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. It contains lists of ways to show how this condition will affect your character’s mental and physical state.
HUNGER
- An empty, floaty feeling in the belly
- The stomach twisting into knots
- Gurgling in the belly
- Dry mouth
- An over-sensitive sense of smell
- Quick salivation at the sight or scent of food
- Obsessing about food
- Shaking hands
- Lightheadedness
- Lethargy
- Openly watching others eat
- Swallowing often
- Impulse buying when it comes to food…
Turn up the heat on your protagonist by adding conditions that will alter his mood and make him more emotionally reactive.
4 Comments.
I don’t know, tbh. I did a quick internet search and couldn’t find any link to the two, though it wasn’t by any means thorough. I know that extreme thirst/dehydration can cause hallucinations, though.
The “Death” at the end gave me a bit of a jolt, even though it’s true.
Are visual hallucinations also part of long-term hunger?
Thanks, PJ!
Oh, now this is a good one!