I am just going to brag for a moment…My son played Daddy Warbucks in this season’s Community Play’s fall show, and did it brilliantly. One of my favorite scenes is when Warbucks wants to adopt Annie, and she turns him down because she wants to find her parents. Warbucks, who loves her, is torn between wanting her to be his daughter, and wanting her to be happy. It’s a powerful scene, without words, and David played it with vivid emotion…first loss and grief, to pure love for Annie, then a determination to make her dream come true.

As I sat in the audience, I also experienced a mix of emotions – pride at his performance, sadness that he is growing up so fast, and joy that he would be proud at how well he was nailing his lines.

Every emotion comes with coloring shades that make that emotion unique. Warbucks grief was shaded with joy that he could help her, and sadness that she had waited so long for her parents. My pride was tempered with sadness over the passing years, and joy at my son’s own happiness. When we’re writing emotions, to truly portray them, we need to take a closer look at the colors of those emotions to know how to uniquely portray them.

Before writing a scene, ask yourself what emotions would the character be feeling? Is it love? Could is also be fear of losing that love? And at the same time panic, over losing freedom? Maybe it’s also surprise, that it could happen to them.

Now, what emotion could you pull out of that mix to illuminate the emotion of love? Maybe a woman loves someone who is going to leave for the military, and yet hasn’t admitted it to herself, or him? To illuminate that growing emotion, she could throw out all the newspapers in the house that talk about war. She could refuse to listen to the news.

Finally, what emotion can you then contrast with that first one, to really explore the many sides? Anger, over his patriotism?

Taking a closer look at an emotion and pulling out one of the shades to explore or illuminate makes your character’s emotions not only more real, but sympathetic to the reader as they recognize their own emotions (maybe even for the first time!) in a character’s actions.

Tomorrow I’ll show you how I used the different colors of grief in a powerful scene from my upcoming book, Taming Rafe! See you then!