His eyes narrowed.
Her eyes darkened.
She gazed longingly.
His eyes flashed.
They glared daggers.
Read it all before, haven’t you?
Eyeballs get more than their fair share of screentime in a lot of novels, especially by newer writers. Any overdone habit in writing starts to stand out and feel repetitive—not to mention boring. But even if it wasn’t repetitive, writers should still practice using fewer eyeballs… because it just doesn’t mean anything.
“His eyes flashed.” What does that mean? What does it mean for eyes to “darken”?
Sure, you could probably come up with an explanation of what such reactions would actually look like if they happened in real life. But it would still be kind of vague, and it might not be the same explanation someone else came up with for the exact same description.
Enter: Body Language
Alternatively, what about this:
- He threw his hands in the air.
- She crossed her arms across her body, rubbing one hand absent-mindedly against the opposite bicep.
- He squeezed his lower lip between his teeth and shoved his hands into his pockets.
- She backed up a step, the muscles in her neck becoming etched under her skin with tension.
Those are tangible actions. If I had more talent, I could draw those poses for you. And, when paired with the context of the scene, readers can usually interpret what that body language means.
That’s the first reason body language is more effective than eyeball descriptions—it’s tangible, and that means readers can visualize it. Have you ever been reading and felt like you were just glossing over the words on the page without absorbing them? One possible reason for that is when the reader just can’t picture what’s happening on the page, in which case they can’t get into the story. (Of course, other possible explanations include a lack of caffeine to activate the imagination or a lack of dragons to make it worth reading.)
There’s another, even more important reason to focus on body language, though.
Empathy.
Reading is a practice of empathy. No seriously, it is. There are studies on the subject, demonstrating that reading helps develop empathy. That’s because we have to use empathy to put ourselves in the shoes of a fictional character and experience their story.
Where “Show Don’t Tell” Comes In
This ties back into that writing rule you probably feel bashed over the head with sometimes: “show don’t tell.” Body language is one of the best ways to show rather than tell a character’s emotions. And the importance of showing, rather than telling, emotion is that it forces the reader to figure it out for themselves, making them an active participant in the story.
You could just tell them that Character A is sad and Character B is angry, but where’s the fun in that? Instead, you show them that Character A is hunched over a half-eaten bowl of soggy cereal, staring at nothing. You show them that Character B sits on the other side of the room with their hands in fists. They fidget and roll their shoulders and take a deep breath every now and then, biting their lip and squeezing their fingernails into their palms until it hurts.
Wanna know how I came up with those descriptions? I physically acted them out to find actions that felt familiar to me as sadness or anger. And that’s what your reader will do, in their mind—they’ll picture themselves doing the same actions, literally putting themselves in the character’s shoes, in order to understand what they’re feeling.
Empathy.
Drawing your reader into the story, giving them chances to actively participate by empathizing with the characters, is what takes your book from “cool premise, but I just couldn’t get into it” to “I couldn’t put it down” and “I loved the characters.”
So, no eyes when writing emotion?
Back to eyeballs for a moment. Of course, I’m not saying you should never use eyes for emotion…just don’t default to it. And be mindful of which eyeball phrases make sense and which are just a little too abstract. A character’s eyes flashing or glowing is weird (unless they aren’t human, perhaps). But things like glaring, eyes darting, squinting, eyes glued…those phrases are tangible expressions that readers can visualize. They’re not particularly subtle, however, as far as “show don’t tell” goes, so body language is still often the stronger choice.
I’d love to hear your favorite tips and tricks for showing rather than telling characters’ emotions!