{"id":45356,"date":"2021-04-09T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T17:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearvoice.com\/resources\/emotions-in-storytelling\/"},"modified":"2025-04-05T14:54:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T21:54:29","slug":"emotions-in-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clearvoice.com\/resources\/emotions-in-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Emojis: How Writers Can Achieve Emotional Granularity"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a 2018\u00a0\u201cWired Guide to Emoji,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0writer Arielle Pardes wrote that emojis, designed to \u201cadd emotional nuance to otherwise flat text,\u201d are more than a millennial fad, but the\u00a0lingua franca\u00a0<\/em>of the digital age.<\/p>\n

For the sake of raising our emotional intelligence, let\u2019s hope emojis do not supplant good ole, emotional communication.<\/p>\n

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Understanding how to read emotions can improve your writing and storytelling<\/h2>\n

In the book ‘How Emotions are Made<\/a>,’ neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that we should strive to be more nuanced in the ways we talk about our emotions. And if my reading of her theories is right, she would argue that our reliance on emojis stems from a classical (outdated) view of emotions, where facial expressions like a smiley face emoji and frowning face emoji can misleadingly be limited to express \u201chappy\u201d or \u201csad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrett offers evidence that the human brain simulates emotions in an interplay of brain, body and culture. And that each emotion can be expressed in countless instances that correspond to different situations and contexts.<\/p>\n

Take that same smiley face, it can mean more than simply \u201chappy,\u201d and \u201chappy\u201d can be expressed in tears, laughter, a scream, complete silence and a multitude of responses depending on the situation, the person emoting, and those around them.<\/p>\n

For writers, emotions are our collateral; the more we are better attuned to feelings, the greater our ability to influence audiences. In this seven-part blog series, I take highlights from Barrett’s findings and explore the implications of these processes for marketing, advertising and writing.<\/p>\n

Communication shortcuts in the digital age<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s no doubt that people texting on smaller screens and multi-tasking have adapted new languages in digital shorthand to be quick and quippy.<\/p>\n

The Emogi Research Team<\/a>\u00a0claims\u00a0emails and texts with the right emojis have high open rates<\/a>. Could it be that millennials don\u2019t draw a hard line between what are fun, friendly emojis and business professional?<\/p>\n

Yet, this effort to say a lot with less via emotive characters or tone indicators, pose interesting dilemmas for us as we negotiate how to read each other in the digital age.<\/p>\n

In a New York Times article,\u00a0\u201cTone is Hard to Grasp Online. Can Tone Indicators Help<\/a>?\u201d\u00a0some millennials have taken to paralinguistic signifiers to help readers fill in the blanks. When the digital shortcuts cut too much out of our communication and confuse, we all fall short of a shared understanding.<\/p>\n

Since language and communication rely on layers and layers of what Barrett calls \u201csocial reality,\u201d some neurodivergent thinkers, those on the autism spectrum, say extra notes help them with subtle cues associated with sarcasm or flirtation.<\/p>\n

Attached to an image, you might also see tone indicators like these:<\/p>\n