Body Language for Writers

[Kitti]

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I stumbled across this graphic today and of course my first thought was to share it with my beloved Iwaku members.

Do you use many of these already when describing character emotions? Are some of these new to you?
I hope that, new or old knowledge, you have fun using them in the future! Body language can be a powerful augmentation to dialogue and help other characters interact more effectively with yours without you needing to point out explicitly "X is sad".
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[Revision]

One of my favorites to use is actually very subtle: the skin tightening around the eyes of a soldier awaiting orders or being bated by an enemy. I had a character who wore that expression quite often. It was very important to play up her subtleties because she used very few overt bits of body language.

 

[KojiVerse]

thank you so much for sharing this. I have played many characters that are strong, silent types where body language is a huge way to express myself, or I play perceptive characters that need to notice these things. Most of these suggestions are things I have used but it was nice to see it written out in one place.

 

[Diana]

This is pretty neat. >:D I've used several of the body language things in play, amongst a few others.

 

[Villamvihar]

Thank you for sharing this with us, Kitti, it really helps a lot, especially because I tend to underuse body language and overuse adjectives to describe what my characters are trying to convey. So this sheet will definitely help me to improve my writing ability and use subtle cues to indicate to my audience that something is not really the way it is. Thank you again!

 

[trialonly]

Thanks for sharing these. It's really helpful. :)