I’m reading What Every Body is Saying, by Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins, a nonfiction book about body language and nonverbal communication. I’m about halfway through, and it’s been interesting and helpful so far. The principal author seems to know what he’s talking about; he was an investigator for the FBI for a while, so he should have more experience than most people.

A few interesting things that have come up:

– A person’s feet are usually the most honest part of their body. Most people learn to control their facial expressions, then their hands, but most people never think to practice controlling their feet, so, for example, if a person is standing with one or both feet pointing away from you, you can reasonably assume that they want to leave the situation.

– Changes in movement are often more informative than any specific movement. A person who’s normally fidgety and suddenly goes still has probably seen or heard something that attracted their attention. That doesn’t mean that a person who’s still and remains so, is paying attention; they might be a naturally less fidgety person.

– Most body language varies with the person’s culture and upbringing- think about the difference in accepted personal space in a Nordic country versus a Latin one- the stereotype is generally accurate and shouldn’t be ignored- but there are a small number of universal ‘tells’ that are widespread across all human cultures. The freeze response is almost universal; when we hear or see something that alarms us, we pause. It can be overcome, to a degree, with practice, and likewise, careful practice can improve a person’s observational skills enough to see even a subtle or quickly-disguised freeze response.

There’s a lot other small details that I’ve observed but never had the words for, like the physical slowing of a depressed person’s movements, or the various shielding movements that occur when a person is uncomfortable- touching the throat, folding the arms, turning sideways- and their inverse when a person is relaxed and happy- mobile features and hands, turning to face a listener, unfolding the arms, et cetera. All useful little things that some of us take for granted, and some of us need extra practice to observe and interpret.

I borrowed this book thinking it’d be useful for writing- describing character’s expressions and body language, and connecting them to emotions and actions has always been tricky for me. How many times can you reasonably say, ‘she frowned,’ or, ‘he shrugged’ without the reader getting tired of it? Personally, I tend to notice when a description of that type is repeated on the same page. Less than that, it flies under the radar. And repeating a descriptor on the same page can be the right move; it’s just, noticeable.

So I starting reading this book, thinking that gaining a few new descriptions would give me more options, less repetition, and fewer opportunities to throw the reader out of the story.

I’ve hit a snag. Namely, most nonverbal communication is subconscious, and it’s observed subconsciously by others. Most people don’t articulate to themselves, “That person looks angry; I need to change my behavior accordingly,” they just notice, and alter their own expressions or actions. So, it can look weird when you, the author, draw attention to an unusual movement or expression. Unless it’s done with a subtle hand, description of that nature becomes its own form of throwing the reader out of the story.

And I’m not very good at subtlety; my writing tends to be all or nothing when it comes to emotions. So maybe the thing to do is finish the book, see if there’s anything I can apply to real life, and be judicious about using unusual descriptions of body language. Or I could write more weird characters, and use those unusual descriptions to feed the readers’ perceptions of that character.

Or I could develop some subtlety in writing. What d’you think, dear reader? Possible, or a lost cause from the start?