions in fiction, a great strategy is to show thought processes. Like rather than "Joan was sad about losing her dog" you could work with "Joan realized she may never find a dog like the one she had lost. Was it her fault? Was she a bad master?" and explore the emotions with self-reflection and introspective inner monologues etc.

Even though The Emotion Thesaurus is directed at writters, I think some GMs could find use in reading it.

A good book that gives a ton of this type of body language and cues for pretty much any emotion is The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00822WM2M

Overall, I'm quite impressed with this.

I agree that you could use a bit of help with conveying emotion, but so could most writers, to be perfectly honest (I include myself in that camp). A good tip is to evoke emotion by describing the outward (physical) and inward (mental) expressions of it. For example, instead of saying "Robert seemed more relaxed and focused than before," describe what makes Robert seem more relaxed and focused: "Robert's restless fidgeting had subsided, and he was leaning back in his chair."

Everyone expresses emotions differently, so it's good to decide ahead of time how each character expresses anxiety, happiness, anger, or whatever feelings you expect them to have over the course of your story.

I quite like The Emotion Thesaurus as a reference for this type of thing, but be careful not to rely on another writer's ideas of expression too heavily. As long as you can use a reference like this as a starting point, rather than a crutch, you're in good shape.

My other general comment: don't be afraid of adding a bit more colourful description. You're somewhat like me, in that dialogue is clearly your strength, but you're a bit intimidated by descriptive text. You don't have to describe every feature in the room, or every single movement a character makes. The trick is to add a little bit here and there to break up the dialogue; right now I feel a bit like I'm reading a courtroom transcript instead of a work of creative fiction. The good news is that you're already good at bits of description (case in point: the line about the steam and smell of the tea is perfect). You just need to employ it a teeny bit more.

I'd suggest looking at the emotion atlas.

https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression-ebook/dp/B00822WM2M

Linky.

I'm a believer that things will eventually work out, and so far, they always have. No matter how horrible or stressful a situation, I've made it through and have come out better from it. I may not always get what I want, but when I look back at what happened, it worked itself out and was often for the best.

Even if it's all based on random chance, there's still a chance of good things happening. Your life is complete shit, Maya. Just accept it. BUT DON'T. That's a lie.

GENERAL FEEDBACK

The piece wasn't a complete train wreck, but it didn't blow me away either for reasons that I'll get to in the mechanics section. My main issues with the piece are a consistent one or two clause sentence structure. (I ate coco puffs and the sky was falling. The coco puffs were good. The sky falling sky wasn't.) You need to wring more out of your descriptions and make each sentence work a little bit harder. It can take some practice doing, but it is better to have to much that you can cut down -- rather than having to construct whole descriptions of objects in my opinion. This, however, is not an excuse to spew giant info dumps upon the reader. Make sure to add details as the main character interacts with them, which will in turn help with showing rather than telling.

MECHANICS


> The path we traveled grew more worn as the environment around us slowly shifted from the lush forest I was familiar with into that of a swamp. The rich green of the forest floor began to give way to the wet browns and greys of the wetlands. Arlets feet fell with a moist plop in the muddy soil and the smell of mildew filled the humid air. Our path was raised to avoid being completely taken by the swamp and its water. One could not say that these people were completely at their home’s mercy

I'll spend some time deconstructing your opening paragraph to give examples what I'm talking about. The first sentence is abysmal and it's a good example of one that looks like it's doing something, but requires another sentence to say what you did before (e.g. how is the forest shifting to wetland? I don't get a picture of it). The second could simply be the opening line, and the reader can begin to infer that the forest was shifting to wetlands, and you could describe some of the foliage. Since this is an academic written in first person, it would establish his character if he could precisely name some of the plants and it makes sense to describe some interesting examples of foliage that you could come up with. As it stands his absorption into this new world feels shallow because there isn't much description of it. Try reading the opening section of Perdido Street Station by China Mieville if you want the most evocative description that I've read of a setting, and a fantastic novel centered around an academic. "Ardets feet fell with a moist plop in the muddy soil and the smell of mildew filled the air" This is a good example of showing rather than telling, and giving descriptions of the scenery through the actions of the people involved. The last sentence is poor because it is telling rather than showing, and it has a surprise "not" which makes the whole thing a non-description of stuff that isn't happening.



> “So, we keepin’ tied up now? Don’t love the silence meself.”

The mixture of potential slang with a heavy accent makes this sentence unintelligible. Whilst the accent is consistent, I think it is too hamfisted usage throughout the piece. Try dropping the apostrophes to see if the accent can still be discerned, rather than throwing them on every word. The reader will probably read "Don't love the silence myself" in the same tone as "Don't love the reader meself," because the key word is starting the sentence with "don't."

>So many unfamiliar sights and flora came into view as we traveled that I had become lost in simple observation.

This doesn't fit with a plain description, and it is implied.

>He responded. He maintained an amused grin about him as he spoke.

He responded is implied, and the second sentence can be implied from the tone of the sentence. Cut the whole thing and watch out for excessive description on speech.

> As the goblin spoke, I strained as my fingers flipped through the various books in my bag. My notebook had to be amongst these somewhere. Were fairies more reliant on their wings for flight I would have had an even rougher time of this. Arlet looked towards me shortly after starting off again and paused upon seeing my predicament.

The first sentence is clunky, and I had to read it a few times to get a vague idea of what was going on. The second sentence can be completely cut. The third needs a ", then" before "I" to make it less tricky -- however the description doesn't do anything in itself. Are the fairies flying with the bags? The first clause in the last sentence is unnecessary, because it is implied that he started again if he had to pause.

>The belittlement was less than appreciated. My strain now coupled with the heat of irritation and grew significantly worse as a result.

This is a prime example of showing rather than telling, and I'll give a rough example on how to get more out of your sentences.

>I struggled with the massive bag of books that teetered back and forth as the Goblin sniggered, "you got it master?"
I gnashed my teeth together as sweat poured down my face and aggravated my eyes.

My rework isn't super great, but it gives a rough idea of what the concept is. If the characters are pouring down sweat, then it can be assumed that it is blazing hot outside. I growled is a basic description of an anger emote (I highly recommend using The Emotions Thesaurus when struggling to find an emotive action that shows an emotion).