Non-verbal Communication

Many years ago, when my nephew Aaron was not yet a toddler, we had a few friends over to my parents’ home for an evening. Mom had bought a crib for the several grandchildren still young enough to need one, and had set it up in the doorway of a room that today would be called the family room. Aaron, not ready to sleep, stood in the crib watching us gathered in the living room. Earlier, he had been given a new toy, a large, hard-plastic ball, bright red, with shapes cut out of its surface: a square, a circle, a star, a triangle. It came with plastic bricks of a size and shapes to just barely fit through the openings. He’d been playing with it before being taken off to bed, though without understanding how to use it. One of the visitors picked up the ball and began fitting the blocks into it. And Aaron was outraged. He began to scream, bouncing up and down and shouting in anger, waving and pointing. Not yet walking, he had to hold onto the side of the crib to stay on his feet, and his vocabulary at that time was pretty much limited to ma-ma and da-da. But none of us had any doubt what he was saying: That toy is mine! Not yours, mine! Put it down! Put it down! We all laughed, surprised at our comprehension, but it quickly turned sympathetic. The toy was put away, and his normal good humor was promptly restored.

I sometimes tell that story to illustrate why I think communism will never work, but as a writer, I can see it illustrating another point: There is more to writing than describing settings and reporting conversations.

I know I sometimes get so involved in writing the words of a conversation – hearing them in my head as I transfer them to the computer screen – that I forget to describe the gestures that accompany them. It’s only later, going back to read them over, that I realize how inadequate they seem without the tics and gestures that clarify the underlying emotions of the speakers.

A lot of communicating goes on non-verbally. It doesn’t have to be as blatant as Aaron’s demands that his ownership of his new favorite toy be recognized and honored. A skeptical eyebrow, a placating smile, a betraying giggle, a gesture of refusal, all can be eloquent. Humans are fluent in these non-verbal communications – so are our dogs and even some of our cats!

Most of us are people watchers. We watch children at play, we slow down driving past car accidents, we sit on the beach watching others cavort in the water. But writers carry it to extremes. We like to sit with our backs to the wall in restaurants and enjoy just sitting in a busy mall, soaking up behavior and building characters. We can forget the real purpose of a wedding or funeral, indulging in speculation about the other attendees.

But sometimes we forget to be subtle, and are confronted by a scowling face thrust suddenly into ours accompanying the demand, “Just what’re you looking at?” Today’s lesson: wait till you get home to write down your impressions.