#angela ackerman

EMOTION AMPLIFIERS A Companion to The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression 

The Positive Trait Thesaurus and The Rural Setting Thesaurus.

Also available in the series: the negative trait thesaurus, the emotional wound thesaurus, the urban setting thesaurus, the emotion thesaurus.

Angela Ackerman Our job as writers is to make the reader FEEL, empathizing with our characters, feeling invested in the outcome of events, and immersed in the story’s world. When a reader’s experience is emotional, it transcends mere entertainment and becomes something meaningful to them. The best place to build empathy is through your characters. Through them, writers can tap into the reader’s…

Angela Ackerman When we think about phobias, extreme fear comes to mind. But phobias are actually considered a class of anxiety disorder, and they hijack the body’s alarm system. Understanding how this happens is important to ensure we don’t inadvertently perpetuate mental health stereotypes in our writing. Fear is an instinctual reaction to a real or perceived danger, triggering a chain of…

by Angela Ackerman In the real world, no two people are alike, which means each of us expresses emotion in our own way. Some people find it natural to share what they feel with those around them, while others find the idea of revealing what they feel horrifying and will avoid situations that could lead to such vulnerability. Most fall somewhere between these extremes. This spectrum of…

by Angela Ackerman Writing about your character’s fear can be tricky because it rarely sits out in the open where everyone can see it. Instead, fear is hidden, rationalized, or the character puts on a mask and pretends it isn’t there at all. Yet when fear is shown well, it becomes an obvious force driving a character’s decisions, behavior, and actions. Because fear plays such a central role in…