Emotion icons serve as a way of expressing oneself.

Emotion icons (emoticons for short) can be supremely useful as part of your writing toolbox. There is such a vast variety available.

Click for Free Writer's Block Help E-Zine and Free E-Book

When considering the concept of emotional writing and how to inject just the right amount of happiness, sadness, flirtation, embarrassment, annoyance, impatience, worry, sympathy, etc., emotion icons can help add substance and flavor to what may otherwise be an uncertain writing technique.

Analyzing the looks on people's faces and how the emotion icons help grasp these looks in another visually expressive way is extremely helpful. The idea of rebus writing, in fact, can take cues from emoticons and allow people to see the vision of what they would like to write before they in fact write it.

There are many emoticon lists, or emoticon dictionaries, if you will, online. Different programs, ranging from Yahoo to Gmail to AIM and the like sometimes have different formats for how some of the more "complicated" emotions are typed out. Check out this link for some emotion icons to help you see how the faces can seem truly lifelike and emotionally content, agitated, etc. While one person's perspective may be that an emoticon that has one tear coming out of one eye may be crying because something sad happened, someone else may think that it is a tear of joy. While one person's perspective of a happy looking emoticon may be that all is fine and dandy, someone else may see a dire situation where the emoticon is just putting on a happy face in order to not make anyone worry about all the issues that are weighing on his or her mind.

I know some of these ideas may seem far-fetched, but that is the great part about writing. You get to use your imagination and come up with stupendous, ridiculous, exciting writing ideas. The imagination and creativity you throw in the mix will make readers become more in awe of how gifted you are for making them think outside the box. Seeing emotion icons, and by extension the world around you, in new and interesting ways will allow you to realize that nothing should be taken for granted. Just because a person (or emoticon in this case) looks confused, down in the dumps, eager, or some other emotion does not mean that what you see is what you get. Take that into account when you write. You'll realize that there is so much more to say and so many more ways to express yourself when you are not constricted to the one way that everyone else has already fixed in their minds as the "right" way. It is of absolute importance that when writing with or when basing ideas off of emoticons, you set aside bias for what you might consider a look of surprise, understanding, anger, exasperation, etc. to be, and write with empathy for what others may perceive the looks to be. Maybe the looks on their "faces" will help aid you in your quest to better understand emotions and how to best incorporate them in logical yet creative formats in your own writing.

To return from Emotion Icons to the
Emotional Writing Page, click here

To return to the Writer's Block Help Home Page, click here

New! Comments