Month: September 2016

Super helpful beats guide: Emotional Beats by Nicholas C. Rossis

Published on by MM Jaye2 Comments

There’s no better way to introduce this super useful book than give you the author’s book description right away. In the words of Nicholas C. Rossis:

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Publication Date: September 11, 2016

Purchase Links

Ebook: Amazon US – Amazon UK

Paperback: Amazon US – Amazon UK

Book Description

Because of the way our brains are wired, readers empathize more strongly if you don’t name the emotion you are trying to describe. As soon as you name an emotion, readers go into thinking mode. And when they think about an emotion, they distance themselves from feeling it.

A great way to show anger, fear, indifference, and the whole range of emotions that characterize the human experience, is through beats. These action snippets that pepper dialogue can help describe a wide range of emotions, while avoiding lazy writing. The power of beats lies in their innate ability to create richer, more immediate, deeper writing.

This book includes hundreds of examples that you can use for your inspiration, so that you, too, can harness this technique to easily convert your writing into palpable feelings.

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I don’t know about you, author friends, but when I edit my first draft, one major roadblock I need to overcome is finding fresh ways to show not tell feelings. I write in “deep point of view”, and I can’t have my characters be “surprised”, “sad”, “angry” or “frightened”. But they tend to “look” a lot or express their feelings through their eyes, and it’s only so many times one can “narrow her eyes” or “widen her eyes” before the reader will, well, roll her eyes.

To me, this guide is a life saver. I’m definitely getting it in paperback because I want to be able to physically turn the page to the relevant emotion and see what kind of language beats best portray it. And if you need an example of the wealth of beats included in Emotional Beats, here it is:

Surprise

  • He shot up an eyebrow
  • He whipped his head around
  • She clamped her mouth shut, but her jaw went slack when she saw him. “You!”
  • His face remained a plank of wood, his amazement hidden by a slow breath.
  • His mouth slackened.
  • Her brows shot to her hairline.
  • She slapped a hand over her mouth.
  • He facepalmed.

And that’s just a selection.

Fastest one-click ever! Here are those purchase links again:

Purchase Links: Amazon US – Amazon UK

MM Jaye