How to "Show" and not "Tell" for nervousness?
I was told to ask this question here. There’s a saying in writing to “show; don’t tell”. For example instead of saying: “She was angry”, you would write: “Steam started coming out of her ears”, or: “Her fists slowly clenched up”. So it’s being more specific when showing emotions, actions etc. happening.
I am looking for a “showing” phrase for being nervous. The only one I could think of was: “Her heart was pounding heavily.”
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Showing instead of telling means showing the consequences of a character state (anger, anxiety, love, worry, hate, etc) instead of labeling the state.
"Steam coming out of her ears" is a cliché, originally intended as the consequences of a metaphor for the heat of anger, itself not necessarily literal, but a reference to blood flushing causing a redder appearance.
What do people that are nervous do? They may shake, stumble over words, be clumsy and spill something. They are often anxious about the outcome of what they are doing, like blowing a job interview. They may make inappropriate comments or jokes trying to be funny and alleviate the tension that only they really feel. The tension and worry they DO feel may be distracting and cause them to make mental mistakes: Call their interviewer by the wrong name, for example, or blank on a rehearsed reply to an interview question.
Or, if they are making a presentation, get flummoxed by an unfamiliar projector or piece of computer equipment, or a clicker for the slide projector that doesn't seem to work as they expected, or speaking too closely into a microphone and startling themselves with the result. They may blush at their mistakes. They may sweat.
There are many possible consequences to being nervous, pick a few and use them. Or use the general idea (distraction and worry) and come up with an original ramification for it. A consequence, an implication. Describe something visible or tangible.
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"Show don't tell" doesn't mean that for every feeling there is a periphrasis that expresses it better. So there is not a specific phrase to use for each case. It's never about single expressions, but rather about actions.
"Her heart was pounding" is ok, but it's not enough: you want to express a condition throughout the whole scene, so one single phrase is not the solution (in most case, I mean). For example, you need to "show" someone nervous, not try to find a fancy way to express nervousness. Your character needs to do actions that are dictated by that feeling. "She was tapping her feet rapidly" or "she couldn't stop bite her fingernails with her teeth".
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32044. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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