Someone on another site asked about the ongoing writer’s problem: How to Show/Handle Emotion. As it was, I’d just written this bit (along with a lot of surrounding text), and thought it might be a good, fairly brief example. So here’s the excerpt, with the Writer’s Note explaining technique at the end, for those interested.
[Excerpt from BOOK TEN (Untitled), Copyright © 2023 Diana Gabaldon]
William stood still, listening as he slowly wiped soot from his fingers; the leaves and fruit of the apple trees had escaped burning, but not the clouds of smoke that must have rolled out of the burning cabin.
Who had lived here? He wondered. Had it been at night, the place caught afire from a careless spark from the fireplace? Or maybe a cooking accident, where the woman of the house caught her apron alight and in her agitation, chucked it away onto something flammable?
He wandered round the empty shell of the house, breathing the thick air in tiny sips through his mouth. There was a garden in the back, the tender green sprouts trampled and scorched, blackened, like the apples, with soot.
After a bit, Fraser emerged from the trees, a grubby cloth in his hand that proved to be the apron William had been envisioning, calico sprigged with pink flowers. It was heavily splotched, but not with soot or charring—he knew the rusty stains of dried blood, and a quiver ran down his backbone at the sight.
“They’ve gone,” Fraser said, folding the garment.
“The people who lived here?”
“Nay, they’re still here. In the forest. The men who killed them are gone. Or at least I hope so,” he added.
“I… Yes,” William said. His lips felt suddenly cold, and his stomach was a heavy ball.
Lacking a shovel, the best they could do was to lay out the remnants—animals had come—in what decency was possible, and cover them with rocks. A man and two young boys.
“They’ll have taken the woman,” Fraser said, his voice bleak. “And girls, if there were any.”
A flood of saliva hit the back of William’s throat. He spat repeatedly, afraid he might vomit.
“That—” He stopped, swallowed hard. “Can we… follow them? Perhaps get her—them—back?”
Fraser shook his head.
“The bones are stripped and dry, corbies have taken the eyes and soft bits. And the air still stinks but the ashes of the house are cold as stone. They’ve been dead for some days—a week, maybe. And if the villains took the woman to use, she’s likely dead by now, as well.” He looked down at the blood-splotched apron in his hands, as though suddenly noticing it. He hesitated for a moment, then wrapped the strings around the folded garment and tucked it into his saddle bag.
“If we come across anyone on the road, or another house, maybe, it might be that they’d recognize it,” he said. “We’d have a name for the family, at least.”
William nodded, and got up on his horse, though to his surprise his hands were shaking and he had a moment’s trouble with the reins.
Fraser mounted as well, but paused for a moment, reins in hand.
“Blessed Michael, Archangel,” he said, “defend us in battle.” It wasn’t said with any special force, but in the way one might talk to a respected acquaintance face to face, and William blinked.
“Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”
He glanced at William, who managed a quick, “Amen!” in response, though the prayer itself left the hairs prickling on the back of his neck, and he couldn’t help but glance back as they rode away, the ruin of the little house in the orchard still and dreadful in the quiet sun.
Someone ought to thrust into hell the men who had done this, he thought.
[end section]
Writer’s Note:
OK, someone on another site was asking about how to show (rather than explain) emotion when writing. Well, to start with, you might have more than one intention with regard to emotion:
a) demonstrate/indicate the emotional state of a character and/or
b) make the reader share that state.
I’m doing a few different things in this chunk:
First, we have a genuinely upsetting scene: something’s happening/happened here that would give rise to strong emotion, i.e., the emotion has to have a real basis. This is the emotional context of the scene, to which the characters are responding.
Secondly, I’m letting the reader see and experience the scene through William’s observations and reactions (he’s the viewpoint character for this scene; everything is told from his point of view).
Thirdly, we’re contrasting Jamie’s terse and matter-of-fact remarks (there’s no better way to make something shocking than to keep it short and blunt<g>) with the effect of the context on William.
“They’ve gone,” Fraser said, folding the garment.
“The people who lived here?”
“Nay, they’re still here. In the forest. The men who killed them are gone. Or at least I hope so,” he added.
“I… Yes,” William said. His lips felt suddenly cold, and his stomach was a heavy ball.
(NB that “In the forest” for short and blunt and shocking.)
You’ll notice that William doesn’t say very much, but his brevity isn’t at all the same as Jamie’s. He’s very shocked and upset, but doing his best to keep it under control. How do we know this? He’s saying very little, but we’re showing his physical responses, throughout: His lips felt suddenly cold, and his stomach was a heavy ball.
Which leads us to—
Body language. Short of actually describing an emotion—which you can actually do, now and then, though it’s usually metaphorical when you do that (“He was so excited he thought the top of his head might come off”, “the words were choking her, so many trying to come out at once, sticking in her throat in a small hard mass, like a golf ball.”) That kind of thing.
You can see William experiencing (and fighting to control) the responses of his autonomic nervous system to the context:
“They’ll have taken the woman,” Fraser said, his voice bleak. “And girls, if there were any.”
A flood of saliva hit the back of William’s throat. He spat repeatedly, afraid he might vomit.
“That—” He stopped, swallowed hard. “Can we… follow them? Perhaps get her—them—back?”
And
William nodded, and got up on his horse, though to his surprise his hands were shaking and he had a moment’s trouble with the reins.
OK. So we need:
Genuine Context
Brevity
Body Language (don’t overdo it)
And our old friend, Dialogue, which is not only doing a lot of the work of description and context-building here, but also showing/building the relationship between the two men.
The next to last paragraph is showing all these techniques: physical response and the summarized (poetic) imagery: “the ruin of the little house in the orchard still and dreadful in the quiet sun.” (That’s one of those lines where you go over it several times, making sure that a) you need every single word, and b) that each of those words is the right word. (I did and they are.))
The interesting thing is, that final phrase isn’t in William’s actual voice, i.e., it isn’t anything he’s explicitly thinking—but it’s sure what he’s feeling, and with luck, the reader feels it, too.
Click to visit my Book Ten webpage for information on this book, and to read more excerpts from it.
This excerpt was also posted on my official Facebook page on Sunday, November 12, 2023.