01-22-2014, 04:11 AM
I have a confession to make: I'm terrible at describing body language.
I have tried to improve on this regard, and usually I can picture vividly what my characters would be doing, in terms of gestures and whatnot, but I have a lot of trouble in describing said actions. Because of this, I usually end up using the same dozen or so actions that aren't even that descriptive and, when attempting to describe something new, I usually do so very clumsily and I have no doubt that I fail to get the point across regardless... which is very frustrating, since I know exactly what I want to describe.
Now, this might be because of English being my second language, but I don't think that's the case, since I also have trouble with this in Portuguese (although less so), which might or might not be due to the fact that I haven't read a lot of literature that (ab)uses body language (I'm not really picky on what I choose to read...) and might be related to my trouble in wanting to balance my knowledge of both languages and then I end up being master of none. Which sucks, because I like both of them for different reasons (English is great for getting my works exposed, and Portuguese is such a beautiful language).
...Jeez, I was already going into rambling territory and off-topic here. Anyway! Do you guys have any recommendations to improve on this subject? Literature, advice, articles... whatever goes!
I have tried to improve on this regard, and usually I can picture vividly what my characters would be doing, in terms of gestures and whatnot, but I have a lot of trouble in describing said actions. Because of this, I usually end up using the same dozen or so actions that aren't even that descriptive and, when attempting to describe something new, I usually do so very clumsily and I have no doubt that I fail to get the point across regardless... which is very frustrating, since I know exactly what I want to describe.
Now, this might be because of English being my second language, but I don't think that's the case, since I also have trouble with this in Portuguese (although less so), which might or might not be due to the fact that I haven't read a lot of literature that (ab)uses body language (I'm not really picky on what I choose to read...) and might be related to my trouble in wanting to balance my knowledge of both languages and then I end up being master of none. Which sucks, because I like both of them for different reasons (English is great for getting my works exposed, and Portuguese is such a beautiful language).
...Jeez, I was already going into rambling territory and off-topic here. Anyway! Do you guys have any recommendations to improve on this subject? Literature, advice, articles... whatever goes!
Spoiler: