She Cried a River: Best Blogs for Writing Emotion

If you’re like me, when writing on deadline you just toss words into the scene during the rough draft. This helps the pace and power of the scene. Without pondering each sentence to find the precise word, it’s easier to capture the excitement of the scene and accurately present the conflict.

After the dust has settled, though, it’s time to revisit those sentences and paragraphs, finding the perfect way to describe difficult emotions and trying circumstances.

Need to describe the elusive properties of smell, taste, tears, or sorrow? What are the postures of arrogance? Here are some sites and articles that may inspire you to put just the right polish on that important scene!

First, a cheat sheet for writing body language—if you’re wondering how to show rather than tell that a character is proud, ashamed or overwhelmed.

Or how about 20 ways to describe taste? Don’t read this if you’re hungry.

For your classy characters, here are ways to describe their favorite wines. Make mine oaky, nutty, and crisp! This site also features an interesting Wine Access Flavor Profile System.

You may need to sensitively describe your character’s sadness. This site features mini-essays on sadness that will wound your heart. I had an urge to give all these writers a hug. They wrote a profound collection of expressions of sorrow.

Here’s an example from Angela Abraham: “When the sadness comes my appetite is ash on the floor.” While these words should not be copied without attribution, they can inspire you to get into your character’s skin and describe his or her anguish.

Are you concerned about writing a crying scene without being cliché or amusingly maudlin? Various writers provide interesting and helpful advice about how tears should fall (gracefully) on the page.

For your coffee break, here’s a marvelous list of words that describe emotional moments that will cause you to experience deja vu. My favorite of this list is “vellichor,” that strange wistfulness of used bookshops.

Then there are smiles. Some are joyful, like Delia Owens’s bestseller, Where the Crawdads Sing, on page 111: “Tate’s whole face smiled.” Others express less positive emotions. Take a look at this post, where Kathy Steinemen has assembled an amazing 600 ways to describe smiles.

Finally, for mystery writers, this is a fascinating discussion about ten signs of deception. What deceitful people say. The verb tenses they use. Qualifiers. Vague statements. Vows. I’ll be listening carefully to certain salesmen from now on!

Do you have a favorite “go-to” website or article? Share with us in the comments!