The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression [Kindle Edition]

Becca Puglisi (Author), Angela Ackerman (Author)

Book Description

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 exploring seventy-five 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, including situations where a character is trying to hide their feelings from others. 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

• File Size: 292 KB
• Print Length: 174 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1475004958
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00822WM2M
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,426 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Education & Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Reference
  • #9 in Books > Education & Reference > Words, Language & Grammar > Reference
  • #12 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Education & Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 97 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.

52 of 55 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.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Emphasis on "Thesaurus" December 15, 2012

By Junmo Kim

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I originally purchased this book for an 300-level Advanced Composition course as part of a review assignment on writing guides and manuals. Initially, since Amazon listed the book among the Top Ten New and Popular under Writing, Research, and Publishing guides, I assumed it might be helpful.

This book is almost exactly as should be expected of a thesaurus. There are 75 emotions that the book focuses on with each being separated into five distinct categories.

-Physical Signals
-Internal Sensations
-Mental Responses
-Cues of Acute or Long-term [Emotion]
-Cues of Suppressed [Emotion]

At the bottom of each entry, the authors have also included a "Writer's Tip" section which briefly suggests some useful tips regarding how to convey the emotion.

Each of the categories list possible alternatives to the basic emotion. But, you should note that some entries lack alternative emotions in comparison to those more extensively covered. For example, DOUBT has an entire page dedicated to the PHYSICAL SIGNALS while only providing one expression for INTERNAL SENSATIONS. This is compared to the eleven that can be found for FEAR. I also wonder why some combinations were left out such as the combination of FEAR AND DOUBT.

In contrast to the glowing reviews by others, the helpfulness of this books should be taken with caution. It may be useful to those who are new to writing or are in the beginning stages of their novel writing careers. However, if you are slightly more experienced and have taken a introductory composition course, the value of this book quickly diminishes. Those of you looking for a more in-depth analysis and explanation into how to use various emotions, this book may come up a little sparse.... Thus, this book should be used as a supplement but definitively should not be used to supplant manuals or writing guidebooks. Read more ›

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars My Hands Tingled As I Opened This Book... December 27, 2012

By Avid Reader

Format:Kindle Edition

...or rather, as I clicked "Accept Gift" and downloaded the e-Book. My heart fluttered as I turned the first few pages, recalling the nuggets of wisdom I had read and re-read a dozen times.

"Do you like it?" my wife asked, eyes soft and lips parted slightly.

"Oh yes," I answered hurriedly. "Thank you so much!" My heart skipped a beat as I turned to the first emotion, Adoration.

"Okay, well I've got to get to work," my wife said as I waved at her absently, my eyes fixated on the treasure my computer displayed.

From there, I turned my attention to my own book, where I reviewed the despicable descriptions, dialogues, and the diatribes.

"No," I spoke aloud, and found my mouth dry up and my eyes water as I inhaled the sweet-scented air around me. "I finally have it. It's all right now," I cooed as I began the once-impossible task of revising choppy character monologues and pathetic person-to-person bantering.

This book was my Holy Grail, my Ark of the Covenant, my elixir. And I finally had it in my hands.

"Thank you, Angela and Becca," I whispered as I disappeared into a much brighter world of emotions.
-------------

While most of the above is true (I really did wave my wife off to work while staring at the e-Book), here is my honest, not-so-artistic review. I was thoroughly surprised at the depth of choices the authors provided for expressing bodily cues of emotion, and have enjoyed postulating the different ways to reword their own examples to make them original to my novel-writing.

The introductory chapters "Introduction" and "Techniques for Writing Nonverbal Emotion" were particularly stimulating, if short, and left me wanting more examples to round out the ones they used.... The breadth and depth of emotions in the pages to follow are impressive, but since using this Thesaurus I searched for several emotions I've needed help on, but they were not present in this book (though the emotions escape me for a moment, and perhaps were synonyms - like hesitant missing, but reluctant present).

Truly, you have a treasure in your hands (or on your smart device/computer) if you possess The Emotion Thesaurus, and it is well worth the money in my opinion.

Thanks for such an enlightening work--I will use it readily in the months to come as I complete and revise my first novel. Read more ›