Writing resource #3

So, today I'll talk about another writing resource. Today is the body language cheat sheet!

Body language cheat sheet

This is a wonderful resource to pull up when going through your revisions. Sometimes I will just write a {   } around an emotion/feeling so that I can move on and get the ideas out of my head. Then, when I'm cleaning the chapter up with Grammarly and Word Hippo, I'll also go through the body language cheat sheet and fill in the emotions.

It's also handy for replacing action echoes. If you want to say the same type of feeling, but you already used that action a few paragraphs ago, this is a good way to go through it and change your action. If you feel like you use an action too much, and it's not a character twitch, then this helps you vary your writing.

For example. You have your characters staring at the other characters too much. You've eliminated the word echoes with Word Hippo, but the action is too repetitive. So, you can go through the cheat sheet, and it talks about how staring is an aggressive gesture and tries to show your dominance. Then, you scan the cheat sheet for another action that has a similar representation. In this case, you could choose: putting your hands on your hips or pointing at someone with your finger.

This resource will help keep your writing fresh.

Thanks for reading,
Travis

Next: Face turn