Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve: Showing Emotions vs. Telling Them

Happy Valentine’s Day! Whether you’re in a relationship or single, you can still spread the love today. I choose to spread the love I have for my pets, my family, and writing. That’s why I’ve chosen to address a rather tricky part of writing: expressing emotions.

The issue of expressing emotions is along the same lines as the show vs. tell debate. In fact, it’s more of a specific branch of show vs. tell. The problem with expressing emotions, however, mostly has to deal with showing the emotion through actions, body language, and facial expressions versus using adverbs.

Here’s an example:

Tell: He looked at his newborn daughter lovingly.

Show: As he looked down at his newborn daughter cradled in his wife’s arms, a small smile touched his lips and tears threatened to break his tough-man facade. A warmth grew in his stomach, one which he had not felt since his wedding day.

Cheesy, I know, but you get the point. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather read the “show” of the man’s love than the “tell.”

What’s the difference?

Readers love sensory details. These details pull them into that world and, in this case, that emotion. An adverb such as “lovingly” just does not build the same connection between the reader and the character as sensory details do.

Mind you, sometimes you just need an adverb. That’s fine. Yet you must be careful with how you use one. Stop and think, “How would I react to this sentence as a reader? Would it make me feel the character’s emotions, or am I just going through the motions? Can I replace this adverb with something more accurate and descriptive?” (I’ll get into the general adverb use controversy at another time; right now I want to focus more on showing vs. telling emotions.)

Of course, you don’t always want to use elaborate descriptions for emotions. Spending a paragraph to describe a character’s reaction to their breakfast will grow tedious. (Unless, that is, they haven’t had eaten breakfast in ten years because they’ve been in jail. Then you will want to take the time to describe it.) You have to pick and choose which emotions you provide in detail.

As with most aspects of writing, this concept is easier said than done. You have to decide when you should expand on an emotion. Sometimes you do, sometimes an adverb will suffice, and sometimes you just need a brief visual cue in your character or flat out say what the emotion is. You need a good feel for your writing in order to choose the best method.

Your narrative will be too slow with too much description. You also shouldn’t allow your descriptions to be too cheesy or played-out. Still, brushing over important emotions and/or only using adverbs to describe them disconnect the readers from the story and can even create a choppy narrative. It’s a balancing act, and sometimes you will fall too much to one side or the other. In that case, all you can do is take it as a learning experience and start again.

How much emphasis should be put on emotions in fiction? Should you show emotions, tell them, or make a mix of both? How do you approach this dilemma? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.