Describing facial expressions

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Devil Ledbetter

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I don't really write a lot of facial expressions. They always seem so trite to me. I'd just keep them to the minimum. If necessary, I'd describe them as something like "she scrunched her nose" or "he bit his lower lip" or "his lips curled into an easy smile," used sparingly. I'd rather let the dialogue and body language ("he shifted his body in the chair") do the work. One of my editors said too many "he smiled" or "she grinned" or "he nodded" are tiresome and trite. And I agreed.
Agreed.

They should be used sparingly, or the story will start to seem like nothing but characters making a lot of faces at each other. This is true whether you use stock gestures like "she smiled" or florid descriptions of those stock gestures like "the corners of her mouth gradually curved upward and a smile spread across her face while her eyes twinkled like midsummer stars in a cloudless sky." (Gag!)

I think some writers may copy to much from movies and television, where closeups of the face (and actors making faces) are used to convey emotion. Whatever you do, don't limit yourself to having your characters pulling faces all the time. Not only can you employ non-facial gestures, you can also use setting and language to convey emotion.
 

Stew21

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I agree with that ^^

Also, you can generate a person's feeling, attitude, etc in a lot of other ways.
Metaphor is a good tool to use in times like that. You can limit the facial expression description by associating the look with something else. The reader still gets the idea, and probably more effectively.
 

Victoria

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Ah, but when you're skin is turning that red, you feel it. It starts to warm up, to flush, from the inside. It starts in one place -- your cheeks, your forehead, your ears -- and it creeps outward until you know, just know, that any low flying aircraft in the vicinity will mistake you for a warning beacon.

Yes, you know when you're blushing, or flushing, or whatever.
 

WriteMinded

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For fun, I just checked my newly finished 85k first draft - and found 49 smiles and 94 nods.
eek.gif
:) I'm not going to check the numbers of smiles and nods in my WIP until I've finished but I'm betting I'll beat your record. Mine will be heavier on the smiles, lighter on the nods. Did you check for how many laughs?
 

Reservoir Angel

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In my less-than-professional advice based on the content of you're OP: you're limiting yourself by just sticking to facial expressions.

When we talk to people, we use our whole bodies. Facial expressions, subtle head movements, hand movements in particular when expressing ourselves. Our entire body contributes to how we put across that impression of how we're feeling, or what we're thinking, at any given moment.

I don't really have any advice other than that; instead of focusing so much on what the character is doing with his facial features, expand that movement-based characterisation to the whole body and you can pick up a lot more subtle nuances in the character's performance.
 

Arch Stanton

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The bit that always gets me is POV. In the above example, we're in this bloke's POV, so unless he's looking in a mirror, he shouldn't know exactly how red his face gets.

This doesn't bother me at all.
 

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The Art of Subtext

I just read a book by Charles Baxter, The Art of Subtext. There just so happens to be a chapter called "Loss of Face".

"Only when tensions arise, when we fall in love or are threatened or coerced, do faces and clothes and tattoos and personal details begin to count.

Such tensions begin with social uneasiness of the sort we have felt at various times in the company of people we do not entirely trust. Then they start to escalate, especially when we are attracted to someone or feel physically or psychically threatened. The more confined the dramatic space, the more likely it is that facial expressions will become important...Proust is equally good on smugness and social unconcern, but his comic sense is most likely to appear whenever a character's fears give himself away, as in his description of Dr. Cottard, in Swann's Way, in the translation by Moncrieff, Kilmartin, and Enright.

'Dr. Cottard was never quite certain of the tone in which he ought to reply to any observations, or whether the speaker was jesting or in earnest. And so by way of precaution he would embellish all his facial expressions with the offer of a conditional, a provisional smile whose expectant subtlety would exonerate him from the charge of being a simpleton, if the remark addressed to him should turn out to have been facetious. But as he must also be prepared to face the alternative, he dared not allow this smile to assert itself positively on his features, and you would see there a perpetually flickering uncertainty, in which could be deciphered the question that he never dared to ask: "Do you really mean that?" '

Baxter constantly suggests that just as much can be revealed by what a character does not do with his face or body as what he does. Also that in the age of computers and mass media, people create filters and 'masks' to wear depending on the situation they're in.

I hope this helps!
 

