Use body language to tell a better story. [Writing Workshop]

Use body language to tell a better story.

It’s not about what you say. It’s about how you say it.

This is just as true in your day-to-day interactions with friends, loved ones, enemies, and sentient sponges as it is in your fiction.

To add a layer of spice, depth, and subtle realism to your fiction, therefore, you need to become a master of body language and all the myriad ways it can be used to express simple messages ranging from:

“Wow, that is super interesting, please tell me more.”

To:

“Go fuck a pineapple, you prick.”

Subtext

Think back to the last truly horrendous bit of dialogue you read. Chances are it grated on your ears like fingernails on a chalkboard because the words were stilted and too on the nose. By that I mean the characters were literally saying, verbatim, what was on their minds.

One of the greatest movies of all-time (if you like train wrecks) is The Room. Though it’s 50 shades of horrible, it’s gathered a dedicated cult following. It is the very definition of, so bad it’s good. If you want a good laugh, go check it out.

Also, if you want to learn something about how not to write dialogue, go check it out. It’s informative.

Okay, so why am I dishing hard on The Room and what does this have to do with body language?

Dunno. I’ve veered dangerously off topic and now I’m thinking it would simply be easier to rename this article to, “Why you should go watch The Room.”

Part of me just died a little thinking about doing that, so I guess we’ll soldier forward.

The reason I mention The Room’s dialogue is because nobody talks like that. Dialogue is quite often comprised just as much by what is not said, as it is by what is said.

This gap between words said vs implied meaning is called subtext.

As it pertains to your fiction, always remember:

Words are a great vehicle for lies. Body language, on the other hand, almost always betrays the truth.

This is because, as we all learned during puberty, our bodies are vast amounts of complicated. There are so many different ways our true intentions/feelings can be expressed through body language that it’s virtually impossible to conceal/attend to them all.

When a filthy little lie leaves our angelic lips, it is a fairly simple task to make sure our words convey the evil intentions of our heart. Just string together the words you wish uttered and boom, you’re good to go:

 

“No, I did not have sex with that pineapple.”

 

Much more complex is simultaneously controlling all 43 muscles in your face while maintaining posture and hand gesticulations consistent with the underlying message.

Alright, now this isn’t an article teaching you how to utilize body language to your advantage (that article is HERE), so let’s talk specifically about how we can start seasoning our fiction with yummy nuggets of body language.

It all starts with the eyes

 

Of course it does. Eyes are the windows to the soul, right? And since our fictional characters are, by definition, made-up, we as writers try super hard to pass them off as real. One of the ways we accomplish this is by drawing oodles of attention to their orbital sockets.

 

As far as senses go, vision is pretty important. Though in general, I’d say adopting a “less is more” campaign to eye movements would be a solid launching off point for most authors.

If you are going to throw wandering eyeballs into your story, let’s go ahead and talk about two quick and easy ways to do so effectively.

Interest

You can convey a characters interest by the intensity of their eye contact, or lack thereof. There are two types of eye contact: hard and soft.

Soft eye contact is characterized by a diffuse sort of staring. The muscles around your orbital sockets relax, giving you a somewhat out of focus attention. You might use this sort of gaze to catch something out of your peripheral.

Hard eye contact by contrast is when the muscles around your eyes contract and you zero in on a single detail in particular. This is similar, though not quite the same, as squinting. The hard gaze is a great way of expressing intense interest in the topic at hand, though, it quickly becomes weird and uncomfortable if that’s all your character is doing.

 

 

Seriously, too much hard staring and you got an overly dramatic, stalker’esque character on your hands. The key to this sort of eye contact lies in the contrast. If a character has spent the majority of the conversation in soft gaze, seemingly disinterested, only to snap into hard gaze after a certain revelation, or sentence spoken by his/her conversational partner, then we put extra weight onto whatever phrase was just uttered.

