Expressing Emotions, Part Seven: Excitement

Like indifference, excitement is relatively easy to show when you're writing your characters. Unlike indifference, however, it's not so easy to show it without using the word itself. Many authors use the word excitement along with descriptions of the character's physical behavior, such as "her hands were shaking with excitement" or "she was bouncing with excitement." But it is possible to show excitement without doing so:

Physical differences

shaking handsshining eyesbouncing or quivering feeling in stomachuncontrollable smileflushed cheeks
As with most other emotions, the physical signs are far less compelling than a character's behavioral signs. Physical differences, taken on their own, could mean a multitude of things. It's when they're paired with behavior that it's more obvious:

Changes in behavior

bouncing up and downinability to sit stilldifficulty sleepingshows of impatienceexcessive energydifficulty finishing understandable sentencesexclamations ("Oh! Oh!")exuberant gesturing
Not all characters will show excitement in immediately recognizable ways, and many may show only one or two signs of it. This, perhaps, is why it's so easy to add "in excitement" at the end of a description of them. You may be able to avoid this in several ways:

making it obvious your character has waited a long time for somethinggiving them something concrete that they are anticipatinghaving another character call them excited in dialogue
If you have an example of showing excitement in a character, post below!