Have you ever stood and watched a long queue of people. It makes no difference why they are waiting; just standing, waiting is boring, and those waiting come across as bland, boring people.

That’s exactly how your characters will appear without some ‘character traits’. They need personality, distinctive dialogue, and their own unique body language.

Body language is basically the ‘gestures’ used by people or characters. For instance, when someone nods or shakes their head, that’s body language. When they purse their lips, it’s body language, and when they throw their arms up in the air in frustration, that’s also body language. Each and every character should have their own individual set of gestures and expressive signals etc.

Perhaps your heroine braces her shoulders when she’s mad. Or maybe she does it when she’s preparing for an argument. In my novel “Saving Emma” the heroine (Emma Larkin) refuses to make eye contact when she is trying to hide something, and licks her lips when she’s nervous.

Your hero might prefer to ‘tower over’ his opponents to make them feel inferior, or maybe he smokes when he’s stressed.

Types of body language include:

Screwing up nose

Twisting hands in lap

Flicking hair over shoulder

Getting into someone’s personal space

Cracking neck

Scratching nose

Scratching hair

Running fingers through hair

Coughing when stressed

Clearing throat

Licking lips

Looking toward ground, rather than having eye contact

Stance may also make a difference to your character’s body language. For instance, they may:

Sit on a desk to eliminate the ‘power stance’

Stand

Slouch in defeat

Place hands on hips to portray power

Get close to someone’s face (known as being in another person’s personal space)

Look also toward facial gestures for body language. Eyes can tell a lot too; a person may be smiling at the mouth, but not at the eyes. Have you ever heard the expression ‘a smile that goes all the way to his eyes’? It is very true. Next time someone smiles at you, take special notice of their eyes. If they are genuinely happy, you’ll see it in their eyes. If it is a false smile, the area surrounding their eyes will not change at all.

Your characters can have a number of stress triggers or involuntary movements that tell your reader how they are feeling or what they are thinking. This also helps in establishing your character in dialogue rather than using tags all the time.

Here are a couple of websites I’ve recently discovered, which will help you learn more about body language:

http://www.selfgrowth.com/bodyl.html

http://www.bodylanguagetraining.com/

©

Cheryl Wright is an award-winning Australian author and freelance journalist. In addition to an array of other projects, she is the owner of the Writer2Writer.com website and the Writer to Writer monthly ezine for writers. (http://www.writer2writer.com) She is also the author of a series of ebooks for writers. Her romantic suspense novel “Saving Emma” was released January 2005 by Whiskey Creek Press. Visit Cheryl's website: http://www.cheryl-wright.com

• So, Youd Like To Be A Master Writer


• Open Letter to Syd Field: The Heros Journey


• Whose Voice is that Anyway?


• So You Wanna Win a Contest?


• Creating Characters from Life


• Make em Perfect – Give em Flaws!


• Choosing Point of View


• Backstory Techniques


• Screenwriting and the Heros Journey: Developing the Antagonism


• Writers Block; Oh It is Very Real


• The Heros Journey: Proactive Transformation


• The Heros Journey: Transformation X3 or X7


• Make a Movie: Use the Heros Journey


• Heros Journey: Heros Outer Challenge


• Heros Journey: The Three Challenges