by Susan Watts

In my last few Writers in the Storm articles, I’ve shared several discoveries that completely changed the way I revise emotional scenes. First, I realized I was relying too much on visceral reactions. Then I over-corrected by leaning too heavily on interiority. After that came another discovery: readers don’t just want to witness emotion, they want to experience emotional movement. Most recently, I learned that what a character notices often reveals more than an additional paragraph explaining how they feel.

I thought I had finally found the balance.

Then I started another revision pass on my current work in process.

This time, I was simply trying to tighten scenes that felt slower than they should. Like many writers, my first instinct was to trim words. Surely shorter scenes would create better pacing.

Sometimes that helped.

Most of the time, it didn’t.

I eventually discovered that I had developed a habit many writers fall into when trying to deepen character emotion: I showed the emotion through a visceral reaction, reinforced it with body language, explained it through interiority, and sometimes confirmed it again through dialogue.

Instead of making the emotional scene stronger, I was often weakening it through repetition.

When Visceral Reactions, Body Language, and Interiority Say the Same Thing

In one of my scenes, the character’s stomach tightened. Then her hands shook as she rubbed the back of her neck and looked away. Then she thought: This was a terrible idea. I shouldn’t have come here. What if everything went wrong?

The visceral reaction, body language, and interiority are essentially delivering the same message: she’s afraid. Rather than deepening the emotion, I was translating the same emotion into three different languages.

Emotional repetition happens when visceral reactions, body language, interiority, dialogue, or narration communicate information the reader already understands instead of revealing something new about the character.

This doesn't mean an emotional moment should use only one technique. Different methods can work beautifully together. The problem begins when they are all doing the same job.

I started thinking about the difference as emotional repetition versus emotional layering. Emotional repetition tells readers the same thing through different techniques. Emotional layering uses those techniques to reveal varied aspects of the character's experience.

This is different from the emotional movement I discussed in an earlier article. Emotional movement is about how a character's emotional state changes across a scene. Emotional layering is about the different emotions and meanings that can exist within a single moment.

Movement gives the scene direction. Layering gives the moment depth.

So, I tried approaching the scene differently:

Her stomach tightened. Before he could notice her hands shaking, she shoved them into her pockets. She’d promised him she could handle this. She wasn’t about to prove him right.

Now each element reveals something new. The visceral reaction gives us fear. The body language shows concealment. The interiority takes us deeper, showing us her pride and her fear of being proven wrong.

I found the same problem in several scenes between Sam (short for Samantha) and Brad, the main characters in my current manuscript. Their relationship carries a lot of unresolved tension, which made it tempting for me to make absolutely certain readers understood what Sam was feeling.

Imagine Brad questioning whether Sam is ready to handle something dangerous:

Sam’s chest tightened. She crossed her arms and looked away. Why did Brad always have to question her? Anger flared through her. “I said I can handle it.”

There’s plenty of emotion on the page, but almost every signal points in the same direction. Sam is angry and defensive. And just in case readers missed it, I actually tell them anger flared through her.

But Sam’s feelings toward Brad are rarely that simple. Beneath the anger is something much more interesting: Brad’s doubt matters because Sam desperately wants to prove she can handle things, and his doubt touches her own fear that she isn’t as capable as she wants to believe.

So instead of adding more evidence of anger, I can let the different elements expose those layers:

Sam crossed her arms before Brad could see her hands shake. “I said I can handle it.”

His expression didn’t change. Somehow that was worse. He’d looked at her that way after the dragon too, as if he were waiting for her to break again.

Emotional Revelations of Body Language

Now, the body language isn't simply telling us Sam is angry. She's hiding vulnerability. Her dialogue reveals her defensiveness and need for control. And what she notices about Brad exposes the deeper wound beneath both: His expression may not actually mean he's waiting for her to break. That's what Sam notices, because she's afraid he sees the weakness she's desperately trying not to see in herself.

That was the distinction I had been missing. The question wasn’t whether I should use a visceral reaction, body language, or interiority. It was whether each one gave the reader something the others hadn’t already provided.

That led to the question I now return to whenever I revise an emotional scene:

What new information does this give the reader?

Why Deep POV Can Lead to Emotional Repetition

This kind of repetition can be easy to miss in deep POV because we're constantly looking for ways to keep readers inside the character's experience. The temptation is to add another thought, another physical reaction, or another piece of body language. But deep POV isn't created by giving readers more evidence of emotion. It's created by giving them meaningful access to the character's experience.

When each layer contributes something different, the scene unfolds. Readers move beyond simply understanding what the character feels. They begin to understand why the emotion matters and how it influences the next decision.

Trusting the Reader Creates Stronger Emotional Scenes

This discovery reminded me of something I learned years ago in martial arts.

Beginners often believe that throwing the same technique harder or faster makes it more effective. One of the lessons I learned along the way is the value of economy of movement. Power rarely comes from adding more motion. It stems from eliminating every unnecessary movement until only the essential action remains.

I realized I needed the same economy in my emotional scenes. Tightening an emotional scene doesn't necessarily mean making it shorter. It means removing repetition so the details that remain carry more weight.

The goal isn’t to use fewer emotional tools, but to make each one earn its place.

If a character’s hand hesitates over a doorknob before knocking, readers already sense her uncertainty. If the next paragraph explains that the character is nervous, and the paragraph after that describes a racing heartbeat, we may simply be confirming something the readers already understand.

And it’s only delaying the story.

How Do You Know If You're Over-explaining Character Emotion?

I've started looking for places where I can underline several consecutive sentences and write the same emotion beside each one.

Fear, Fear, Fear.

Or

Anger, Anger, Anger.

When I can do that, I know it's time to look more closely. Which detail carries the most weight? Do the others deepen the moment, or are they simply confirming what readers already know?

Why Cutting Emotional Repetition Can Make a Scene Stronger

As I continued revising, something unexpected happened. I wasn't removing emotion from these scenes. Many times, they felt more emotional after I cut the repeated explanations.

That surprised me. I'd assumed more emotional detail created a deeper emotional impact. Instead, the details I'd removed had been competing with the one that mattered most.  This also helped increase the pacing rather than the repetition slowing it down.

Give readers enough evidence to experience the emotion, then use the next sentence to take them somewhere new.

That's what trusting the reader finally came to mean for me.

A Question for You

What’s one scene in your manuscript where removing an explanation actually made the emotion stronger?

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About Susan

Under the pen name Michelle Allums, Susan Watts has authored a young adult urban fantasy titled, The Jade Amulet and is currently writing the sequel. Her short stories are also included in the anthologies Christmas Roses and Forever and Always.

Susan has dedicated over four decades to training in multiple martial arts styles and holds the impressive title of a five-time US Karate Alliance world black belt fighting grand champion. Through her karate school, she is able to impart martial arts and life skills. Susan also incorporates her martial arts knowledge into her writing.

An avid triathlete, she keeps in shape by running, biking, and swimming. She lives in the country with her husband, where they raise animals and enjoy being outdoors. Susan also has three grown children and numerous grandchildren. In addition, she is a CPA and VP of finance for a company in her hometown. 

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Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay