Forum: Author Hangout

I often use eye expressions that the POV character observes to inform the reader how the observed character is feeling, since it would be head-hopping to get into that character's feelings directly.

I assume by "eye expressions" you mean "strings of words that appear to describe a facial expression while really describing a character's (or the author's) judgment about the interior mental state of a character." And most authors do that, right? It's common. It's a convention we all accept. But, it's not a statement of fact. It's not evidence of an emotion. Eyes don't really twinkle, right?

For example, assume Jim and Bob are discussing an interaction Bob had with Carol, and the author has Bob say, "I know she was happy; her eyes twinkled." What's Jim going to say? Suppose the author has Jim say, "Oh, well, if her eyes twinkled, you must be right. She was happy." How are reader's going to react? Aren't they going to shake their heads and go, "What?! What are you talking about? 'Her eyes twinkled'? What does that even mean?"

I get that it's a useful shorthand, a convention that we as readers (and authors) accept and work with. But it's really not a facial expression, right? And, are there dangers for an author in using such conventions while actually believing they are describing a facial expression. As you point out, SB, they usually aren't nearly enough to accomplish an author's purpose - some description of an observable behavior -- laughing, clapping, smiling, saying "That's great!" -- is often required and will almost always make the passage stronger.

It just strikes me as weird that an editor giving advice to writers makes a list of facial expressions, and most aren't!

Eyes don't really twinkle, right?

They can. However it's mostly not dependent on emotional state. The surface of the eye is glossy and can produce glare like reflections in the right (or wrong depending on perspective) lighting conditions.

This is similar to the red-eye effect that can happen with flash photography. The pupil appears to glow red due to light from the flash reflecting off the interior of the eye.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-eye_effect

Umm... okay? And I can honestly say I have never seen a reflection in a person's eyes and thought, "twinkling eyes." I appreciate that you're thinking about this from different angles, but neither reflections nor the shortcomings of cameras compared to the human eye make me understand "her eyes twinkled" as a facial expression! < grin >

but neither reflections nor the shortcomings of cameras compared to the human eye make me understand "her eyes twinkled" as a facial expression! < grin >

I didn't say it would be a facial expression, but at least in theory, the right lighting conditions could produce the appearance of twinkling in the human eye.

Look at it as a metaphor.

Yup, love metaphors! But, and this is picky, it was a list of "facial expressions," not metaphors.

"Her eyes smiled at him."

Umm... talk about needing context. Paul Ekman is maybe the best known researcher on expressions -- and here's an article on his website about 18 types of smiles. If that was an "enjoyable-contempt" smile, then the relationship is likely toast. (At least, according to John Gottman.)

"Boyd looked into her longing eyes and then took her hand."

I'm not saying these types of phrases aren't useful shorthands, though too many "longing looks," "meaningful glances," and "twinkling eyes" can ruin a story for me. Some shorthand conventions can be helpful, but I think they work better when the story also has a good dose of more specific, objective descriptions. Otherwise, it's just fluff.

If not, he'd be slapped.

Once an author tells me she's "longing," him getting slapped would really shock me. If, on the other hand, an author wrote, "He noticed her glance and realized she was longing for his kiss," then I might well be open to, even expecting, his conclusion to be challenged. Why? Because the author gave me the evidence, "a glance", then gave me the character's conclusion. That's VERY different from telling the reader she is "longing."

I guess what works about this shorthand is if we've gotten to know the character and the story and trust the shorthand, then we can remember times when, under the totality of the circumstances, we judged a look to be "longing," or eyes to be "twinkling" and we were right. Each reader will then use those experiences to imagine the situation, and the author will thereby have successfully evoked both images and emotions in the reader and... success! At least for that part of a scene.

(But, it's still not a facial description!)

But in 1st-person or 3rd-limited, it's the POV character for that scene who's saying that. That character isn't all knowing and could be wrong. Everything in the scene is told from the POV character's perspective. He doesn't have to be a reliable narrator.

Aha! The author is always doing the telling! (Just having fun here; I get what you are saying.)

I get that a 1st or 3rd-limited POV might be unreliable. But, is it EVER that way with something like "longing" eyes?

I can imagine a story from 1st POV where the POV-character was socially clueless and was always misinterpreting things so that she saw longing looks that weren't there with humorous or horrific or adventurous consequences. Pollyanna is like that with the MC interpreting things very differently from others and, at the start, they find this bizarre to the point of being dysfunctional.

I can imagine a story from 1st POV where the POV-character was socially clueless and was always misinterpreting things so that she saw longing looks that weren't there with humorous or horrific or adventurous consequences.

I can imagine, but cannot think of a time where "longing" or " twinkling" eyes (usually with humor or mischief or desire) were anything other than exactly what the author said they were.

And then you find out she was only 5'7" but the narrator was 5'3". In his perspective, she was huge.

With that description and she turns out to be only 5.7 I would expect him to be no taller than 5' even.

In his eyes she was a giant

The description you posited went beyond just calling her a giant. His perspective or no, that description would leave me expecting at least a 6 inch difference in height, if not a full foot.

That was my example. If he read her "longing" eyes correctly, she would welcome the kiss. If he didn't, he could get slapped.

And I'm saying that I think that never happens. Every time an author uses something like "longing eyes," it's the author telling the reader the character is longing, and it is becomes a statement of fact. It never gets controverted.

Beyond that, the fact that we can even have this discussion proves that things like "longing eyes" are NOT descriptions of facial expressions. They are conclusions about the meaning of those expressions. We could not have this kind of discussion about, for example, "here brows knit together and her eyes narrowed." We might discuss the meaning of that expression, but not the expression itself.

Again, lots of great writers use these terms. They are simply a shortcut that allows the writer to communicate the desired meaning without describing the expression. They are not facial expressions.

And, with that, I think I've beat this subject unmercifully! I still have the feeling that it's an important distinction, but whether I've articulated that clearly is another matter entirely!