Body Language

[LJH]

I don't know if this is the correct place to talk about body language. In my view, body language is a very important part of how a writer identifies their characters, hence, as an editor, I would have placed it in the editing section, however, maybe the topic will be kicked out of that section, so to play it safe, here it is, in the lounge.

 

Who notices body language anyway, for goodness sake. Oh, sorry, I do. It identifies our state of mind, physical fitness, and personal body image, also our habits and preferred postures. Some (but not all) types of posture are:

 

Approach

Withdrawal

Expansion

Contraction

 

They cover basic motivation and mood very neatly.

 

For instance: The stiff, erect body of a military man whose ramrod back betrays his profession even when he is out of uniform, or a sulking, slouching adolescent, round shoulders and concave middle. Imagine a sulky, concave military man...or the stiff, ramrod attention of an adolescent. Reverse the postures and you see how the teenager now becomes a pillar of society and the military man loses his authority.

 

Sitting, standing and lying down is the first clue to character and personality. It reflects whether you are feeling confidant, submissive, optimistic or depressed.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't a relaxed, upright posture suggest confidence? We say CHIN UP when we mean adopt a hopeful, assertive attitude. We say SPINELESS when we imply the opposite state of mind and posture when a person cannot stand up to life.

 

I'm thinking of writing a few articles on body language and posting them here on GA. If anyone feels that this is a necessary part of writing, let me know. If you feel it a waste of time, also let me know.

 

Louis

[Andrew Q Gordon]

Louis,

 

I think you do a service to all aspiring authors with this topic. Show don't tell is one of the biggest criticisms editors/teachers/even readers have with most writing. Describing body language as a means of conveying emotions and situations and character is much better than telling us what you want us to think about your characters. It also helps keep them in character so to speak. Using your example, if you tell us the man commands authority, but he's slouchy, round shouldered and concave in the middle as you put it - the image doesn't match the telling and we lose the ability to picture the character as cleanly as if we keep him and his actions consistent.

 

So if you post it, we will read it - or at least I will when time permits

[LJH]

Aha! Just the man I wanted to hear from. LOL. You know that for you I will write an entire thesis on Body Language (I'm being cheeky funny). Okay, you raqise an interesting point about telling/showing Andy. During the early days of my apprenticeship as a writer, oh, man, I thought I was going to change the world with my words, until someone hit me over the head and said, Harris, this is the worst stuff I've ever read because you TELL instead of SHOW. So, with a deflated ego, now ready to trash my first story and never ever ever write another word again, I paused, reflected, and asked a good writer friend to SHOW me. I was blown away. Suddenly my writing came to life. Suddenly active verbs and nouns ate up all the passive crap. Suddenly I realised, I can write description, narrative and dialogue, as long as I am able to SHOW and make the characters come to life. I could make a boring character, interesting. I could walk the writing talk. So, yes, telling is like passive writing. No magic. Showing is an explosion of words that create the image.

 

"The man sits on a bench, looking rejected." WTF. What is this?

The writer TELLS me the man is on a bench and is looking rejected. What does rejection look like? How did he get there? We know, as writers, that when status, home and support structures are removed, the psyche begins to sag and the body takes on a collapsed position too. If the writer had written: "The man sits on the bench, his head sags, chin resting on his chest, arms and legs folded." We now know he is either sleeping or rejected. The writer showed it.

 

But the most fantastic thing I found out whilst researching body language, is this: A person's usual posture or carriage, seems to act as a record of past experience. A manic depressive will frequently retain the sagging, hopeless shape that typifies the illness. It has become second nature to them and even when they have recovered, their bodies recall their unhappiness.

 

You must have a great day Andy. I know you lawyers are always looking at body language. LOL

[Nephylim]

As a lawyer and a writer I notice body language a lot, particularly to judge honesty.

