Describing facial expressions

Just thinking aloud. POV character is allowed to make guesses based on observation, instinct, or just plain suspiciousness (is that a word? it should be ). So lines like "Bethany tried to hide her surprise, but failed." or "Bethany tried to swallow and talk at the same time, but ended up choking on her surprise." or "Bethany had the kind of face you could read like a book. It said, 'Chapter One: Surprise'." could give you variations to play with.

-Derek

For many developing writers, myself included, facial expressions are used way too much. Instead of searching for an alternative word to "looked," why not have your characters react in ways that involve more than just their faces. Besides, if one wants to get picky, saying someone "looked surprised" is telling, not showing. Even if the observation is firmly in the observation of the POV character, it's best to get away from those ubiquitous (and dulling for the reader) facial expressions. There is more to making writing fresh than finding synonyms to defeat a word-repetition program.

To be's are definitely NOT the way to go. You should aim to minimize them in your work not add more in.

She gawked
Her mouth gaped open
She started
She goggled
Her eyes bulged/grew/expanded/distended
Her eyebrows rose a notch
She gasped
Her shocked expression drew laughter from the rest of us.
Her eyes didn't blink for at least forty seconds. At least.
All her facial muscles twitched in sync. Funny. But not pretty.

I think this is a tricky area. Humans are very visual creatures, and I know it bothers me when authors have entire dialogue exchanges with no hint of physical presence. Let's face it, the same thing can be interpreted very differently depending on how the speaker is standing or sitting, what his posture is, whether or not he is facing the listener, etc.

All the same, too much expository about how somehow looks or acts or stands can interfere with the flow.

On this subject, I'd like to throw out a question: What authors or books really stand out to others for doing a good job of highlighting character's physical quirks and reactions without interfering with the flow of the story?

I mix it up. (Though eyes widen a lot in my stuff so I always have to go back and take some out). Sometimes I used facial expressions, others I state it, others I use metaphors or do a compare and contrast. It's not an all or nothing type deal. The goal is to tell the story as seamlessly as possible, so whatever works in the scene works. I try not to use just "she looked surprised" though. I'll add some opinion about it so it's tighter in my POV's head. "She looked surprised to find me climbing from her trunk, and who could blame her?" (Though hopefully with a better sentence, but you get the drift)

I definitely have work to do in this sphere. I think I'm going to try take a page from Neuro's book (err, so to speak). Try show by actions other than just expressions. Not that expressions aren't "true," but I have a manuscript currently full of gapes, narrowing eyes and smiles, and, seriously, I feel a cringe-fest when the time comes to edit.

lenore_x said:

So, how do you guys describe facial expressions in a way that's not redundant or cliche? Working off the assumption that dialogue alone is not going to cut it.

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It's a difficult one. You can say;

She looked embarrased. (telling)

Or;

Her cheeks blushed.
She bowed her head, letting her hair screen her face.
(both showing, although fairly crudely, not much subtler than the telling example)

They all just clumsily label a response.

A much better example I read today; a teenage boy and girl (who have nothing in common) have dance classes and are always paired up together, and their sense of embarrasment is acute. But flushing cheeks and emotion labels are never mentioned. They just stiffly dance, never speaking, never making eye contact. When the dance instructor tells them to switch partners, the girl drops the boy's hand "like a hot brick" and scoots off.

Emotion can be invoked through context and a nice simile, without using "he/she looked" formulations. But I think this is a very writerly thing to obsess about. In my MSs I hate saying "he gave her a reproachful look", but sometimes it is the best option.

So, how do you guys describe facial expressions in a way that's not redundant or cliche? Working off the assumption that dialogue alone is not going to cut it.

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Why isn't the dialogue alone going to cut it? As someone else mentioned, a lot of times the tags get used way too much. I'll see someone use an action tag for every piece of dialogue, and there's only two characters speaking. With something like that, most of the reactions can be cut out, except for one every couple of lines, or when it would particularly benefit the characters and the story.

On my last project, when I discovered I was overusing the phrases, I made a pass just for them. During the early part of the pass, I just tried changing the phase to another phrase. By fixing only the one problem on that pass, I noticed that I was using the phrases way, way too much. Changing it to another phrase didn't solve the problem; it just left it there.

As I've done more writing, I find that I need to use the tags less and less. When I go to edit, those are usually the first things that I look at to remove if unnecessary. Because, a lot of times, the dialogue does the job, and there's no need to repeat it in the narrative.

I agree with Linda.

Pay more attention to the dialogue and what it demands by way of visible reaction, instead of feeling the need to dream up random movements and facial expressions, which more often than not will detract rather than add anything to the dialogue flow.

If the dialogue is doing its job properly the absence of facial expression won't even cross the reader's mind - they may cross his imagination, which is good.

This is an extremely difficult task to accomplish as you will never fulfill your expectations as long as you think that you are able to convey facial expressions in the same manner a movie director would. It's always good to have an image in mind - as someone previous to me said - we are visual animals. However, it can be difficult to translate that on a blank page but then again we as writers have the benefit of the written word and imagination, which can be a very powerful visualisation tool for a reader. For example:

Faisal picked up the receiver and held it agianst his ear as he listened to every 'hello, hello, hello...' increase with a mixture of curiosity and anger.

'Who the hell is this?' Mr Hussain finally asked.

Faisal's lips trembled as the words '...dad...'came falling out.

'Faisal? Faisal son, is that you? Why don't you say something? Say...' The receiver fell out of Faisal's hand, hitting the floor with a loud thud. Faisal sat besides the receiver listening to the 'hello, hello, hello...' repeat themselves over and over as before. And he shut his watering eyes tight, thus locking in the urge to pick up the receiver and answer back: 'I wanna come home.'

It's not just facial expressions but a mixture of dialogue, body language and sometimes the context which ALWAYS determines the tone. So use a veriety of these to your advantage in order to achieve the desired effect.

I hope that I have in some way helped in understanding an issue which I too find vexing. I guess the 'good writing' will come in time for me.

Use the reality behind the emotion:

Bethany looked surprised.

Becomes:

Bethany turned away in an attempt to hide her shock from me, but her eyes glistened with the pain of my betrayal.

Or it becomes:

Bethany inhaled sharply and lifted the kitten from the box, snuggling the meowing furball to her cheek. "For me?"

Or it becomes:

Frozen, Bethany didn't blink and in the depths of her gaze, the truth of her innocence left Robert with no alternative but to seek a new suspect.

Using the reality behind the emotion, what that means to the POV character, and what they learn about the non-POV character is the best replacement for telling the reader what expression is on the character's face. Or at least in my opinion anyway

Hope that helps!

Warmly,
Jenny

Her head a splodes and says, "Woof! That is surprising to me."

I'm fond of eyes widening or jaws dropping, but what everyone said covers more than I could.

Her head a splodes and says, "Woof!..."

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YIKES! What on earth kind of head does she have?

Some really good suggestions here.

One thought, however...I understand the need to not overuse a word, and to mix it up when describing facial expressions, but there's also a tendency when you're just starting out (or even years later for that matter!) to worry too much about the use of a common word. Unless every other page has the word looked on it, people tend to skip right past a common word when they're reading, a la said, or asked, the most often used dialog tags.

The reality is that the English language has a limited number of words for many typical day-to-day activities, and you shouldn't feel as if you need to strain for a new word every time this action is described. It's okay to say looked more than once or even a few times throughout a longer piece. You can try gazed, glanced, saw, spotted, studied, examined, surveyed, noted, noticed, etc. You can also do as some have suggested above and find an alternate way to infer that someone has looked at something.

When I get stuck, what's worked best for me is to close my eyes and visualize myself as the character. I'll look around me at everything in the scene, watch myself move through it, each action step by step, and inevitably I'll notice something I hadn't thought of when I began the scene. I then describe that thing and it helps give the original action, that of looking, more depth and reality.

Hope this advice is useful!

"Slack-jawed with surprise, Beth could not respond".

Ways a character could show surprise:

a) raises an eyebrow

b) raises both eyebrows

c) widens both eyes

d) opens mouth

e) opens mouth and gasps

f) frowns

g) takes a step (or two) back

h) freezes -- not sure how to react

i) retracts jaw and tightens neck muscles

j) opens mouth and places one hand (or both) over it

k) cringes
....

or a mix of some of the above.


Watch people or actors in movies/TV and note how they convey surprise. Then think about the personality of your character. How would THEY react when they're surprised?