• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
    • About WHW
    • Press Kit
    • Resident Writing Coaches
    • Contact Us
    • Podcasts & Interviews
    • Master Storytelling Newsletter
    • Guest Post Guidelines
    • Privacy Policy
    • Charities & Support
  • Bookstore
    • Bookstore
    • Foreign Editions
    • Book Reviews
    • Free Thesaurus Sampler
  • Blog
  • Software
  • Workshops
  • Resources
    • List of Resources
    • Recommended Writing Books
    • WHW Descriptive Thesaurus Collection
    • Free Tools & Worksheets
    • Free Show-Dont-Tell Pro Pack
  • WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®
WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Helping writers become bestselling authors

Emotion Thesaurus Addendum: Exhaustion

Published: December 24, 2008 by BECCA PUGLISI

If you want to add tension and complication, an Emotional Amplifier might be just the ticket. This companion to The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression is a body language tool for describing your character’s pain, stress, illness, hunger, dehydration, attraction, and other conditions that amplify an emotional reaction. 

We hope this short, sample list of expressions will help you better imagine how an amplifier makes your character more emotionally volatile…and prone to mistakes.

The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Stress and Volatility contains lists of ways to show how this condition will affect your character’s mental and physical state.

EXHAUSTION

  • Drifting focus
  • Shuffling steps that scuff the floor
  • Fumbling, clumsiness
  • Bowed shoulders
  • Squeezing the eyes shut, then opening them wide in an effort to stay awake
  • Rolling the neck from side to side to loosen kinks
  • The gaze turning repeatedly to a bed or sofa
  • Stretching, shaking one’s limbs
  • Numbness
  • Silence
  • Rereading the same page
  • Turning up a radio or TV for noise
  • Listening but not hearing
  • Haggard appearance (smeared make-up, matted hair, unshaven cheeks)…

Turn up the heat on your protagonist by adding conditions that will alter his mood and make him more emotionally reactive.

BECCA PUGLISI
BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Donna says

    December 27, 2008 at 11:01 am

    Hey, my skin’s greasy even when I’m not tired!

  2. JaxPop says

    December 26, 2008 at 11:59 pm

    Hey Angela – Very Timely – Had to stay awake for 44 straight hours – into Christmas Eve – 30some odd hours a few days before that, as part of my drive from Chicago to Pennsylvania (to visit the kids)after working all day & then Pa to Florida (after visitin’ me mum) to get home mid-day Christmas Eve (after 11 killer weeks in Chicago). I’m still beat. My mother chided me yesterday with the “You’re not getting any younger” line. That made me feel just great. Hope you had a terrific Christmas.

  3. Mary Witzl says

    December 26, 2008 at 2:12 pm

    Ooh, exhaustion: I’ve been up far too long tonight and I’m already there. For once I could almost add to your thesaurus!

  4. Angela says

    December 24, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    On account of Christmas, I’m putting this entry out a day early. Happy Holidays!!

Trackbacks

  1. Resources For Describing Emotion – SpiritofCamelot says:
    December 9, 2018 at 11:51 am

    […] Conveying Exhaustion […]

Primary Sidebar


Welcome!

Writing is hard. Angela & Becca make it easier. Get ready to level up your fiction with game-changing tools, resources, and advice.

Subscribe to the Blog

Check your inbox to confirm! If gremlins tried to eat it, you might have to check your spam folder.

Find it Fast

Read by Category

Grab Our Button

Writers Helping Writers

Software that Will Change the Writing Game

One Stop for Writers

Join our Writers Helping Writers Newsletter

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this content to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The legal copyright holder, Writers Helping Writers®, reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models. WRITERS HELPING WRITERS® · Copyright © 2025 · WEBSITE DESIGN BY LAUGH EAT LEARN

 

Loading Comments...