 

I don't use it consciously but looking back I do seem to use it a lot in my stories, particularly eye movemente... he caught his eyes, looked away and dragged his eyes back.... he looked down, scuffing the floor with the toe of his shoe... his eyes were veiled and cautious. I guess the eyes truly are the mirror of the soul.

 

I also use posture a lot, as you've pointed out and hand/arm movements as well... fending off, pushing away, resting in the small of the back, stroking a cheek, etc.

 

Very interesting topic. It has really made me think and will make me think when I'm writing.

[LJH]

Hey Cheryl...law has fascinated me too and were it not for undesirable circumstances I would have become a lawyer, instead i opted to be closer to home and studied Horticulture instead. Never been happier. My plants talk to me...errr. I'm lying- about the plants that speak to me. You speak about the truth of the matter and i believe there are many shades of grey between the little white lie and the completely untrue falsehood. But what if I put it to you that, in certain situations we all enjoy being decieved. Or rather let me say it like this, actors, conjurors and magicians are all lying to their audience....oh, and lawyers lol.

 

We all like seeing justice done, but we also enjoy the entertainment of digging deeper to get to those fine threads of deception and intrigue. What I noticed about people who do not tell the truth, is that they rub, stroke, scratch their noses more frequently than a truthful person.

 

But the successful liar has total control over his body language. It's easy to lie over the phone, or by email and even get away with it in today's technical social network society. I mean, i say i'm 53 here on GA, but I could just as easily be 76. LOL

 

It's true that the mind might want or need to lie and is capable of inventing a story that rarely goes along with this, and the body betrays the mind. Hence, the signals that liars give out are notice by you. A lie detector can detect what's going on in the nervous system, but facial expressions can be manipulated by the mind and detected by the witness.

 

Jane Lyle, an expert on body language, says that when someone chooses to lie during a conversation, he or she will often suddenly cross arms or legs simultaneously. A self defence against challenge. Feet point toward an exit wanting to escape the situation. Foot jabbing movements in the air. Fidgety gestures include things like foot tapping, restlessness, jingling coins. But the hands and posture also tell the truth about a liar. We use our hands to amplify the meaning of what we say. The hand shrug says, this has nbothing to do with us. Eye rubbing. Nose touching. and the listener twiddles his ear or rubs his chin expressing doubt as to the truth of what has been said.

 

Sometimes people are surprised by their own lie and instead of covering their mouth as in childhood, the moivement is deflected to the nose. Touching the face, ears and neck also indicate nervousness.

 

Our voices become less resonent when we lie. The voice flattens and looses depth. Becomes monotonous, because a liar cannot express himself freely. people talk less when they are lying. make mistakes Um and aah. stutter, slur, hesitate, unless they are expert conmen.

 

See how all these are really signals of concealment. But be careful, not every nose rub indicates a lie...lol. See how many active verbs are highlighted. Beautiful.

[Nephylim]

Hey Cheryl...law has fascinated me too and were it not for undesirable circumstances I would have become a lawyer, instead i opted to be closer to home and studied Horticulture instead. Never been happier. My plants talk to me...errr. I'm lying- about the plants that speak to me. You speak about the truth of the matter and i believe there are many shades of grey between the little white lie and the completely untrue falsehood. But what if I put it to you that, in certain situations we all enjoy being decieved. Or rather let me say it like this, actors, conjurors and magicians are all lying to their audience....oh, and lawyers lol.

 

Lawyers lie? Tush. But I agree that people like to be deceived. Maybe that's part of the reason they like to read. For the time that you are reading you are deceiving yourself that you are part of the world you are reading about.

 

We all like seeing justice done, but we also enjoy the entertainment of digging deeper to get to those fine threads of deception and intrigue. What I noticed about people who do not tell the truth, is that they rub, stroke, scratch their noses more frequently than a truthful person.

