Better Ways to Express Character Emotion and Physical Reaction -- A Book Exam of Christine Lindsey's "Shadowed in Silk"

Bobbing around in the yummy, inspirational, historical novel section of the internet (surely you've heard of that genre "yummy" ;)) you can hardly have missed hearing something about Christine Lindsey's Shadowed in Silk. Set in India only months after the WWI armistice, during a period when native Indians grew increasingly restless under the British raj, Shadowed in Silk tells the story of a young woman caught up in national turmoil, international intrigue, and a marriage in tatters which had barely begun. It is also the storyof a British officer whose heart has been broken by personal loss, by war, by an aching for the Indian people not shared by his peers. Sights, sounds, and other characters, richly developed, move throughout the pages giving readers an immersion into the world that was India in 1918.

 

While telling a remarkable and riveting tale spilling with vivid historical detail, what really struck me about Christine's book from a writer's point of view, was her diverse use of language that gave the characters emotional expression in each scene. If you write, you know how it is sometimes -- you get mentally stuck in a world of bland, worn out phrases -- she smiled, he dipped his head, her heart pounded -- those kinds. Some days at the keyboard we wrestle for a better way to express character emotion and physical action.

 

I jotted down forms of a few of the phrases in Shadowed in Silk that I found impactful to the scenes Christine was spinning. Here are some of them:

 

The tightness across her shoulders eased.

Her stomach slammed against her spine.

A flicker of excitement passed behind his eyes.

His pulse beat a tattoo at the base of his throat.

He roped his good hand into her hair and jerked her to him.

Her vision went white with pain.

Everything funneled so all she saw was his face above hers.

The old man's face wreathed with a smile but quickly became a sober mask.

Creases at the corners of his eyes fanned out with his smile.

His brain felt like the hot mash of rotting potatoes.

A flicker of awareness crossed her face.

He went on, feeling coldness lap around his heart.

Ice water flooded his veins.

His insides writhed.

A nerve flickered across one of her eyelids.

His voice dipped further

 

Pay special attention to the power of her nouns and verbs. Tightness eased, stomach slammed, creases fanned... She uses strong words to incite an emotional reaction from the reader.

 

Christine's novel is definitely worthy of the rave reviews and awards she's received. Writers would find it worth their time to read it with an eye on craft. For a debut novelist, Christine has written with a depth from which any writer can learn to improve technique, especially ways in which to express character actions and emotional responses.

Desert Breeze Publishing

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