The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide To Character Expression [Paperback]

Angela Ackerman (Author), Becca Puglisi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 6, 2012

One of the biggest problem areas for writers is conveying a character's emotions to the reader in a unique, compelling way. This book comes to the rescue by highlighting 75 emotions and listing the possible body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for each. Using its easy-to-navigate list format, readers can draw inspiration from character cues that range in intensity to match any emotional moment. The Emotion Thesaurus also tackles common emotion-related writing problems and provides methods to overcome them. This writing tool encourages writers to show, not tell emotion and is a creative brainstorming resource for any fiction project.

Editorial Reviews

Review

One of the challenges a fiction writer faces, especially when prolific, is coming up with fresh ways to describe emotions. This handy compendium fills that need. It is both a reference and a brainstorming tool, and one of the resources I'll be turning to most often as I write my own books. - James Scott Bell, bestselling author of Deceived and Plot & Structure

About the Author

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are the creators of the award winning online resource for writers, The Bookshelf Muse. Members of SCBWI, both authors write in the Middle Grade and Young Adult genres.

Product Details

• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (May 6, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1475004958
• ISBN-13: 978-1475004953
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (289 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Education & Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Journalism & Nonfiction
  • #10 in Books > Education & Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Writing Skills

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 94 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Show, Don't Tell", but how to show ? May 13, 2012

By Sanjay Deshmukh

Format:Paperback

We know by now the "Show, Don't Tell" idiom professed by almost every how-to book on writing fiction. Where we stumble is in the `showing' of emotions, especially showing the same emotion in varying degrees of intensity, and often end-up writing clichés. The Emotion Thesaurus breaks new ground by providing alternatives to body language cues, thoughts and visceral reactions. Unlike a word thesaurus that we open at a specific page to find alternatives for a word, this book can be read in its entirety not just to derive inspiration, but also to improve your storehouse of `emotion descriptions'. But if all this information is available free on the web, why buy the book? I bought it because I prefer to shut down my internet connection while I write and edit, to prevent distractions and the book comes in handy. Also for those times late in the night when I'd rather reach for this book than boot up the laptop and fire up the modem.

56 of 59 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Skip your latte to grab this book. May 14, 2012

By Jon W. Turner

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The best 5 bucks a writer could spend. I could see the emotions in playing out in my head, but lacked the words. Just skimming the book, I can and will take my writing from "Good" to "Amazing" Now I finally understand Show don't Tell your reader. Even my daughter was impressed with the book. I would recommend this book to new writer like me and even the seasoned writers. I don't think you will be disappointed.

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Time-saving Tool for the New or Experienced, 4.5 Stars June 8, 2012

By Brian Kittrell, author

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

*Note (7/13/12): I located the linked navigation a while back, and it's actually very well done. Excellent. Forgot to update the review.

I'm rounding up because my only complaint is that I couldn't find a linked list/index to go from one entry to the next, back, or otherwise. I am going to search around the book to see if it does indeed exist and to see if it merely escaped me on my first pass. I'll knock off half a star for that, but I'm going to round up because this truly is a wonderful writing aid. (I'll amend my review if I locate it or if someone points it out.)

A wide variety of emotions are given in this book, each of the entries supplying information on the overall effects each emotional state has on people, from what others might notice or see to what a person might feel inside. Thus, it's a wonderful tool for examples in any point of view and wonderfully supports the modern, accepted style: third person limited. However, this tool could just as easily be used for any style or point of view.

In my opinion, this guide could be useful to both new and experienced writers of fiction. For the former, this is an amazing resource for learning how to write convincing characters and see how emotions translate into writing (then, hopefully, provoking sympathy, empathy, or whatever feeling you wish to evoke in the reader). For the latter, I would say that this can easily be a go-to reference for experienced writers to shake things up a bit and to avoid the long hours of research it would require to do the legwork already done in this guide. I've loaded this book onto my Kindle, and it's ready to go, along with my thesaurus, dictionary, and other reference material. This is one book that will be permanently loaded onto my device.