- Spice up Your Bland Writing – Add Emotional Elements for Flavor

Do your characters have the spice of real life, or do they seem more like wooden spoon stick figures? You may be serving up stale prose by telling rather than showing what your characters are feeling. Add more flavor and zest with this simple recipe for writing success.

STEP 1--Head into your “author’s kitchen” and prepare the ingredients--become an expert observer.
You look at people every day, but do you take notice of how they show emotions through their facial expressions, the sound of their voices, and their body posture? Your goal is to memorize movements so you can bring realism to your writing by describing what you’ve seen. Readers should be able to feel your characters’ experiences through your words.
Create a shopping list for emotional flavoring: take notes while you watch television. Successful actors make you suspend disbelief, and you get caught up in the story. What are they doing in each scene? Jot it down so you’ll remember their actions. Make note of something as simple as a character plopping down onto a chair and burying their face in their hands to cover tear-filled eyes. Practice writing out the scene as if it were in your own story. Can you convey the same grief, shock or sadness you observed?

STEP 2--Write out recipe cards for a variety of emotions.
Fear, pain, anger, sadness, grief, shock, surprise, happiness, joy, love, bliss, ecstasy, and many more. List seven or more corresponding physical traits and actions on each card. Use several emotional actions from your note cards in each scene, for more flavor in your story. For additional variation, consider how a negative character behaves versus a positive individual. Are their movements more exaggerated?
A quick example--Your anger recipe card may include these actions: Face turns red, eyes narrow to slits, and hands curl up into fists. A character slamming down a drink so hard the liquid sloshes out of the glass, or slamming a door with such force a picture falls off the wall, and stomping a foot so loud that it wakes the neighbor downstairs. How about a character kicking a car fender and putting a dent into the metal, shouting a conversation, or spitting onto the ground.

STEP 3--Simmer the characters’ emotions until they come to a boil.
Here is where you add a dash of this and a pinch of that until you get it just right. Like making a pot of soup, put all the characters and story elements together and keep increasing the spiciness over time. As your story builds and things heat up, feelings get stronger and the emotional reactions may grow larger. Don’t burn out the readers’ taste buds by serving up boiling hot soup in the first chapter!
In a sensual romance, for example, the attraction builds over time. Your love emotion recipe card might include: A wink, a crooked smile, a warm sensation in the character’s chest, a blush, the character’s hands smoothing their clothing or hair, or their hand touches another’s across the table. The character may write a love note, bring someone a box of fragrant roses, give a back massage and a tender kiss, or a hug so tight the other person can’t catch their breath.

STEP 4--Combine courses in your meal--alternate sweet and bitter flavoring in your story.
Even a lighthearted romance needs some conflict to be believable. Along with the ecstasy, add a dash of misery. Perhaps some jealousy, shown through anger and arguments. Or put the characters in danger if you are writing a romantic suspense novel. Finish by putting the frosting on the cake with passion, as the conflict is resolved.
Even a dark thriller can have a taste of humor injected into the marinade, for variety. An evil character can experience moments of laughter. Make the bad guys human too! When adding more emotional spice, use your imagination to find ways to work within your genre.

STEP 5--Don’t give your readers heartburn.
You’re trying to spice things up, but overcooking the story with too many descriptions and adjectives will overpower your readers. Be careful about adding too many “LY” words such as slowly, softly, bluntly, willingly… An over abundance in a single sentence or paragraph sours the sauce.
Watch for was/were in place of emotional descriptions. For example: “Susan looked out the window; it was raining and she was crying.” Can you feel Susan’s sadness? Probably not. How about: “Susan slouched in an armchair and stared out the window; rivers of water ran down the glass, mirroring the fresh tear streaks on her face.”

Use your new recipes to cook up some hot and spicy stories. Don’t tell readers what your characters are feeling, show them, with your emotion-filled descriptive writing style!