Big Shots in English

 Never Name Emotions

4. Never Name Emotions:
There are 5 ways to show emotions. (Use all five in several sentences to accurately show emotions.) Reactions inside the body. Reactions outside the Body. Flashes of the Past. Flashes of the Future. Sensual Selectivity. (Butler 14-15).

When I say, never name emotions, I literally mean try to never use these words:
Happy
Sad
Nervous
Angry
Pissed
Bitter
Overjoyed
Filled with Joy
Frightened
Scared.
Embarrassed

Each of these is easily written, so you must try to show how these emotions are in effect without naming them.  You will do this by describing these things:

First, start with what is going on inside your body:

Examples of Reactions inside the body
Heart rate increase or slow down.  (Happiness, sadness, anger and fear all have a heart rate increase.)
(When a person is calm or at ease their heart rate is normal.)

Stomach Turning.  (Nervousness or anger and Disgust usually have some stomach issues.)

Internal Pain or lack of pain  (Parts of your body inside or drop pain when a person is in a certain mood.)

Pain in parts of body.  (Specific Parts of the body can react to your emotion.)

Each of these are specific to emotions, so you should choose wisely.

Lost of equilibrium
Legs buckling
Blurred Vision
Temperature Increase
Staggered breathing
Dry Mouth
Excessive saliva
Acid Reflux
Vomiting or excessive bile
Stomach Pains.

Reactions Outside the Body are easy and the actions are often dictated by the way you feel.  These are shown through many ways--the simplest is tears though the way a person treats things around him often reveals his or her emotion.  Reckless actions often reflect anger.


Flashes of the past are descriptive memories often connected to the emotion a person feels--for example  in example 2 I frequently have memories of my father whose death is the primary reason for my sadness.  I have bolded a few places below to show you flashes of the past.

Flashes of the Future are also descriptive examples that are connected to emotion--these are primarily things that have not happened and that could happen.  These probably will not happen they are driven by the emotion you feel--they are frequently pushed by irrational fear or irrational hope.  In the examples below I imagine my father alive, or I imagine that my girlfriend will give me a second chance--in both instances neither happens.  Flashes of the Future should be inserted to show the severity and strength of your emotion--they are connected and driven by emotions.

Lastly, Sensual Selectivity:  Through out the examples below my senses are engaged and hyper aware.  These brief glimpsings are also driven by emotion--they are enhanced by the type of the emotion.  For Example:  I can smell gas when I try t emerge from my car.  In example to I dislike seeing the doctor or his mustache--I am irritated by the use of the doctor's word "son" and the pen he gives me to fill out the hospital forms.  My legs are stuck in the first example and the woman screaming is magnified 200 percent.My girlfriend slapping me is strong, but it also is enhanced by what I'm feeling.

Colored Example:

Reactions inside the body.

Reactions outside the Body.

Flashes of the Past.

Flashes of the Future.

Sensual Selectivity.

As Hallie’s car rounded the corner and drove away from the café, I turned my eyes back to the letter and began to breath heavily—my breath came in quick staccato motions and continued for a while.  The letter was rough against my hand so, I put it down then, picked it back up, then put if down again and then I grabbed it and tore it up.  She was gone, like always and too much of coward to tell me to my face and I realized she did this a lot—she always passed the buck or would never tell me.  “You should know when you’ve done something wrong,” she would say, a smug sense of satisfaction on her face—“You okay mister?” the waitress said.  The pieces of her letter littered the table and I paused, “Yeah, I mean we’ll iron this out right?”

The waitress said, “Iron what out?”

          Hallie would get over this--She’d calm down in a few days—and we’d be okay again, I thought.  The strange scent of her coffee seemed to lift from the cup she had left on the table, but I it moved over everything—like a stain that centered all on me, but I was the only one who knew it

Example:

The car stopped rolling and ground to a stop.  The insides of my body bent inward on themselves, and after that I let out a scream--a small amount of blood hung off the end of my lip, then I threw up all over what was left of my car. “Hello!  Hello!”  I started yelling and waving my hands. “I’m in the car!  I can’t feel my legs.”  For a moment I lost it and I heard my father say, “Remain calm in an accident.”  He stood over me and checked my seat belt.  “Always put this on.”

