Review by Marlene Cullen. I have heard about this book, read about this book, seen posts about this book for years. So, I bought “The Emotion Thesaurus” by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi. Yes to this book! From the introduction: “What we [recognized] was our own difficulty conveying character emotion in a way that would engage readers. This problem was a big one, because only when the character’s emotions are clearly shared can readers become more involved.” I have often thought about how to “show” body language when writing. As you know, when we interact with others, there is much about body language that conveys our mood, emotions, reactions. How to show these things? The Emotion Thesaurus to our rescue! “We wanted to ensure that our character’s feelings would trigger the reader’s own emotional memories, encouraging empathy that would draw them deeper into the story.” Tips on how to write…
Tag: Angela Ackerman
Guest Blogger Angela Ackerman gets physical
Here’s what Guest Blogger Angela Ackerman has to say about writing physical descriptions. I’m going to be totally honest here. There is little I detest more than trying to describe how my character looks. The reasons are numerous. I think it sounds boring. It slows the story. It reads like a list or sounds clichéd, etc, blargh de blargh. I write in first person, to boot, making it even more difficult to create natural-sounding character description without using the dreaded MIRROR technique. After all, every time a writer uses a mirror to describe their character’s physique, somewhere in the world a zombie dies. Think about that. Right now, Zombies are dying. I can’t add to this terrible crime. Can you? But then I read Word Painting and realized I was looking at it all wrong. Physical description doesn’t need to be a dry, tasteless blob of facts to help the…