How do you show character reactions without making them do something physically that is unrealistic?

Question

I've read stuff like these:

• she sat up. Startled.
• His face flushed (how does that happen in real life)
• He felt his neck muscles tense up, his temples started bulging, he started breathing more heavily as he heard his subordinate's report
• Suddenly she felt hollow inside

You get the idea. There are a many descriptions of characters having some kind of physical indication about their reactions. This is especially true in the writing of Sydney Sheldon, Dan Brown, Dean Koontz and several popular authors.

What other ways are there to bring out character reactions, instead of adding dramatizing effects to emotions? Also, is there any way which is recommended in terms of making it more realistic?

Answer 1

Readers Live Vicariously

It is always important to remember that connecting with your reader is the most important thing. To do that best, the reader should feel as if she is experiencing the story as one of the characters. Generally for the highest impact this means the action happens to the viewpoint character.

Action Happens To A Viewpoint Character

That means to have the largest impact on your reader you will have things happen to your viewpoint character and then the reader will feel as if those things have happened to her.

First, Think As A Screenplay Writer

Remember, when you watch a movie you do not know anything about the way the character feels except for the way you see him react to outward events or what he says to other characters. However, he may be saying things to other characters that aren't true. In a movie we cannot know what the character is actually thinking (except in odd cases where there is narration).

How Might An Actor Portray A Feeling?

That means you want to consider how an actor might portray a feeling. That is probably the key to getting to better writing.
You'll need to imagine how you might see the characters actually reacting to some stimuli. Once you "see" it, write it down in exact detail.

A Very Simplistic Example

Let's try this with a character who is searching for hidden gold in the desert.

Ralph took a deep breath and stuck his hand into the hole at the base of the cactus. His eyes darted left and then back right as he felt around inside the cactus. Nothing. But this was where the old man had said it would be. Ralph shook his head in an attempt to brush the sweat out of his eyes. Maybe further inside. He pushed with his legs and now his entire arm was inside the cactus. Stabbing pain pierced his index finger and he jerked his hand out of the cactus and pulled it toward his body and screamed. He looked down at his hand and a wave of nausea rippled through him. Must stay conscious. Have to get pack.

Show As Much As Possible, Then Allow For Reflection

Show as much as you can as physical actions. Then, show the character reacting to those actions and it'll help create the strong feelings in your reader because they'll experience the physicality of your writing along with the emotion, because it'll feel much more realistic and immediate as if it is happening to the reader herself.

Answer 2

Skip the physical actions you find unrealistic (although most of them are metaphorical, not 'unrealistic'). Tears welling in eyes, trembling, etc are realistic enough.

Also, go inside; physical symptoms are not all you can show:

He felt his neck muscles tense up, his temples started bulging, he started breathing more heavily as he heard his subordinate's report.

Versus,

As Richard listened to his lieutenant's report he felt a building rage, the urge to strike somebody down, break things, to roar to stop this idiocy. He was sure these feelings showed on him, but internally he struggled to repress any actual movement at all. Not only would it be unprofessional, but it was too late, the deeds were done. Now he needed a response, something besides killing everyone. When his lieutenant finished, Richard took a long moment to calm himself, eyes closed. He finally looked up to meet the lieutenant's eyes.
"Heard and understood. Give me fifteen minutes, and return for orders. Dismissed."
The lieutenant nodded once and turned to leave. A good man. A smart man.

Answer 3

Lamentably, a great many authors today are mentally acting out scenes in their heads because they are subconsciously directing a movie rather than writing a novel.

Both the screen and the page are limited media. They do some things well and some things badly. Showing facial expressions and body language generally is something the screen does well and the page does badly. Thus a movie script will often put more of the responsibility for expressing emotion onto the actors rather than on the dialogue. In fact, movie dialogue is often incredibly trite because it is meant almost as a blank canvas for the actor to use to paint in the emotions they want to portray.

The page, on the other hand, does not give much scope for acting. You can certainly mention an action or a frown now and then, but there cannot be any of the subtlety of expression or movement that an actor can bring to a scene. Only the crudest movements can be described. The novelist, therefore, puts more of the emotion into the dialogue than you would find in real life. People give speeches, they use elevated language, they use more varied vocabulary and extended metaphors and similes that people would rarely use in real speech.

This is how you express emotion in prose, therefore: not in actions but in words. And, also, not in the moment but in the setup. The real trick to creating powerful emotion in a story is not how you write individual scenes but in how you set up the scene beforehand so that the reader has the desired emotional reaction just from hearing that some dreaded or hoped-for event has happened.

In short, use the techniques appropriate to the media you are working in.