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Here's something that's been bothering me for a while in trying to get my novel finished. I'm writing along, doing a scene where two or more characters are in dialogue, and in my mind, I "see" much of their attitude and expression in terms of their facial expressions.

I'm having a hard time getting that down on paper. "He frowned. He grimaced. He smirked. He smiled. He grinned..." After a while, I run out of "facial expression" words, and none of them have quite captured the particular nuance I'm after. Frustrating.

What does everyone else do? Not lean so heavily on descriptions of facial expressions? Expand their vocabulary? Use other forms of body language to convey the same idea?

Try to stay clear of using words like frowned, smiled, smirked, grimaced, they are not very creative and it is like using said all the time. They are boring.

Be more creative. Think about the tiny movements people make when they make an expression. Instead of staying 'she smiled' you could say 'a hint of a smile crossed her lips' something like that.

Saying "He frowned" is more telling then showing. Show us your character's face. Describe the look in his eyes. The shape of his mouth. The lines on his forehead. Really try and paint with your words. Don't go over board though. Try and keep your sentences descriptive but short and sweet.
 

SinK

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Not to detract from the literary side of things but a scientific understanding of how emotions show themselves seems useful in writing but also adds an interesting dimension to everyday conversation. I challenge anyone to read a book on body language and not spend the next few days hoping people will lie to them so they can go all Lightman on them.

Joe Navarro's What Every Body is Saying is a readable practical intro to the field and Paul Ekman has written several exhaustive 'popular' science books on the subject which although extremely thorough are a worded a little too rigorously to constitute an easy read. I think his Telling Lies on body language and deception is another good broad work and Emotions Revealed a pretty dense analysis of how emotions are felt, shown and disguised by the face.
 

Jonathan Dalar

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I'd agree with those avoiding heavy use of facial expressions, and especially long, drawn out descriptors. They get pretty old pretty fast. I dare you to find them strewn about Hemingway's prose. He certainly didn't need them and neither do we. They're crutches.

I use 'em. Sure I do. Every once in a while they're great spices for a story. But use 'em like salt, or better still, cayenne pepper. A little goes a long way. Unless you're cooking up a real spicy dish, less is more. And that spicy dish had better be perfect, otherwise it's just gonna taste like half-baked meatloaf that burns all the way in and all the way back out again.

Ok, enough with the cooking comparisons. Now I'm hungry, and I think you get the point.
 

Devil Ledbetter

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Try to stay clear of using words like frowned, smiled, smirked, grimaced, they are not very creative and it is like using said all the time.
Please tell me you are pulling our leg. Said is not boring. It's invisible. Huge difference.

Be more creative. Think about the tiny movements people make when they make an expression. Instead of staying 'she smiled' you could say 'a hint of a smile crossed her lips' something like that.

Saying "He frowned" is more telling then showing. Show us your character's face. Describe the look in his eyes. The shape of his mouth. The lines on his forehead. Really try and paint with your words.
I have to respectfully disagree with this too. When the character's facial movement are described in detail and the reader is supposed to guess which emotion she's having, it becomes an annoying game of charades.

"Tell" isn't a bad thing. There should be a balance between show and tell. Don't stop the story and force your readers into a game of charades every time a character has an emotion.
 

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All right, I ask for your indulgence; I've read all the posts but still wish I had a better grasp on the use of the verb "look," perceive with attention, etc--you know "she looked," "he looked," they looked."

I try to be hyper sensitive about overusing look and when nothing better comes to mind I rely on modifiers. Still . . .
 

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Often the best facial expression or body movement is none. If it's not needed for a beat, and not conveying anything we would not expect from the dialogue, cut it, it's boring.

Foggy Bottom, (love the name, lol) I think it is usually implied that the characters are using their eyes appropriately. We do not need to be told that they are looking at who they are speaking to, or looking at whatever the thing of interest is at the moment. Usually it is better cut.
 
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Stew21

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as for looking and seeing. If you are in that character's POV or close third on them, just stating what is seen (if important) takes away the need to say anyone looked anywhere or that they saw anything. What they view is part of the POV.

ex:

She looked out the window and saw snow had started to fall.
Snow was falling. She wondered how long.
 

amrose

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Said is not boring. It's invisible. Huge difference.

I feel the same way about said as I do about adverbs. I don't mind a different dialogue tag besides said now and then. I'll throw out a comanded once in a while.

I won't use an adverb paired with said, though.

