Emotions

Emotions. I believe that a good character is an emotional one. Not emotional as in breaking-into-tears emotional. I believe that a good character has real emotional reactions to fictitious events. Their responses to the things that I choose to put them through need to be emotionally true. When the reader reads the description of the character's feelings they need to say "Yeah, I've felt that way," and furthermore "That's how I would have felt in that situation too".

Anyway, I am putting thought into the best way to describe emotions in words and thought that this might be a fun excersize for anybody that wants to give it a whirl.

Challenge:

Write a brief narrative describing the emotions of a character.

This character can be male or female. If you want a challenge, take a whack at the emotions of the opposite sex (good luck!)

A little bit of advice would be to think about how you have felt in a given situation and try to describe it. You can just use descriptive words but most of the time a metaphor or a simile can say it much more clearly in less words. especially if you can find universal imagery (something that everybody has seen or had experience with).

Ex. I felt like a cornered animal (the word like denotes a simile)

I know that's kind of a lame example, but I don't have time to come up with anything deeper. You get what I mean though.

Also it might be helpful to think of a situation that your character can respond to. A situation that you have been in yourself (recently would probably be preferable) would probably help.

If you need a situation I can probably provide one...just let me know.

Good luck. Let me know if you need more information.