Emotional Eyeballs

This is a quick rant because I’ve got little to say beyond HOLY HELL am I tired of this. ENOUGH WITH THE EMOTIONS IN THE EYEBALLS. PLEASE.

It must be terribly interesting to be an opthamologist in romance land considering the flickers of emotion all these people in romance novels have harbored in their eyeballs. You think they look into people’s eyes and think, “Damn. This one’s a hot mess.” Maybe they have psychologists on call.

Seriously. Can we stop with the flicker of fear, the fleeting hint of desire, the flash of rage? COME ON. Couldn’t a hero have tension between his eyebrows, a wrinkle near his eyes that indicated rage that smooths out before she gets a good look? Something other than an emotion floating in his eyeballs that she gets a glimpse of?

Shorthand bugs the crap out of me, and I wish there wasn’t so much of it. There are other ways to demonstrate and indicate emotion. I refuse to believe romance authors are secretly opthamologists with those looking-at-the-retina machines and that the retina is some sort of emotional telegraph.

Have you noticed this? Or did you see that flash of impatient fury in my eyes before I hid it behind a debonair arch of my brow and wonder what I was angry about?

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Ranty McRant

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  1. I’ve been told I have color-change eyes, too, but I have a theory about it. My eyes are greenish hazel, but when I cry they’re greener—like, bright chartreuse. I’ve studied enough color theory that I’m pretty sure it’s because of all the little red capillaries that crop up when I cry. Put red next to something vaguely green and because they’re complementary, the green will pop. That’s my theory, anyhow… I just know that people accuse me of wearing colored contacts when I’m upset.

  2. Karen H says:

    I have never been able to read anyone’s emotions in their eyes, not even when I worked for an ophthalmologist as a Certified Ophthalmic Technician.  So I have never understood it though there are references all over the place.  I honestly think it’s really the facial features around the eyes that indicate the emotions, not the actual eyes.

  3. pooks says:

    I have never been able to read anyone’s emotions in their eyes, not even when I worked for an ophthalmologist as a Certified Ophthalmic Technician.  So I have never understood it though there are references all over the place.  I honestly think it’s really the facial features around the eyes that indicate the emotions, not the actual eyes.

    There are several different aspects about eyes that either work or don’t work for me.  Descriptions of eye color that rival Lucy’s “kaleidescope eyes” don’t work for me.  Excessive detai about the irises—golden shards or rays, for example, don’t work for me, even though I actually have those. For some reason that level of detail pulls me away from what is happening in the characters and turns into some sort of clinical detail of what they look like, which I don’t care for. However, a lot of people like and need that detail, I guess.

    On the other hand, when I say that I can read a lot of what a person is thinking and feeling through watching their eyes, I’m not talking about whether or not their pupils dilate (something I’ve never ever noticed in my life and always find a bit bizarre to read about, even though, again, I’m sure other people do see that). I’m talking about eyes crinkling with humor. Okay, the eyeballs certainly don’t, but being so specific as to always literally define that the eyelids did this, the corners of the eyes did that, etc. pulls me out of the story.  When somebody says eyes crinkled with humor, I see the entire eye area and read it that way.  Eyes that smoulder? Adrian Brody. I don’t usually have a problem with “eye language” as long as it is minor and merely enhances the character’s reactions.

    However, if the author is incapable of portraying any emotion and tries to make the eyes be the emotion, that’s simply a weak writer and a totally different discussion.

  4. In romance, we like to see the hero’s face.  The fault is when we substitute mind-reading for observation. 

    It’s not just the eyes.  Stephen King wrote,
    “So spare me, if you please, the hero’s sharply intelligent blue eyes and outthrust determined chin; likewise the heroine’s arrogant cheekbones.  This sort of thing is bad technique and lazy writing, the equalivalent of all those tiresome adverbs.”

    Description just can’t do the job that ought to be carried by the dialogue or the action.

  5. Lily says:

    What about mood eyeballs?  “His eyes flashed their usual warm Mediterranean blue to an intense steely blue in a second.”  Maybe I don’t know enough people with blue eyes, but I’ve never seen them change color with emotion.