Said jokingly, said obnoxiously, said dubiously, blah, grah, retch.

But you're right. Invisible very different than boring.
 

Satchan

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Thanks for the Emotion Thesaurus link, those who posted it. You are all my personal heroes.

Describing expressions and such is one of my weak points, I think. Every time I finish a first draft, I have to go through and ctrl + F "raised his/her eyebrows." Everyone raises their eyebrows. All the time. *facepalm*
 

Atlantis

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Please tell me you are pulling our leg. Said is not boring. It's invisible. Huge difference.

I have to respectfully disagree with this too. When the character's facial movement are described in detail and the reader is supposed to guess which emotion she's having, it becomes an annoying game of charades.

"Tell" isn't a bad thing. There should be a balance between show and tell. Don't stop the story and force your readers into a game of charades every time a character has an emotion.

Said is invisible and much better then other choices. But it is boring. At least I think so. I don't use dialogue tags that much. I don't really think they are needed most of the time.
When I do use them I usually do use said.

As for describing emotion, I would find a book with clear cut, boring description, such as 'He frowned' or 'She smiled' or 'He bit his lip' not very creative. A good writer can describe a character's emotion in detail without it being a guessing game.

Why are so many writers scared of using description? Yeah, too much of it can become fluff, but if used in the right amounts it can make a story and its characters become just a little more alive. Writers should take risks with their writing and be different. :)
 

maestrowork

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As for describing emotion, I would find a book with clear cut, boring description, such as 'He frowned' or 'She smiled' or 'He bit his lip' not very creative. A good writer can describe a character's emotion in detail without it being a guessing game.

It's not creative but it gets the point across without a lot of unnecessary words. There's such thing called succinctness. Not everything in prose has to be creative and poetic.

To me, if you write "a hint of smile crossed his lips" instead of "he smiled" I'd yell, just tell me already. Do you really need seven words to tell us he smiled? Oh, wait, no, he didn't smile, he just hinted at smiling. Now I have to try harder to visualize how the hint of a smile crossed his entire lips, but it's not a smile. Just a hint.

That's not creative. That's just overwrought.

And don't describe every detail of a frown unless there's a meaning to all that description. Do I really need to see the movement of the brows, how his eyes narrowed, etc. etc. I know what a frown looks like, dammit. "He frowned" is perfectly fine. It's not boring because it is succinct. Otherwise it's just tedious, and I'd take boring over tedious any day.
 
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randywrite

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Here's an exercise for you: instead of simply writing the verb, describe the action taken (show versus tell).

He grinned = The corners of his mouth quirked upward.
He grimaced = His eyebrows furrowed, and his lips pressed together.

You don't want to go overboard with it. Sometimes simply saying "He smiled" is appropriate. But it's one way to mix things up a little.

I really like this example/exercise you posted. I'm going to mess with it a bit.:)
 

OpheliaRevived

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I think showing expressions vs "telling" expressions has a lot to do with context, too. There will be plenty of times when "he smiled" is fine, expecially when the dialogue is too important to be overshadowed by anything else. (I'm of the school of thought that there shouldn't be a lot "fluff" dialogue, anyway.)
 

Wilde_at_heart

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Not to detract from the literary side of things but a scientific understanding of how emotions show themselves seems useful in writing but also adds an interesting dimension to everyday conversation. I challenge anyone to read a book on body language and not spend the next few days hoping people will lie to them so they can go all Lightman on them.

Joe Navarro's What Every Body is Saying is a readable practical intro to the field and Paul Ekman has written several exhaustive 'popular' science books on the subject which although extremely thorough are a worded a little too rigorously to constitute an easy read. I think his Telling Lies on body language and deception is another good broad work and Emotions Revealed a pretty dense analysis of how emotions are felt, shown and disguised by the face.

Thanks - they seem like great references I'll have to check out. I too have a character that doesn't talk a whole lot with words and always puts up a front, so what she does and the expressions on her face reveal what she is really thinking, which contradicts what she says...
 

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Lot's of good advice above. To me, describing the facial expression can become a pre-disposition, a tendency. Yes, these elements are important but can be redundant. Many times, I resort to body language, demeanor, coutenance and others. "He was becoming quickly tired" is about the same as "his eyes were beginning to droop". But that's my two cents. Again, lot's of good advice above.
 
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