Four techniques to better connect your readers with smiling characters, with plenty of examples from best-selling authors. Plus, 500+ handy words and phrases you can borrow to describe a smile.

Nouns! Verbs! Adjectives! Step right up for a toothsome collection of frowning-related words you can use in your writing, plus compelling examples from master word-wranglers.

Ready to spice up your descriptions of blushing and flushing? Feel free to borrow any of the words and phrases in the bank, and customize to your heart’s desire.

Suspicious. Overjoyed. Dazed.

Emotion words like these fast-track readers to a point-of-view character’s psychological state.

Unnerved.

Bam! There it is. Efficient and economical. Like an arrow to the heart.

But not all writers take full advantage of powerful words like these.

No matter what kind of story you’re writing, you’ll need to open a thousand windows to the hearts of your characters as they encounter obstacles and navigate change. A character who doesn’t emote is only a cardboard cutout. A character who is realistically affected by turbulent situations becomes flesh and blood in your reader’s imagination.

There’s a powerful beast living in your house. It’s got a sleek white body striped with black—a fierce kind of beautiful, unique of its kind. It leads a solitary existence in a file named “Work-in-progress.” And all it wants is to break free and see the world.