Ask Jerry
Emotional tells.
Asked by Samantha Hawkins on April 17, 2023
Dear Jerry
I read your advice: ‘Describe the scene correctly and you don’t have to tell the reader the emotions. Let it unfold.’
I’m really interested in knowing more. By this do you mean the overdone, cliched phrases of heart beating/thumping, etc? Or do you mean all emotions?
If possible, could you write a short example of a passage with the ‘emotional tell’ removed? So that I can see what you mean?
Thank you, as always, for your advice.
Jerry's Answer
Yes, Samantha, I'm not sure any emotions have to be named or described--especially the heart and breathing and dry throat, etc., etc.
The examples I often use are 1--A mother home alone at night with her baby asleep upstairs when she hears and then sees someone in the basement, hiding behind the furnace. Her husband works nights, so she's on her own. She goes into Mother Bear mode, naturally, and grabs an aluminum softball bat and creeps down the stairs. Do we need to be told her mouth is dry, her heart is racing, she's shaking, she's petrified, etc.? If the scene is well rendered, the reader not only knows this but also feels it.
2--A bride abandoned at the altar. We can show her fleeing the venue, her father explaining to guests that there will be no wedding, her hiding in the car until her parents drive her home--where she did not expect to return, trudging up the stairs, collapsing outside what she thought was her old room, shunning any words of comfort or advice, just wanting to be alone... But do we need to be told she's heartbroken, devastated, angry, gobsmacked, etc.? Who wouldn't be? Show, don't tell.