    Ha!  Mood eyeballs!

    What about people that can see the eye color – and hair color for that matter – in the dark?  We see in black and white when the light is dim (your rods work in dim light and only pick up black and white and your cones work in bright light and see color).  So I cringe when the hero’s eyes are blazing blue, green, hazel, whatever when they’re lit by moonlight.  Biology 101!

  6. Barbara says:

    @Lisa Hendrix

    Oh, me, too! Thank goodness I’m not the only one!

    I’ve just given up trying to explain my eyecolor. I call it “Caucasian”…

    My word is “thought87” which, after reading EbonyElizabeth and being a SQ Subber, is REALLY FUNNY.

  7. I’ve often wondered if my eyes become bluer or darker when I’m aroused. It happens in my books all the time. So…. It must happen in real life, right? No?

    Don’t tell me that the against the wall sex isn’t real either? I mean, it does seem like a difficult position, but it’s in WRITING, it has to be real. 

    Okay, fine. But I’m not giving up on the panty ripping. Some day, some guy is totally going to rip off my panties. And I am going to be happy about it, not pissed that he ruined my favorite pair of Victoria’s secret.

  8. Ellen Brand says:

    Cara- My eyes are brown, edging on hazel, but they look hazel green when I cry, so I think you’re on to something there. (It doesn’t help that I go red and blotchy when I cry, so it ain’t just the capillaries in the eye they’re contrasting with.)

    Studies have shown, and of course I can’t cite any now, that blood flow increases to the eye when you get angry, which can cause irises to appear somewhat darker. All the people I’ve known with grey/blue/green mood eyes tend to change with light level, light quality, and clothes, though.

    On the eye contact vs. mouths thing… I’m high-functioning autistic. Eye contact makes me NERVOUS. Also, not so good at reading body language. I’d love to see a heroine divine the hero’s emotions from the set of his shoulders, though…

  9. Fiamma says:

    Virginia – I read that Stephen King book too!! When I did I immediately (uh oh, look out Mr. King, adverb alert) combed through my story to remove excess “she shrugged, he smiled” and all that other muck to make the dialogue stand on its own. Though one of my buds who is reading through the story said I wrote “he smiled” way too much. Back to editing!
    I am guilty of writing the phrase “A flicker of something in his eyes” but it fit the scene.
    The “seeing your future with me but the pulsating orbs in your head” always made me laugh in romance novels.

  10. Kalen Hughes says:

    Oh, noes!

    You’re gonna HATE my next book. *insert pouty face here*

    I’m not normally big on the whole emotional eye thing (my editor says my characters are “bitey”, LOL!), but it’s a whole thing with my current hero. He has two different colored eyes, and the heroine often notices that they seem to hint at entirely different thoughts and emotions (it’s based on a boy I dated in college;  I SWEAR to you, his “eyes” were totally thinking different thoughts and I was well aware of which one was likely to tip the double and let me in on the joke).

  11. lizzie (greeneyed fem) says:

    The eyeballs are out of control in the book I’m finishing right now.

    I almost put it down a couple times, but I ended up gritting my teeth (clenching my jaw?) and focusing on the story rather the ridiculous, magical ability of the hero and heroine to read a myriad of simultaneous, multiple emotions in each others’ eyes. My OWN eyes have rolled more than once, I can tell you.

    In one scene, the heroine is watching the hero and for “a brief moment,” between someone saying something and his reply, his expression is unguarded—and she sees two paragraphs’ worth of surprise, anxiety, and deep desire for her. The woman must be some kind of idiot-savant people-reader.

  12. robinjn says:

    Best use of bizarro eyeballs, Felix Harrowgate in Sarah Monette’s superb Labyrinthine series. He has one blue and one brown, with the blue being difficult to see out of but more “magical”. The blue and brown often contradict each other. And for whatever reason (could it be Sarah Monette’s incredible writing skillz?) it works.

