Yesterday, you described a behavior you observed, focusing only on who, what, and when, without coming to any conclusions about what caused the behavior or what happened next. Now it’s time for the next step: why.
Step two: Interpret the behavior you observed.
Take what you’ve observed and interpret what you believe you witnessed.
- He slammed the car door and I assumed he was angry.
- Her brow was furrowed and I assumed she was concerned about something.
- He glanced behind himself repeatedly and I assumed he was worried about being followed.
- Her fingers tapped non-stop on the tabletop and I assumed she was impatient.
When you’re working with fictional characters, presumably you won’t have to assume what’s going on in their thoughts. However, this exercise is good practice for other reasons. First, you are practicing your observation and reporting skills. Second, you are practicing connecting physical actions with emotional content.
In your fiction, you should avoid putting your character’s state of mind in blunt terms. She was angry. He was sad. This kind of writing is vague and dull. Telling is a tool you should deploy only rarely. With this kind of exercise, you can develop a catalog of physical movements that can reveal your characters’ emotional content. Like you, your reader will assume that a character tapping her fingers feels impatient, or a character slamming a car door feels angry.
Those action-emotion connections are so common they may be clichéd, but by observing and reporting from real life interactions, you can add more interesting, vivid descriptions to your toolbox.