The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman

While realtors hail, “Location, location, location ” writers shout, “emotion, emotion, emotion.” I'm definitely giving my son a copy of this book as he heads off to his freshman year in college. As an added bonus, they highlight the results of effectively using backstory to further empower a story. It's like a genealogy of appropriate emotional usage when telling a story. The authors give clear and specific examples, which apply their methods of choosing proper description. This is a brilliant way to present words of the same likeness and show how they can be properly used to add flavor to any essay, article, short story, novel, or screenplay. I especially liked the breakdown of words into Verbal and Nonverbal Communication, Physical Signals, Mental Responses, and Internal Sensations. The book is written in an easy-to-read-and-follow format, which is great for any writer, even high school and college students. The Emotional Thesaurus is a fantastic writer's handbook, and must have as a reference while writing to help bring clarity yet interest to one's writing.Īngela and Becca have created a functional tool to enhance an author's writing and storytelling choices.

The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last. Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues It includes:īody language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactionsĪ breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome themĪdvice on what should be done beforedrafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much.

One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded to include 55 new entries!

The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman