The Anatomy of Emotion

I attended a workshop called Words, Words, Words at the Colorado Gold Conference a few weeks ago. As Susan Mackay Smith and Carol Berg waxed poetic about the importance of vivid, precise word choice, I despaired. I have a few strengths as a writer, but vocabulary is not one of them.

I find myself particularly struggling with the old “show, don’t tell” adage. I know I should write my characters visibly acting out their emotions, but I always fall back on the same phrases. As I sat in Smith and Berg’s class, I wished someone would just list ways each body part could move to express emotion in a human being.

Then I realized: why not me?

I’ll provide a link to my list at the bottom of this post, but I want to show my process. My list doesn’t include every possibility, and I want you to be able to formulate ideas of your own. Teach a man to fish and all that.

The phrases I overuse are common in the books I read, so I wanted to analyze body movement without that lens. Especially because these phrases often don’t make sense: bile rose in her throat; he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding; she bit her lip until she drew blood. These things don’t happen nearly as often as we authors think they do.

So how do people move when experiencing emotion? Let’s use movies to find out.

When I first saw the scene in Spotlight when Mark Ruffalo’s character blows up at his boss about releasing the pedophile priest story, I knew the performance was masterful and emotional, but I didn’t know why. So I went back and watched the scene without sound. Here, you do it too. Watch the scene first with sound.

There are so many details of human movement we don’t think about because we’re distracted by what’s being said. Now watch without sound. Pay attention to each character and what their body language says about how they’re feeling.

Ruffalo begins the scene leaning on his desk, one hand in his pocket and the other holding some papers. He looks around, eyebrows furrowed. He’s concerned, confused. He gestures slightly with the paper. Michael Keaton’s posture is more erect, hand on his waist. As Ruffalo becomes agitated, Keaton’s gestures with his paper remain small and his face unexpressive. He’s trying to remain calm, to not provoke Ruffalo further. Ruffalo’s gestures become jabs, his head movements jerky. He tilts his chin up in defiance to something Keaton says. His eyebrows are much more expressive now, and the skin around his eyes is tense. You can tell he’s enunciating each consonant because of the way his body moves with each syllable.

Ruffalo’s acting with his whole face and body. It’s important to note that Keaton and the other two are as well—the absence of dramatic movement tells us a lot about their states of mind.

Let’s try another scene of building frustration, this time in a much different context. Alicia Vikander’s and Armie Hammer’s characters in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. start out enemies: an east Berliner and a Russian KGB agent in the 1960s.

Watch the scene first with sound, then without. I’ll just be analyzing the first half, but feel free to watch more. I love this movie and am always looking to get more people interested in it.

Hammer touches his chin and lips as he tries to focus on his chess game. Vikander saunters from the phone, loosely carrying alcohol and glasses. She leans back on her heels when she stands. Her eyelids are low, pointing to her attempts to seem disinterested and in control.

You’ll notice that Hammer doesn’t move a chess piece until a full minute into the scene, just after Vikander asks, “Is this fun?” It’s a decisive statement, a “YES, I’m having fun, now go away,” and it causes her to stalk off. He awkwardly knocks over a piece when he gets what he wants, showing he’s more thrown off than he appears.

While Vikander dances, Hammer is a study in building frustration. He rubs his eyelids, eyebrows, forehead. He shakes his head. His frown deepens. His hand moves aimlessly over the board. He doesn’t really complete movements anymore—he goes to rub his head, goes to move a piece, starts to glance back at her, etc. Every gesture is brief, showing frustration overcoming him.

Feel free to continue your body language analysis. It really is a great movie.

Try this tactic on any movie scene, TV scene, even home video. Does it give you more ideas for how to make your characters’ emotions apparent visually?

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end. As a reward, here is a link to download my Anatomy of Emotion Master List.

 

Natasha Watts (also known as Tasha Christensen) lives in Littleton, Colorado with her husband and two daughters. Her short story, “Mother Star,” was published in the RMFW anthology Found in 2016. She looks forward to co-editing the next anthology, set to be published in 2020.