Posture can mean whatever you want it to mean

Posture is important, right? A slumping character is a very different thing from a rigid, straight backed character.

However, what happens when that straight-backed character suddenly slumps in the middle of a conversation. Well, you might be right in assuming that character is now feeling somewhat defeated.

Good posture typically sends the subconscious cue of confidence. Though not always. The most important thing to remember about body language is that it’s entirely contextual.

Human gestures are polysemic, meaning they differ culturally AND contextually. So single action ever stands alone. It exists within a larger pattern.

Context matters. What might be interpreted in one culture, or context as lacking confidence, might be considered polite in another.

Interpret all cues in the context of your character’s unique situation.

So, going from straight-backed posture to slumped might NOT imply our character is feeling defeated. Perhaps, is a teenaged boy meeting his girlfriend’s dad for the first time and he is doing his best to convey a nice, respectful young lad, but the moment the dad leaves the room, the boy releases the tension and reverts back to his usual slump.

In this context, the slump isn’t a sign of defeat, it’s a sign of relaxation and comfort.

As the author you get to decide what your postures mean, but the way you make them most effective is by contrasting them.

Show us the physical shift in a character’s posture from one state to another to really make your scenes come alive and pop.

The Arm Barometer

Hands add a layer of depth to all communications. If they are used correctly.

In day-to-day conversations we place the subconscious weight of trust on individuals who’s hands are plainly visible to us. Studies show that we feel more comfortable with a stranger when we are clearly able to see their hands.

This is especially true for females in the presence of males.

Being able to see the other person’s hands sends the message that, “I am a friend. I do not intend to harm you.”

In this same way, a character intentionally keeping their hands out of sight typically signals to the reader that something of interest is occurring with those digits.

A character that enters the scene with hands behind their back, and keeps them there for the duration, will be viewed very differently than the character who is using their words to accentuate their words.

Though hidden hands doesn’t always imply mystery. Sometimes it implies lack of confidence.

Hands shoved into jean pockets might mean the person is trying to take up as little space as possible, or maybe that they are uncomfortable and don’t know what else to do with their hands. Then again, it could just mean that their hands are cold.

Again, context matters. You, as the author, get to decide what that context ultimately implies.

A nifty tool for gauging a person’s interest throughout a conversation (in real life) is what is called the arm barometer.

Simply put, a person standing with one hand folded into the other, or one hand clasping the wrist of another, is generally considered fairly comfortable. If throughout a conversation, however, you notice that person’s hand slowly rising (now you have one hand holding the elbow of the other. Now it’s holding tucked under the armpit. Now BOTH are tucked under armpits) that can betray some valuable information.

The rising arm action is like a self-inflicted hug. A protective gesture we use when we’re feeling subconsciously guarded. Arms folded over our chest sends either a message of outright defiance, or extreme discomfort. (Again, context matters).

Play around with the arm barometer in your fiction though to show a characters shifting state. Perhaps the conversation starts with an individual using fairly open, expressive hand gesticulations, but by the end their hands aren’t moving at all, and furthermore, they’ve retreated into full-on self-hug mode.

That conversation would be inherently different from one starting and ending in the reverse (self-hug → open hand gestures). What happens in the interim defines context, but these two components both serve as parts of the greater whole.

Context, Context, Context

Never forget that the most important part of using body language in your fiction is in understanding the context. To effectively utilize body language in your fiction, always be considering how you can contrast them with other behaviors or previous states.

If you do this consistently and with intentionality, your readers will enjoy a deeper, more immersive experience. As a general rule, an immersed reader is a happy reader!

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[box] Your turn! Tell me about some of the best uses of body language you’ve ever seen in fiction. Movies and television shows can be great visual examples of this, so get down to the comments and tell us about some of your favorite examples of body language in storytelling![/box]

[box] Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the article, do me a favor and share it with a friend. As an author your support means the world. Want more words from Anthony Vicino? Find him at www.onelazyrobot.com.[/box]