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Guessing Game

Pick an emotion (like happy, mad, excited or embarrassed). For the next several days, look for people experiencing the emotion you chose. Note what they’re doing, the expressions on their faces, the tone in their voices and how they respond to others. What do they do with their hands? How do they move? How do you know what they’re feeling?

Use what you noticed in other people to show a character experiencing this emotion.

To see if readers would know how your character feels, post your work here. Don’t include the emotion you want to show. Instead, ask other writers to guess your character’s mood.

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Learn how moods sound

When you’re feeling extremely happy or sad, mad or excited, take a moment and write a paragraph. Write whatever comes to mind, as fast as you can. Put it away until you’re feeling more relaxed then read through it. Were your sentences long or choppy? Thoughtful or random? Collect different pages for different emotions.

When one of your characters is experiencing a lot of emotion, pull out the page you wrote when you were feeling the same way. Use that tone and feeling in your story.

Post your work here and ask others to guess how you were feeling when you wrote it.