 

Absolutely

 

But the successful liar has total control over his body language. It's easy to lie over the phone, or by email and even get away with it in today's technical social network society. I mean, i say i'm 53 here on GA, but I could just as easily be 76. LOL

 

And i could actually be a 24 year old model with... wait... why would I lie about that??

 

It's true that the mind might want or need to lie and is capable of inventing a story that rarely goes along with this, and the body betrays the mind. Hence, the signals that liars give out are notice by you. A lie detector can detect what's going on in the nervous system, but facial expressions can be manipulated by the mind and detected by the witness.

 

The most difficult liar to catch out is the one who has become convinced by their own lie and now believe it is truth.

 

Jane Lyle, an expert on body language, says that when someone chooses to lie during a conversation, he or she will often suddenly cross arms or legs simultaneously. A self defence against challenge. Feet point toward an exit wanting to escape the situation. Foot jabbing movements in the air. Fidgety gestures include things like foot tapping, restlessness, jingling coins. But the hands and posture also tell the truth about a liar. We use our hands to amplify the meaning of what we say. The hand shrug says, this has nbothing to do with us. Eye rubbing. Nose touching. and the listener twiddles his ear or rubs his chin expressing doubt as to the truth of what has been said.

 

Bugger, I do all those things routinely does that mean i am lying to myself

 

Sometimes people are surprised by their own lie and instead of covering their mouth as in childhood, the moivement is deflected to the nose. Touching the face, ears and neck also indicate nervousness.

 

Our voices become less resonent when we lie. The voice flattens and looses depth. Becomes monotonous, because a liar cannot express himself freely. people talk less when they are lying. make mistakes Um and aah. stutter, slur, hesitate, unless they are expert conmen.

 

See how all these are really signals of concealment. But be careful, not every nose rub indicates a lie...lol. See how many active verbs are highlighted. Beautiful.

 

I am going to make a note of all of these and blatantly steal them for my stories

 

Thank you for a fascinating response to an intriguing response

[Cia]

Very good information to share Louis. I've writen up some similar information on this for another forum and how body language and the words we choose to indicate postures and movements when we write affects how the reader feels and relates to a character. I'll paste it here, in a spoiler as I feel it compliments your topic a bit but I don't want to hijack it. I hope you don't mind. These are not hard and fast rules, especially when writing fantasy worlds, more guidelines to consider.

 

 

One of the things that has annoyed me many times as I read was the way poor word choices fail to describe the character, their actions, or their speech properly. If you have a brainy character who happens to be top of their class and they say, "We don't got a hope to save ourselves." then you're obviously not keeping the character 'in character'.

 

Another aspect of this is word choice, especially for actions. A teenager might stomp across a room or slouch but you'd expect a small child to dart or skip. An adult might stride across the room if they are a confident character or scurry if they are scared or a less dominant character. I once read a published ebook where a female character comes into a room to her remaining 2 werewolf mates after one had just been killed. She 'sauntered' into the room. Would I saunter (stroll or walk leisurely) to the remaining loves in my life when they are holding the one who died? Heck no! I'd be rushing or bursting into the room. That single word choice ruined the scene for me and made it completely unbelievable. (Yes, I know werewolves aren't real but they were in this world )

 

One of the biggest keys to creating dynamic characters, beyond keeping them in character and using proper word choices for their personality/age/role, is to consider 'status'. Your hero needs to be someone the reader can admire, respect, lust after. That means giving them a higher 'status' than the characters around them. They need to have confident demeanors, strong word choices when it comes to the verbs you use to describe their actions. The villian also needs to have a high status, but never higher than the hero. However, one isn't always high status. A real person has people they turn to, moments of doubt... you need to create those small clues to the reader to show that the hero isn't always perfect, the villian isn't always a completely evil person, or it's just not believable. Even in fiction, we must work within the structure of what the reader will and will not accept. The perfect man or an unrelentingly evil villian? Boring and flat.

