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While attending a writer’s conference last year, I was introduced to the idea of writing about the physical effects of emotion on a character. In most of my Minecraft-inspired novels, I’d say, “Gameknight was overwhelmed with fear.” Or “Fear coursed through his veins.” Or “His nerves were aflame with fear.” All of those are great, because they tell the reader what I want them to learn, that Gameknight999 is afraid, but I really needed to do more.

What I learned from the conference was, I need to show how the fear makes the character feel. I need to show what’s happening to their body, so the reader can feel it with the character. This is a powerful technique that can draw the reader into your stories and make them feel alive!

So let me rewrite Gameknight and his fear.

Gameknight stared at the mob, looking but not seeing, his mind a blur. A knot settled into his stomach, feeling heavy, like a load of bricks . . . and it seemed to be growing. He wiped his clammy hands on his pants as his pulse raced faster and faster, his heart threatening to explode. He was terrified.

You see how I used sensory details to show the reader what Gameknight was feeling . . . that’s important. It puts the reader into the story, so they can feel with Gameknight. It pulls them in and keeps them engaged with the adventure.

The hard thing about using this technique is to come up with the sensory details associated with the emotions you want to use. This is where you need to close your eyes, and put on your imagination cap, and put yourself in the situation about which your writing. Think about a time when you were afraid . . . what did if feel like. What was it like when you were uncertain, or confused, or . . . Think about these things and make a list, that’s what I’ve done. I have my list hanging next to my

computer, and I refer to it all the time. There are also some books, like the Emotion Thesaurus, or websites like https://writerswrite.co.za/cheat-sheets-for-writing-body-language/.

I made a couple of posters for teachers to put in their classroom, shown below; hopefully these will remind your students to include physical sensory details when showing emotions. The download link is HERE

Mark

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