furrowed brow
Every face is the same in its major features, unless there has been some accident of birth or fate. Two eyes, two ears, a nose with two nostrils, a mouth, a chin, a forehead. At the same time, every face is distinct in a million small ways, not only for its physical characteristics -- is the jaw weak, or strong? does the forehead slope? are the eyes wide or close set? -- but for the wide range of muscular play that results in what we call, so inadequately, expression. Paul Ekman, the psychologist who is best known for his research into the way the human face contorts itself, has found that there are seven basic emotions that are recognizable across cultures: enjoyment, fear, surprise, sadness, contempt, anger and disgust. Of course, it's far more complicated than this for reasons having to do with everything from ethnicity and race to cultural training.
And that's the problem. Pick up any novel and pull out ten facial expressions. Most of them will repeat themselves very quickly. She smiled, frowned, wrinkled her brow, pursed her mouth. The same is true of body language, on a bigger scale. He drummed his fingers, pulled at his ear, scratched his jaw, tapped his foot.
Most writers feel the need to pass along physical hints of what the character is feeling as she talks by means of facial expression (often from the POV of another character) and/or what she does with her hands and body. Sometimes this is part of the characterization, and sometimes it's a way to break up dialogue or make a scene more vivid, but whatever the intent, It's actually very hard to do it well. Take a minute, look at yourself in the mirror, and try to describe what your face does when you are happy.
This is a very big topic, and a difficult one. I've never seen it discussed in any detail in any book on writing-- probably because people who write those books are wiser than I am -- but I'm going to try to sort out some of the issues involved.
To get started, I've provided a number of quotations from novels, each of them dealing with facial expression or body language. What I'd like to do is to try to isolate what the intent was as far as the narrative or characterization goes, in as much as I can interpret that. There are some very well known authors and books in this list, and some lesser known. Some authors are really good at this kind of background characterization (for lack of a better term), and I've got some examples here of their work. I haven't included anything from Gore Vidal, though I think he is the master of this technique. I've decided to save him for later. So, the quotes. Tomorrow I'll start in on this in more detail.
He smiled at me with slightly raised eyebrows. |
To the Nines, Janet Evanovich |
She winced when I pinched his toe with a hemostat. |
While I was Gone, Sue Miller |
Milton's brow was still furrowed with concentration... |
Middlesex: A Novel, Jeffrey Eugenides |
Rochester looked at me broodingly, his eyebrows furrowed and a look of anger rising across his features. |
The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde |
Sammy shrugged, nodding, mouth pursed. |
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon |
...hair most exquisitely and severely cut, his half-glasses gold-rimmed, his mouth pursed, but pursed in American, more generous than English pursing, ready ... |
Possession, A.S. Byatt |
I phrased it just a general question -- but Jimmy Cross looked up in surprise. "You writer types," he said, "you've got long memories." |
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien |
Paul D scratched the hair under his jaw. |
Beloved, Toni Morrison |
She raised her chin. I noticed that her hands were trembling. |
All He Ever Wanted, Anita Shreve |