Feelings Are Shown, Not Said

Everyone has emotions, in a story a character will be an angry human being or a depressed person. One thing to know about describing a character; don't just flat-out say it. Authors imply things with the character's movements. If Michelle is confused, she doesn't look at Johnny and say, "I'm confused." She just looks like an airhead then!

Here's what writers tell fellow writers, "Look at the characters as if they were real, base them on real life people you know if you'd like." What their explaining is think of the people in your story as real, like you could talk to them if you wanted. Imagine their pet peeves, the way they talk, what their demeanor says about what they're feeling. If you can do that, you can see how your character would react to something.

Let's say Johnny told Michelle of how his girlfriend broke up with him. Johnny is a very normal kid that doesn't really understand things between the lines, he doesn't understand what people are trying to say. When he tells Michelle how his girlfriend broke up with him, he babbles out how he doesn't understand how this could happen to him. He's making no sense and keeps making these absurd hand movement because his mind is going into overdrive, thinking of why the girl broke up with him.

Michelle, on the other hand, is trying to be sympathetic and comfort him but has no idea what he's saying. Example of how she would show it: Michelle rushed over to Johnny's hunched form. She lays a hand on his back as she softly says to him. "Johnny, start over from the beginning and tell me what happened."

Now, when Michelle says this sentence she implies to Johnny that what he's saying won't really make sense until he says the full story. Her words are accompanied with movements. Michelle's comforting him, no? She may be confused but she still has to be in touch with the current situation; his break-up.

If you're trying to show the character's personality, you may want to show small details here in there. They may seem unimportant but they tell a bit of the character's past life. Think again of an angry person. No one knows why they always seem to be angry. Even when someone's talking to them it seems like a brawl is going to start.

Example: Kane was watching as I stuttered out the sentence, "Headmaster wants to see you." He grunted before walking away. "Wait! He told me to show you the way." He growled before signaling with his hands for me to show the way. When I started walking, he rested his hand by his side, only it formed a fist instead.

You can tell many things about Kane in this sentence. For one thing, you see how people talk to them. The character who's POV this is told in, stuttered when he talked to him. That shows he's done something before to make them scared of him. Second, Kane didn't really talk, he showed it with his hands meaning he isn't going out of his way to make friends. Third, when it said he made a fist, it shows his anger (as if none of other actions said that). Kane's either trying not to hit someone, or he's just being ready in case someone attacks him which shows something in his past life happened.

What I mean by my third reason is something happened to Kane in the past and he's always ready to protect himself. Whatever happened would be revealed later on in the story so this small action may seem unimportant but really, it's just foreshadowing something. But that, my friend, is for another time.