Emotions through Inner Thoughts for Creative Writing in Primary School

In my previous blog post, I touched on creating dialogue as a way to help characters express emotions. For this post, I am going touch on using inner thoughts to display emotions. This is the third part of the IDEA method and ‘E’ stands for emotional expressions.  The key to this is the simple rule of “show, not tell”. Do not write phrases like “he was angry” or “she was sad”. Use his thoughts to show his emotions.

Bad example:

James was upset that the bully had ruined his project.

Good example:

The memory of Shawn stepping on his project kept replaying in his mind. Disappointment, and a sense of being useless, overcame him. How could someone be so nasty?

Just like the previous methods, your child needs to know how to develop these inner thoughts through practice. You can ask your child to develop inner thoughts for important emotions like anger, happiness, sadness, fear and excitement so that he can use can use them in his essay.

Ultimately, for a story to be well developed, it is important for the main characters to display emotions. At the same time, it is also important for your child to include these emotions as they can help with showcasing your child’s strong language skills. The IDEA method is a great way to include emotions into your child’s writing.

In the next blog, I will move on to the next technique. To go back to the index to access the earlier materials, please click here

Remember to ‘like’ our FB page for more news and other important information.