 

Some examples of sharing 'status' by word choice and character behavior:

 

"Let me go!" he shouted in anger versus "Please, let me go," he whimpered. Here, which character appears stronger, more in control? The one who is demanding release or the person who is asking to be let go?

 

Ben strode into the room and paused a moment to meet the eyes of all four men seated at the table versus Ben hurried into the room and glanced at the four men waiting at the table. Here, who seems in control? The man striding which implies a larger step and slower walk, who his taking his time to enter and deliberately meeting the eyes of the men who are at the table or the man who is hurrying, implying he shouldn't be making the men wait, and who makes only the briefest shows of eye contact? Who would you consider more dominant in each sentence, the man coming in or the men at the table?

 

Now, these examples don't always hold true. Some cultures don't consider eye contact to be confidence but rudeness. Some people consider shouting to be a loss of control, not an attempt to make yourself heard. You have to consider the culture of your characters and the setting when picking your words to highlight the character's status. Status also should be fluid. The characters should gain it as the story progresses, becoming stronger, more determined, more confident. Small setbacks can happen and should or the character won't be believable but overall, you should have a character that changes throughout the story.

 

A few examples of this can be seen in my story, Double Down. When I wrote the story I was focusing on character development, 'status' in relation to the varying protagonists and the antagonist, and the word choices I used to describe their actions and interactions. Marc, the narrating character, really changes as the story progresses and he builds himself back up with the help of the other characters.

 

 

[DragonMando]

I've read tutorial after tutorial and even full on books...still can't read it, still can't use it. I'm a lost cause xD

[LJH]

anytime...

[LJH]

One of the things that has annoyed me many times as I read was the way poor word choices fail to describe the character, their actions, or their speech properly. If you have a brainy character who happens to be top of their class and they say, "We don't got a hope to save ourselves." then you're obviously not keeping the character 'in character'.

 

Yup, the example you mention is a badly written sentence, unless the character is created to speak like that. My main characters have distinctive voices in many of my stories. In my published work called Revival, one of the main characters, Tomas, has just recovered from a fifteen year coma, later on he develops a speech impediment. He cannot pronounce S, so he substitutes T for the letter S.

 

Another aspect of this is word choice, especially for actions. A teenager might stomp across a room or slouch but you'd expect a small child to dart or skip. An adult might stride across the room if they are a confident character or scurry if they are scared or a less dominant character. I once read a published ebook where a female character comes into a room to her remaining 2 werewolf mates after one had just been killed. She 'sauntered' into the room. Would I saunter (stroll or walk leisurely) to the remaining loves in my life when they are holding the one who died? Heck no! I'd be rushing or bursting into the room. That single word choice ruined the scene for me and made it completely unbelievable. (Yes, I know werewolves aren't real but they were in this world

 

I believe Werewolves take things in their stride...lol. Maybe the author of the werewolf piece understands the female character's motivations and hopefully showed the reader why she behaved as she did. Maybe he has chosen this detail in keeping with the character's personality. Stating that she sauntered without explaining might impress some readers, but without a clear motivation, the character's action might seem out of place as you noticed while reading the piece.

 

If the writer wrote sorrow into her eye language, that would have been enough for the reader. Sorrow and depression affect our eye language, according to Jane Lyle, expert on BL

 

One of the biggest keys to creating dynamic characters, beyond keeping them in character and using proper word choices for their personality/age/role, is to consider 'status'. Your hero needs to be someone the reader can admire, respect, lust after. That means giving them a higher 'status' than the characters around them. They need to have confident demeanors, strong word choices when it comes to the verbs you use to describe their actions. The villian also needs to have a high status, but never higher than the hero. However, one isn't always high status. A real person has people they turn to, moments of doubt... you need to create those small clues to the reader to show that the hero isn't always perfect, the villian isn't always a completely evil person, or it's just not believable. Even in fiction, we must work within the structure of what the reader will and will not accept. The perfect man or an unrelentingly evil villian? Boring and flat.