  13. bounababe says:

    I understand the need for it. The flicker of – fear, rage, laughter, insert appropriate emotion here- thing doesn’t bother me so much as long as people are not having silent conversations with their eyeballs:
    She glared. translation: You’re a complete tool.
    His eyes flickered in response and his manly eyebrow rose. You want me. You want me bad.
    Her eyes flashed. Come near me and I will cut off your turgid manparts with rusty pinking shears.
    His eyes flinched, then softened. You wouldn’t, you love my dominant/tender self.
    Her eyes shined. Yes, yes, I love you! You foolish fool! Get your manparts over here and they had better be turgid.

  14. Ankoku-jin says:

    Interesting about the eye-contact thing… Though I do allow my eyes to occasionally flicker away from the subject so as not to be engaging in a staring contest, I’m a very heavy eye-contact person. I’ve always done it, though it does get you labeled as “aggressive” – not so bad when you work in a heavily male-dominated industry. The downside is that some men read anything but the briefest eye contact as sexual interest, ugh!

    My bf, on the other hand, is made keenly uncomfortable by prolonged eye contact and so he is perceived as shy and retreating (until he makes some smartass remark). Because of that, I thought he was totally unattracted to me until he spoke up about it! I have to demand that he look at me when we’re having an important discussion, because otherwise I can’t read his intent or reactions very well. So telegraphing of emotions by eye contact *is* pretty important, although I’m not 100% certain how these people in books are sending along the equivalent of a paragraph in a single look.

  15. Lindsay says:

    Having read this, I had to experiment in front of a mirror. My conclusion is that while it is possible to convey emotion using only the eyes and not the lower part of the face, it’s all about the muscles around the eyes, not the eyeball itself. The only way the eyeball is involved is if it’s moving – rolling the eyes, looking away – or if the pupil changes size (which I cannot do consciously, but maybe someone is able to). And come to think of it, it’s a muscle that changes pupil size too.

    I’ve been told I have color-change eyes, too, but I have a theory about it. My eyes are greenish hazel, but when I cry they’re greener—like, bright chartreuse. I’ve studied enough color theory that I’m pretty sure it’s because of all the little red capillaries that crop up when I cry. Put red next to something vaguely green and because they’re complementary, the green will pop. That’s my theory, anyhow… I just know that people accuse me of wearing colored contacts when I’m upset.

    Cara, I think this is definately the colour theory thing. I also have greenish-hazel eyes that become much greener when I cry, but also when I swim in a chlorinated pool, or get an eyelash in my eye – basically anything that irritates my eye and makes the white red.

  16. RfP says:

    I don’t think this is shorthand.  It’s the way a lot of people interpret facial gestures.  Maybe the literal action is that a character’s eyes crinkled at the corners, but others may only have registered the change as somehow being a smiling type of look, without being sure what physical cues they were reading.

  17. Laurel says:

    Oh! OH! I have another theory! The magic eyeball is actually a reflection of what the observer wants to see. She wants to be desired? His eyes flash with lust. She wants to pick a fight? Rage flickers in his eyes. The possible combinations are infinite.

  18. megalith says:

    Eh. Shortcuts are bad enough. It’s when a writer seems to believe that the eyes can literally be like windows that it becomes ridiculous: seas raging, storms brewing, rain showers approaching, lightning flashing, specular sunbeams streaming earthward through cumulonimbus, yada yada yada. All of it contained in the improbably-colored irises of some poor schmoe. It’s just one more Bad Romance Trope (TM) I wish would go away.

    Pathetic fallacy: Ur doing it rong.

  19. rebyj says:

    I don’t mind the occasional mention of something showing in the eyes as long as it’s defined. It’s the undefined that gets annoying such as “something she couldn’t understand flickered in his eyes” “a mysterious heat showed in her eyes” conjunctivitis maybe?

  20. mfred says:

    I often find myself mimicking all the eyeball emoting in a book as a read.  I also often embarrass myself on the bus during my commute.  These two things are related.

