The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression

The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded as a Second Edition that includes 55 new entries!

One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much. If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes:

• Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactions
• A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them
• Advice on what should be done before drafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent
• Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues
• And much more!

This edition of The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last.

Jami’s Review:

This book has been my #1 Go-To Writing Help book ever since it released. With 2 full pages of ideas about how to show character emotions for each of the 130 different entries, I have endless options for the physical signs, internal thoughts, and internal sensations (visceral reactions) for every emotion, whether the character is the point-of-view character or not.

Check out my post about how we can use this resource to improve our writing. If you already have the first edition, check out my post comparing this new and improved Second Edition and the 6 ways I’ve found this version worth having.

Learning how to show emotions was one of the last big skills I struggled with before my writing was publishable, and years ago, Angela and Becca’s insights were the key to helping me past that hump in my learning curve. I’m thrilled they’ve taken the time to add their latest knowledge to a second edition of this book, and I hope it helps others as much as it’s helped me.

Note: To purchase the PDF version for on-screen use, use the Gumroad link.