It was back to school for the Maggie’s Creative Writing group this week, and we had a guest tutor, John Baird. This meant I could sit back, enjoy the session, and take part!
I also learnt some new words – haptics, kinesics and proxemics – to name a few. More on those later.
John is an author who leads literary tours and volunteers at Nottingham’s City of Literature. Earlier in the year he did a literary tour for members of the group. He is featuring Maggie’s in a series on literary locations in Nottingham.
His session today was all about body language, and how to show emotion through a character’s posture, movements and facial expression. John has kindly allowed me to share the workshop here. It’s in two parts with a writing exercise in each.
Part one
As a writer, you can tap into the study of body language to show how a character is feeling. Here’s a few elements to be aware of:
- Kinesics: Much of how we communicate is non-verbal. Describing the way a character moves and the gestures they use tells readers a lot about how the character is feeling. A confident person will hold their head up high and stride into a room whereas someone who is fearful or timid might shuffle in, hunching their shoulders and looking at the floor.
- Facial expression: This also gives a lot away about emotion. A smile lifts the face. Wide eyes indicate surprise. Lips pulled in shows tension. A one-sided smile conveys contempt or disgust.
- Pacifiers: Also called adapters, these are calming gestures that counteract fearful emotions, such as stroking the face, placing a hand on the neck, yawning, or rubbing the nose.
- Gravity-defying actions: Jumping in the air, stretching arms out high or walking tall all indicate exuberance. A footballer who’s just scored a goal will run around the pitch, arms in the air. An excited child will jump or skip down the street. When people are happy they gesticulate with their hands more.
Exercise 1
Create a scene involving one character. Show what the character is feeling without naming their emotions. Describe their movements, gestures and facial expressions. Set the context without giving too much away. Write for 20 minutes.
In a group setting, as each person shares their work, the rest of the group can guess what emotion the character is feeling.
Part 2
When another character is introduced to the scene there are behaviours that indicate the relationship between the two, how they feel about each other, and what their intentions are. Here’s a few:
- Proxemics: This is the study of personal space. How much space we put between ourselves and someone else depends on how well we know them and how much we like or trust them.
- Barriers: To protect our personal space we put up barriers, usually a hand in front of the body. It could be a hand holding a phone or a coffee cup. On a cramped underground train where strangers are crammed in close, people tend to hold themselves tense and avoid eye contact.
- Dominance: Powerful, confident people will spread themselves out to occupy more space. The boss of a company might sit back in his chair, legs outstretched, arms above his head, while the minion in front of him sits small and demure.
- Synchrony: People who like each other will walk in sync and will mirror each others movements.
- Haptics: These are small touching gestures that indicate affection, ownership or dominance.
- Intention indicators: We often signal what we intend to do before we do it. If two people are having a conversation and one of them wants to move on, that person’s foot will point towards the exit.
Exercise 2
Go back to the scene and character you wrote in Exercise 1 and introduce a second character. Indicate through the body language and gestures of each how they relate to each other. Are they pleased to see each other? Does one character have power over the other? What are their intentions?
