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Showing Emotion In Dialogue-heavy Scenes
Very few things pull people in like conversation. After all, when someone speaks, they are making themselves vulnerable to others. How? Because words are steeped in thoughts, beliefs and emotions. They have meaning. Power.
When I talk to someone, what I’m really doing is sharing a piece of myself with them. And they in turn listen, weigh my words, and then judge me by what I say. It’s a bit intimidating when you think about it, which is why most people think carefully about what to share, and what to hold back. Protecting ourselves from feeling exposed is instinctive, because it is tied to survival.
This creates a big problem for writers trying to form realistic dialogue scenes. Our goal is for readers to pick up on the thought process and emotions of a character so they can understand motives. But if dialogue is too honest, and characters share too much about what they feel, the conversation will ring false. Add this to the complication of Point of View (where the reader is not always privy to a character’s direct thoughts) and suddenly showing emotion becomes extra challenging!
So how do we show readers what a character is really feeling when they don’t say it in dialogue?
The answer of course, is body language.
