Recently, I’ve noticed a disappointing trend in both the books I’ve been reading and those I edit. Specifically, the struggle to write character gestures, such as a shrug, a wince, a nod, and even a smile. You’d think this would be easy to write, but it turns out this is not the case for many authors. Here are some tips and advice on writing character gestures.

Keep Gestures Simple

Gestures are often done subconsciously, and when you write, you want the same quick, unconscious impression to be conveyed to the reader. Don’t write as if your characters are doing things deliberately when it comes to gestures. Here are some examples:

Bad example | Good example

1. 1. He furrowed his brow | His brow furrowed
   2. She narrowed her eyes | Her eyes narrowed
   3. He whitened his knuckles | His knuckles whitened
   4. She moved the corners of her mouth upward | She smiled ever so slightly
   5. He shook his head from side to side. | He shook his head
   6. She raised an eyebrow, inviting more information | An eyebrow rose in curiosity
   7. He turned his body and looked at Jill | He turned to Jill
   8. She shrugged her shoulders | She shrugged
   9. He nodded his head up and down| He nodded
   10. She gazed with her eyes | She gazed

Keep your human gestures as simple and short as you can. Somethings don’t need elaboration anyway. You can’t shrug anything but your shoulders, you can’t nod anything but your head, and you can’t gaze with anything except your eyes. Keep it simple!

Keep Gestures Short

In the same vein as the previous point, don’t get wordy and don’t compound gestures. Doing so will seem awkward to your reader and create a bad impression. For example:

Bob tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow.

In the example above, there are two gestures compounded upon each other. In addition to the gestures coming across as forced (Bob did it on purpose versus unconsciously), the compounding of gestures is unnecessary for the reader. Frankly, you can use one or the other to convey the exact same emotion:

One of Bob’s eyebrows shot up.

Bob’s head tilted.

The gesture should be quick and short in your writing to convey the unconscious and unthinking human gesture to your reader. Here’s another example:

A slight smile of inward satisfaction resided on his face.

First off, can a smile reside anywhere else other than the face? Nope. So, there is no need to mention where the smile is located. Secondly, the above example is simply too wordy. To convey the impression and gesture, something simple and short works better:

He smiled.

He smiled in satisfaction.

The two examples above convey the exact same emotion as the first wordy example, only it is done in a way that the reader won’t get bogged down in the gesture itself. Let the reader’s imagination control what that smile would look like.

Happy writing, folks!