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.
If you need to go deeper, we have an ebooklet of Emotional Amplifiers that contains imaginative 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.
Grab this ebooklet for only $2.99. You can find it, along with all of our bestselling guides, at our bookstore.
Prefer the flexibility of instant online access and greater searchability?
Emotion Amplifiers is also at our sister site, One Stop for Writers. Visit the Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus Page to view our complete list of entries.
If you’re ready to elevate your storytelling, stop by sometime to see if our one-of-a-kind tools and resources can help you. Registration is always free. 🙂
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.
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!