 

Stored away in my head is a character checklist I use whenever I'm introducing a character, or writing about a character:

 

Does my characterization have enough detailsto create a strong visual image?

Have I chosen details in keeping with the Character's personality?

Have I chosen words that reinforce the kind of character I want to create? For example, "She strode across the field. Her umbrella engaged the elements in a fully fledged battle. Her raaincoat an armourfrom the downpour.

Have I chosen too mnay details when One good detail is worth a thousand weak ones?

Have I used these details when we first encountered the character?

 

The reader must understand the character's motivations even if he doesn't agree with them. The writer must SHOWus why he's behaving as he does and give the reader a platform to establish empathy or belief with these people. James Frey said, "Lets face it, I don't want to read about characters who are just anybody. I want to read about interesting somebodies, characters capable of evoking in me an emotional response." '

 

Character is the heartbeat of any story. They are interesting people in terrible difficulties. I read a story not only for the story, but also for intimacy. I want to move into a character's life, live inside his thoughts and emotions and take on his goals and problems, therefore, i create flawed characters.

 

The characters who impressed me in my life are: Scrooge, Madame Bovary, Holden Caulfield, Atticus Finch, Don Corleone, Nancy Drew, jay Gatsby and Scarlett o Hara. To me, these characters have stature, presence and flair because they are memorable.

 

Eye Contact: You are right that eye language varies from culture to culture. Mediterranean people like to stare at strangers in public places. Arabs look at a person when talking and listening Japanese people look at each other's necks during conversation and hardly use a direct mutual gaze. I tend to look people in the eye when communicating. Minimal eye contact, to me, is a turn off.

 

The shifty eye: glancing to and fro while talking, maybe searching for an exit or a more interesting companion.

 

The stuttering eye: where the eye cannot decide whther to open or close their lids, a disconcerting nervous flicker.

 

The evasive eye: staring sightlessly into the air or down at the ground, the speaker is unable to meet your gaze for any length of time. The person seems to be in another world, so near yet so far.

 

The Stammering eye: A lengthy blink, lasting several seconds longer than normal.

 

So all in all, the depiction of character should always be planned.

 

William Hazlitt said: "I like a friend better for having faults that one can talk about"

Oscar Wilde said: "Only the shallow know themselves."

Anonymous said: "The lawyer's best client is a scared millionaire"

Jean-Amedee d'Aurevilly said: "When God providessa beautiful woman, the devilat once retorts with a fool to keep her."

 

Thank you for all your hard work on GA, this is one guy who appreciates your imput.

[Nephylim]

As someone whose stories are almost exclusively character driven I have to agree with that totally. I use eyes a lot, and hands, as I have already mentioned.

 

I have to admit, though, that I don't have a checklist and, generally, I don't think about body language when i write. I 'see' the characters and move with them in my head. When they weep I weep, when they laugh I laugh. I 'feel' their emotion and then i describe it as best I can. It's only when someone starts a discussion like this that i realise how much i unconsciously use body language in my writing.

 

I believe that this is partly because i look for body language in my work and are very aware of it in my life. Being strongly empathetic, I think helps, because I tune in easily to someone else's emotional state and associate that with their body language; looking to that for evidence of what i am feeling. I think this can be summarised as life experience.

 

Becuase it is life experience it is something that is done automatically without conscious thought and therefore it comes through in things such as writing. That doesn't mean, though, that the consciousness isn't there somewhere and that all of these things that Louis has mentioned are not going on somewhere inside the subconscious mind.

 

WOW, I'm getting deep here. Thanks so much Louis. Anything that makes me think and stretches my mind can only be a good thing, even if it does give me a headache jk

[LJH]

I write the same way. However, when I get stuck on anything, I refer to these research and books on body language, and ...

 

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The dictionary. My writing bible. Since discovering the SECRET of description, the dictionary is always on my desk. Three of them.

 

well it's not really a secret....errrr