How do I put emotions into writing

Some key things for characterization that I've been learning for playwriting is avoidance (like, having characters avoid something that needs to be said), realistic dialogue, and even just actions. This can be applied to writing in a book as well.

What you would want to do as a writer would be to incorporate characteristics and techniques to make your characters seem in-depth and lifelike. Things that will help are descriptions of actions and making sure to write your dialogue in a way that seems like a real person would say them. A few tips for bringing emotion into dialogue that I can give is not to always explicitly state what the character is feeling. Emphasis using italics and the right punctuation (e.g. using "?!" or "...") can help to give a punch in certain moments. One thing I would try to avoid is USING ALL CAPS TO SAY THAT THE CHARACTER IS YELLING. As much as that is a thing we do, it sometimes gets painful to read (I am guilty of this, too).

Descriptor words are your friends, but relying on them too much might bore the readers, so be careful.

That's all I've got as of now, feel free to let me know if you have any more questions.

 

What I try to do in my writing is feel the emotion myself, and describe it.

Some emotions have physical clues. Like if a person were angry, you might describe them as breathing heavily, or having a vein throbbing in their forehead, or their face being red, and so on. Or a nervous person would tremble or sweat or chew their lip or stutter.

You can also use their speech to indicate what they feel. A short reply would indicate anger or irritation, and a sentence full of ellipses would mean uncertainty. As the above poster said, please avoid using caps to denote shouting. It's annoying, and generally uncalled for. Some writers do use caps, and they do it in a less obnoxious way than what is usually seen in fanfiction, so if you were to use caps, I'd suggest reading more to learn how to set up the tension. JK Rowling has an excerpt in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that uses caps to show Harry's yelling.

Sentence structure is also good. Short sentences pack a punch. Long sentences tend to slow things down, and spread the effect out, and is usually helpful if you want a stream of consciousness thing. Vary the use of these to get the impact you want.

Adjectives. They help so much. Of course, what would a story be without adjectives. Be careful though, you don't want too many. It might confuse the reader. "Disgruntled" is much better than "vexed, malcontented and petulant". Short words are also better than long words. For example, "he cheered happily" sounds better than "he encouraged vivaciously", and much easier to understand. Ultimately, you're trying to get the reader to understand what you're feeling.

In the end, your best bet would be to read more. Every author describes some sort of emotions somewhere in their books. Observe how they use long words or short words, similes and metaphors, reactions, thoughts and everything else to describe the emotions. It's a really good way to learn.

One last thing: don't spend too long describing the emotions themselves. It makes the plot stagnate. Makes it boring. I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but I get tired of long descriptions. I don't want to just know how you feel. I want to know what you're going to do as a result of the emotion.

 

Hi Shasta

I'm a writer and I write a lot (and I do mean a lot). Here are some advices I learned on my way of getting good (or better) with writing something.

1. The most important thing
Have the reader sympathise with your character. Make them weak in something almost everyone can rely to (fear of spiders). It's just something small, but everyone who is afraid of spiders or knows someone who is afraid suddenly relies to her/him.

As an example:

Susie is very afraid of highs.

Note: If you want to have something related to that story, you could also make her afraid of telling her parents that she's questionning her sexuality.

2. Describe all five senses
Also something small, but it's very effective. If you write about what someone hears, sees, feels... the reader feels it too.

As an example:

Susie looked out of her window and saw the trees bowing. If she would have been outside she surely would have felt the strong wind blowing through her hair. She would have inhaled the cold evening air and for sure she could have forgotten about all the things that were going on. Susie gnashed her teeth and stared on her homework once again.

Here are most of the five senses gathered.

3. Make the reader read the thoughts
Relating to a character is made most of the time through seeing the world through her eyes. This also involves her thoughts.

As an example:

Susie sat on this homework for ever. She closed her eyes. Who was that girl? Who was that new girl in class? Did she just move here? Why didn't the teacher welcome her. Now she had to find an excuse to get her name. How she hated talking to new kids. Especially... to her...

Could this help you? One of the most important things (even more important than the first bold heading): Good writing comes with practise ^^

Good luck! :goodluck:

 

I agree with all of these - if you want your reader to experience secondhand emotions through your characters, then you need to make your characters relatable. In my opinion, it is more important that a character is relatable than likeable (although it is better if a reader also likes the character, because this will increase sympathy and empathy in a reader).

If you want to make a story particularly engaging, a good way to do this is to build tension - this would only be for certain scenes, of course, such as if a character is preparing for a fight, but short sentences and techniques such as alliteration, lists of three etc are easier and generally more compelling to read than long, drawn-out sentences. One of my main problems as a writer is that I will let single sentences go on for six lines if I don't watch myself! (Read up, I just realised that I did it then, too...)