Building Your Own Emotional Thesaurus

One key to effective writing is the ability to convey complex emotions to the reader. But often, our first ideas for displaying emotions our characters are experiencing are clichés: “tears sprung to her eyes,” “his heart pounded,” “they all let go of breath they hadn't realized they'd been holding while somewhere in the distance a dog barked.” In this class, we'll learn how to do better by digging into scenes and moments from life, literature, art, music, and more and making a catalog of how to show longing, anxiety, love, and more in a fresh way.