Aspiring fiction-writers are often advised: "Show, don’t tell". This means you shouldn't tell the reader what your characters are feeling – show them instead. But you may end up with a cast who spend all their time frowning, sighing, clenching their fists and slamming doors in a melodramatic pantomime.
Watch out that the approach doesn’t become show and tell: She gasped in shock, he trembled with fear, she sat there frowning but then sprang to her feet, finally understanding the situation.
Avoid having one character notice others' emotions: He looked round the room, and saw puzzled frowns and vacant stares. (Avoid making someone watch another character do something, too – just have them do the thing.)
When talking to each other in real life, people smile for all kinds of reasons – there’s no need to mark each grin, beam, smirk, twinkle. "Rueful" and "wry" smiles are a cliché. Perhaps note the smile when it's unexpected:
"The people reverence thee," said Hester. "And surely thou workest good among them! Doth this bring thee no comfort?"
"More misery, Hester! – Only the more misery!" answered the clergyman with a bitter smile.
(Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. Earlier, Hester smiles "drearily".)
George Orwell wished that more working-class people would write about their lives. He met a man who had written his life story, but it was in the language of Peg’s Paper: With a wild cry she sank in a stricken heap...
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