Callie Thomas is an indie author who loves all things fairy tales—including twisting tales of her own. Her favorite stories have a mix of sweet romance, laughter, and a pinch of magic. When she’s not writing, she enjoys playing board games, reading at the beach, and traveling the world with her husband and two boys. Since she can’t live at Disney World, you’ll find her near the historical battlefields and lush woodlands where her family lives in Fredericksburg, VA. She recently published her first Vella series, A Forest of Stolen Memories & A Sea of Golden Chains, and has more stories on the horizon. Visit her at https://www.authorcalliethomas.com.

Before you race off in another direction to avoid all the sappy stuff, let me tell you that every story you’ve ever read has had some type of emotion: fear, anger, love, sadness, pride—and so on. It’s not just about fluffy love stories and weepy characters that cry so much the pages are damp. No. It’s about you, the writer, inducing an emotional reaction in a reader by the written word alone.

Perhaps I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

Why would writing emotions be essential for an amazing story or character development? Because it makes your character go from a wooden puppet to a real boy. Imagine yourself for a moment. You have wants and needs, feelings and emotions about everything in the world around you. Each one of those has developed over time based on where you lived, how you grew up, and the company around you. It’s the same with the characters in your story. It doesn’t matter what the plot is, even Dracula has emotions and feelings.

Yes, you read that right. Epic battles, tales of friendship, or undead vampires have feelings to express. Some can be romantic relations, some can be platonic, and others can fall into their basic wants and needs that drive the characters’ choices.

Here’s the key: If you make a character’s emotion believable, then the reader will feel it too. That forms a connection between them and your characters, and it creates a lasting impression of your story, characters, and world that will stay with them long after they’ve stopped reading.

How do you tell if your book has emotion? It goes back to the old showing vs. telling with your words. Telling can even happen to the most experienced writers. You can be so caught up in the storytelling aspect of moving the plot along that sometimes we forget minor details.

Don’t overthink it if you’re writing your first draft—just get the story out. This can be fixed during your editing phases.

What should you look for? Instead of using strong verbs and descriptions, you are telling the reader how a character is feeling. Start by searching for these words in your writing to see if some feeling or telling phrases are hidden in your manuscript: felt, feel, think, thought, wonder, ponder, understand, realize, or believe. Sometimes it’s next to the is/was verb too like this: I was tired. I don’t just want to hear I’m tired, I want to feel it through your words.

But how do you write that? With practice!

Exercise: Let’s make up a sample character for this scenario.

Robert lives on the 4^th floor of a rundown apartment building in the shadier part of town. After a long day of work, he’s finally arriving home exhausted and starving to find the elevator door broken.

As you read passage, did an image of a character appear in your head? Write down the details you imagine. If nothing comes to mind, that’s okay too! Think of the last person you talked to and describe their appearance.

Now let’s talk about emotion. I did some telling in the last sentence (shame on me). Did you catch it? I said he was exhausted and starving instead of using his emotions to express it. Remember, your reader has had similar emotions before, so it only takes a little bit of detail to have them recall their own previous experience as they read.

Instead of saying Robert is tired, I could say he dragged his feet up the stairs and maybe he’s yawning from lack of sleep. We can even deeper by asking how does he feels? Is he frustrated at management for not fixing the elevator? How can he show his anger? Smashing the button and nothing happens? Seeing the broken sign? If you are still having trouble imagining it, put yourself in his shoes like how the reader would. Your body is aching from being on your feet all day and the last thing you want to do is climb up four flights of stairs. What would you do? Growl in frustration or bang your fist on the elevator door? Or did you express it inward by bottling it in with a deep breath, clenched fists, and grinding your teeth? Either option is good as long as there is some emotional reaction.

Now, poor Robert has to climb those stairs. You could continue the anger into complaining or perhaps a sense of defeat. Has nothing been going Robert’s way today? How could the reader know that?

Because reader’s has a VIP access pass to Robert’s thoughts. Using that in combination with body language can give a good sense of what he is feeling. Grumbling under his breath up each step could tell the reader he knew the housing manager had broken their promise again. You can add this grumblings through internal thought—they said repairs would take two weeks…

Another easy way to see all your options is to break it down like this:

Robert is tired and coming home from a long day at work.

Emotions: exhaustion, hunger, surprise, frustration

Body Language: hunched shoulders, dragging feet, sighs, gritting teeth, grumbling, sweat on his brow, gripping the stair rail tightly

Thoughts: complaining about everything that has gone wrong, shocked at seeing the out of order sign, deciding what toppings he wants on his pizza to distract himself

Senses: throbbing feet, sore back, out of breath, rumbling stomach,

Words: Vocal complaints and shock, a blurted “You have to be kidding me” or “Today keeps getting worse and worse.”

Now let’s start at the beginning. We can write Robert’s story again, but this time with feeling and extra details to help the reader connect to him and flesh him out into a real person.

Robert slapped open the door to his apartment building, the force of it nearly sending it off its hinges. Not that the flimsy piece of wood did any good at keeping the riffraff out. Graffiti marked the mailboxes and swirled in neon streaks all the way across the entryway, including over the elevator door. He shuffled forward, his feet pulsing like swollen blobs in his sneakers from hours of standing at the restaurant. His stomach growled for the twentieth time since his hike home, demanding he make something for himself instead of others. Which he would once he—

Robert froze at the elevator door, his eyes locked on the yellow slip of paper declaring this mode of transportation unfit for travel. His jaw twitched, and he balled his hands into fists.

Management had lied…again.

With a grunt, he kicked the graffiti-marked doors before turning on his heel and heading for the stairwell. “Why do we even pay rent? They never fix anything around this dump!”

Now you try it! Here are two examples you can practice with:

Julia accidentally placed her hand on the hot stove.

Emotions:

Body Language:

Thoughts:

Senses:

Words:

Alan’s goldfish just died.

Emotion:

Body Language:

Thoughts:

Senses:

Words:

Pick one example above and rewrite the sentence in the comments section by combining all the details so it flows together. If you want to add more backstory—more power to you! I’d love to see your creativity at work. But most importantly, I want you to show and not tell.

So start writing—and this time with feeling!

Callie has graciously offered an ebook copy of her newest release Jacklyn and the Twisted Beanstalk (Amazon affiliate link). Here’s the story:

She has stolen from the king and now must suffer the consequences. He’s an honor-bound guard, forced to uphold the law. Can she wish her way out of this disaster, or will their budding romance wilt before it even has a chance to blossom?

Jacklyn is tired of the injustice and mistreatment of her fellow farmers in the Kingdom of Cadell. After a rash decision nearly banishes her and her family, she does the unthinkable and trades a rare pumpkin for a sack of magic beans. Despite knowing magic is outlawed, she plants them anyway, hoping the beans will grant her heart’s desire.

But magic is unpredictable, and the beans of transformation were more than what she had bargained for, twisting her wish into a nightmare when her best friend Gillian becomes tangled in the vines of ancient magic. Desperate to save him, Jacklyn must climb the beanstalk, search the forbidden tower for a lost item, and return it to the mysterious woman who traded her the beans.

Time is ticking and she doesn’t have a moment to lose. Can Jacklyn complete her quest before the end of the Harvest Ball, when the blood moon rises and kills everything planted in the soil—including her beloved Gillian? Or will the magic destroy her only hope at a happily ever after?

“Jacklyn and the Twisted Beanstalk” is a part of the “Autumn Fairy Tales”, a collection of eight cozy retellings of your favorite fairy tales. Each book can be enjoyed in any order, so light your favorite harvest candle and get ready to “fall” in love with the romance, pumpkin spice, and everything nice of these sweet and clean novellas!