Labelling the character's emotion

When you're writing a story, the simplest way to describe an emotion is to label it.

Look at the snippet below: which words label Bod's emotions?

Silas was leaving.

Bod had been upset by this when he had first learned about it. He was no longer upset. He was furious.

The Graveyard Book(2010)

At first Bod feels upset, and then he becomes furious.

How do we know he feels that way?

The text tells us by literally labelling his emotions.

Why does he feel that way?

To answer that, we can look at this snippet in terms of an emotion-behaviour loop:

Silas was leaving.

Bod had been upset by this when he had first learned about it. He was no longer upset. He was furious.

The Graveyard Book(2010)

Trigger: Bod's carer (a vampire called Silas) says he's leaving for a long trip.

Emotion: At first Bod feels upset, then he feels furious.

Behaviour: The snippet doesn't tell us!

Let's try the same 'label the character's emotions' approach in two worked examples:

He took out the bucket and the seagulls came.

At first Thaddeus was overjoyed, but as more birds began to flock around him, he stopped feeling happy and started feeling doubtful, then concerned. And then afraid.

Carlo called her a coward.

Mizune immediately felt guilty. But it wasn’t long before she stopped feeling guilty and started feeling angry.

English, like many languages, has lots of names for different emotions.

The illustration below shows a variety of emotions organised by intensity, such as disdain through to revulsion, or satisfaction through to joy.

You could debate the labels in this illustration, and the execution of expressions, but you get the idea.

Notice that if you look at the facial expressions, you can probably name the emotion (at least roughly).
And notice that if you look at the name, you can probably imagine the facial expression that would go with it (at least roughly).

This is what happens when we name an emotion in a story: we tell the reader what the character is feeling and leave them to imagine what that might look like.

As a reminder, if you're looking for emotional labels you can play around with a thesaurus or consult an emotion wheel:

(☝️ Right-click to open a bigger version in a new tab.)

Write your own variation here. Include a simple trigger and label your character's feelings.

Emotion 2: Representing character emotion

Labelling the character's emotion