30. Showing emotions by asking yourself 8 questions

How do we show what we or our characters are feeling so our readers can experience those emotions for themselves as the scene unfolds?

In this episode, you’ll learn eight questions you can ask yourself so you can better visualize what those emotions look and feel like and thus how to show your readers.

Tune in so you can also gain tips on how to identify when you’re telling, instead of showing, and when that’s okay. This episode will not only help you to finish your first draft but also learn another revision technique.

Topics discussed in this episode
  • Erin's perfectionism while painting stairs
  • Capturing a snapshot of emotions during the first draft
  • Filling in details during revision
  • Identifying when you’re telling emotions
  • Questions to prompt showing emotions
  • An example of a scene revised based on those question
Join other parents who write

Let’s connect via my Facebook group, Parents Who Write, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/parentswhowrite.

About Erin:

For 15 years, Erin has worked as a magazine and book editor, encouraging each writer’s individual voice and strengthening their writing goals. When she became a parent, she set aside her own writing aspirations to focus on her family. As the years passed, she grew increasingly anxious, depressed, and angry until she realized that she had forgotten who she was beyond being a parent.

Despite fearing her skills had atrophied, Erin started writing again. She first created her blog, Life Beyond Parenting, and then created the Parents Who Write podcast. Erin’s current role as a podcaster and writing coach enables her to help parents pursue their writing dreams.

She earned her MA in Writing from Johns Hopkins University, and she has finished the first draft of a fantasy-romance novel. She lives with her husband and their two young boys in Maryland.

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ABOUT ME

Erin P.T. Canning has worked for 20 years as an editor, encouraging each writer’s individual voice and strengthening their writing goals.

She always planned to write a book, but life had a tendency to distract her. After dedicating six years of her life to motherhood and discovering her ADHD, she started writing again, even though she feared her writing skills had atrophied.

After letting go of her perfectionism, Erin finally finished her own shitty first draft and released her fantasy romance novel, Ruins and Redemption, in 2023. Her current role as a podcaster and book coach enables her to help writers pursue their author dreams.