          My father’s face faded, and a man with a long beard and a hat that read, “Legalize it.”  Looked through the window… “You okay?” 

          “thank god you’re there.”  I said holding my forehead, “God the damage, look at it.”  All I could see were bills and more bills. 

          “Don’t think about the damage, okay, you’re alive.”      

          “Yes, but my leg is tight and I think that’s gas, is gas coming out of my engine?” I blurted out,

          All around me people were screaming—a woman was yelling, “I saw it. I saw it, I’m a witness!”

          Then things went blurry—my eyes practically closed themselves to the shrieking wail of an ambulance siren.  When I opened my eyes again, I was in a gurney, inside an ambulance watching my car disappear behind us.

Example 2

After a moment, I took a step and my legs became absolutely worthless.  They buckled under me like elastic.  In order to brace myself, I placed my hand on the nearest counter.   My mouth was dry for a moment and I turned my head, slowly, as if the air was already pushing against my speech,  “I think you might be mistaken,” was what I wanted to say but across from me my mother was standing by the doctor so I knew this was true. “I won’t always be around,” he said to me and smiled, “But when I do leave this planet I trust you will know what do.”  

 

My father was sitting in his office when he said this, stacks of papers, insurance and medical bills and a large file of folders marked in black ink was labeled, “Will and Trust.”   

“Trust me,” he said and his eyes met mine. “Sometimes Father’s die. But that’s the way life is.  You’re going to be okay son,”  He said and looked at me for a second and then his face was replaced by the doctor’s face who had some kind of stupid moustache, “I’m so sorry son,” came out of his mouth and when he said that I glared at him for a moment and thought that the sound of the EKG machine beeping steadily and the idea I had the image of my father, behind the man whispering into his ear, saying “He’s not your son.”  

“Are you okay?  Son?”  The doctor said again. 

                 

“Yeah, I….”  but as I spoke I only wanted for the clipboard he was holding to be wrong to be another person, with my initials, my father’s initials  and for him to be wrong and my father was alive somewhere in this hell bent, broken hospital.  He talked some more, slowly looking, keeping eye contact, but I couldn’t look at him, almost immediately every word was gone so all that came through was “quick” or “mercy” or “no suffering” or even, “His heart” and “too weak.”  My mother’s eyes began to form tears, and when looked at her tears formed in my own eyes

The doctor placed his clipboard on the nearby counter and took out a pen.  “There’s a few things I need you, or your mother to sign.”  He motioned toward me with the pen, a small grungy looking pen, and all I could think about was that I was going to be signing the hospital forms of my father’s life with a cheap, common plastic pen

“Here,“  the doctor said again, pointing to a spot to sign, and he motioned the pen towards me, and  I reached for the pen and my father looked at me. “This is where I keep the will.  I need you to sign this form that places most everything I have in you and your mother’s name.”  He looked at me.  “It’s okay,” he said and when I took the pen the doctor said, “Are you okay?”

 In the brief calm my heart began to beat less and less, almost slowing as a nearby EKG machine beeped, then beeped then became one long beep, and down the corridor, two nurses closed the curtains in a room where someone else had also moved on.

****

Example 3

My stomach turned inward like a thin string had been tightened and a large knot was playing havoc with my intestines. There was a large thumping in my chest, like my heart was pushing against my ribcage trying to beat its way out. When she turned to look at me, I moved my hand for a second, then turned it to my belly, as if to hold my guts in. 

As I leaned, I placed both feet as firmly as I could one the ground and lowered my head.

I thought about the time she had first smiled at me, and told me, “You are the only man for me.”  That was the moment I had thought we would be married, and how when I looked into her eyes, I had seen her as the mother of my children.  That moment faded, and I was still standing in front of her, my legs braced to the floor—her eyes hardened, “I said I want you gone.”  I hoped for a moment she would say, “I’m gonna give you a second chance,” or “ I can’t break up with you,”  but her hand turned in front of me like she was reaching for me, as if she would touch my face like she used to but that ended abruptly with a quick and decisive strike to the side of my face, “Get out.” The side of my face stung for a moment and I turned to leave, and when I did I caught the scent of her perfume and knew that I would never think of it the same way again.