This facial expression reference is awesome.

Thank you for the link.

Ha, not bad. Leaves out a lot of variations, but very suggestive.

Embarrassed is misspelled in the drop-down. *snerk*

Neat link....thanks for the share.

Ah, I don't know. Sometimes it's ok to tell. It's ok to just write "he looked" happy instead of describing what his facial muscles did. I think that actually would annoy me a lot.

Oh great, another time sink!

Yeah, I think "He looked confused" is usually better than describing facial contortions. Otherwise you get into a Mills & Boon world of people raising quizzical eyebrows and other purple prose. When I was at uni back in the Dark Ages, doing voluntary work, our "boss" used to read out his favourite groan-worthy passages over coffee - he claimed the M&B romances were his wife's, but who knows...?

I think the link is great. The ever-popular "he looked confused" gets trashed because it's so much simpler that everybody gravitates towards it. In my stories people get frustrated or confused a lot, and I think it helps to be able to show that in more than one way.

So much fun! I can see myself spending hours playing procrastinating using this in a helpful manner.

Sneer is spelled wrong too. What is interesting is that she does not look like she's sneering at all.

Still, it's a neat tool.

Oooh, fun! Thanks for sharing!

I need to send that to a writer friend whose most recent book had at least 6 references to "a smile played at the corner of his/her mouth."

That's great fun Thank you!

But NO. A big NO from me. Not for writing. Go to a cafe or a mall or a train or subway. We're writers. We watch real people, imho It's not the same.

And I'm not one for describing a lot of facial contortions or arms flailing to avoid telling, either. There are some great ones, but too much of all that is a bit of a newbie mistake, I think. Just my opinion, of course

backslashbaby said:

That's great fun Thank you!

But NO. A big NO from me. Not for writing. Go to a cafe or a mall or a train or subway. We're writers. We watch real people, imho It's not the same.

And I'm not one for describing a lot of facial contortions or arms flailing to avoid telling, either. There are some great ones, but too much of all that is a bit of a newbie mistake, I think. Just my opinion, of course

Click to expand...

Seconding this. If I have to describe the facial expression to show what the character is thinking or saying, then there's something wrong with the events leading up to the that section.

I think describing facial expressions is a fine way to write, as long as it's not overdone. Facial expressions and body language are important in descriptions. They're real, and the turn the character from unmoving cardboard to flesh and blood.

But they do have to be used sparingly. Still, almost anything is better than "He looked confused" in narrative. The place for this is in dialogue, not narrative. In dialogue, it can work well.

I also agree that it's better to watch real people than to work from something like this. Maybe it's just me, but I read half the expressions on there completely different than what the site says they are. Or, better put, I can see where the same expression would mean four different things in four different people.

Anyway, back and forth dialogue often has to be included in such descriptions.

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I also agree that it's better to watch real people than to work from something like this. Maybe it's just me, but I read half the expressions on there completely different than what the site says they are. Or, better put, I can see where the same expression would mean four different things in four different people.

I agree. I thought it was an interesting idea but the reality is much more complicated and the way we signal to each other is a little more nuanced than this - which is why I believe cartoonists use the voice actor's real facial expressions when making animations rather than these rather crude constructs. I'd be pretty wary of using these kind of facial contortions in a novel. It's an interesting site though - thanks for the link.

I agree that this isn't a perfect tool, but it's still pretty cool. I had to laugh at "evil."

Oh fun, thank you. I'll save this for my artist friends as well. It would be an interesting experiment to have writers describe them and then see if everyone else gets the same/similar emotional contexts from them (like showing the photos to identify the 6 emotions in the first place).

What I'd really like to be able to do in description though is emulate those authors that can encapsulate their characters in just a word or two. The one "right" word that says just what the reader needs to know. Somebody should buy me that for a present. I'd pay a lot.

thanks!

Thank you for the link. I also read some of the facial expressions differently, but I think it looks like a site which I could easily distract me from writing.

Don't forget you can also describe people's emotions through body language, dialogue, interior monologue.

Loved it!! Thanks for sharing!!