    What really gets me is when people sensually lower their eyelids.  Or, when fury caused their eyelids to lower.  In fact, anything involving a lowered or half-closed eyelid that isn’t indicative of sleepiness just DEMANDS that I try it.  Then my girlfriend is all, “what’s wrong with your face?” when I try to make the smoochy time.

  21. Trista says:

    My writing teachers used to tell me that over-focus on the eyes was a telltale sign the author tended to watch a lot of tv/movies rather than reading widely.

    IMHO, one of the best things about a book is that you get to be IN it.  So go for all five senses, darn it! 😀

  22. Kalen Hughes says:

    My writing teachers used to tell me that over-focus on the eyes was a telltale sign the author tended to watch a lot of tv/movies rather than reading widely.

    Might also be a sign that we spend a lot of time studying people, LOL! I know I do. I’ll be on the train, I’ll spot an interesting person, and suddenly I’m noodling around with how I’d describe them. And if you’re writing romance, expressions are key. So much of a romantic relationship (esp at the beginning) is wrapped up in how we see/interpret emotions/expressions on the face of the other person.

    And lord knows I read a hell of a lot more than I watch T.V. (grew up without one, and even now only watch specific things I prerecord), but I still find myself concerned with minutia of expression when I write.

  23. molly_rose says:

    Those eye phrases usually don’t get to me, it’s the change in eye color that bother me! Now, if they darken a little with desire, that’s a real phenomena (in men, the pupil enlarges when aroused). Or, say, the person is in the sunlight vs. dark room, that can affect color. But to just abruptly change… not right.

    Really, it can be difficult, and therefore annoying to the reader, to describe all the facial details, as an explanation of HOW and WHY one character understands subtle emotional and mental changes in the other. Women are actually very attuned to non-verbal cues, especially in the face. Biologically, it’s one of our strengths! So, I understand and accept many of the “eye” descriptions.

  24. Flo says:

    Could we have smellavision instead?  Perhaps a whiff of terror.  Or a wafting of pungent fart.

    Something to invoke the nose!

    His sticky sweat smelled of that manly musk and cod liver oil, making her think he was truly manly and health conscious.

  25. Nancy G says:

    Not used as an emotional revelation, but the worst eye reference I’ve ever seen was in a fanfic –

    Hermione’s eyes were described as “melting chocolate orbs”.

    I mean … eewww! One’s eyeballs should not be slowly slipping down one’s cheeks.

  26. Lindsay says:

    Is it any better if it’s a flicker of emotion around the eyes rather than in the eyes? It’s more accurate, but is it any less annoying to those who dislike this? I’m not particularly bothered either way, except as other people have said, when people have mood eyes – far too reminiscent of the bad-fic on babb_chronicles. DO NOT WANT!

  27. Maisey says:

    Err…guilty. I’m gonna rig a shock collar to go off now every time I write that phrase…

    It had been too long since he’d been with a woman! She saw that emotion flit across his eyeballs, mingling with ruthless rage and uncompromising desire…she thought she also might have seen a hint of sensitivity, but the alpha male quickly extinguished it leaving only the rage. Well, and the desire. And the too long since he’d been with a woman horny-pants thing…

    Security word Cannot 22…as in “She cannot possibly read all twenty two emotions that flash across his eyes…”

  28. Alyssa says:

    Regarding dialogue tags, I’m revising a novella right now where I forbade myself from using any sort of dialogue tag whether it’s “said,” “replied,” or the more descriptive ones. It’s the best story I’ve ever written because I forced myself to show emotion in ways I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

    Oh my god. I am so stealing that idea. I haven’t set myself a ridiculously difficult writing challenge in far too long. I am going to do this.

    Re: sensing emotions through eye contact- being one of those people who already tends to pick up thoughts and emotions from other people just by being near them (I think it partly has to do with picking up chemical changes in their scent, like animals do) I have a lot of trouble making eye contact with people because it feels so incredibly intimate to me- your eyes lock and then suddenly you’re completely and totally aware of them and this is really awkward. I’ve been told that eye contact is necessary for people to trust you and it’s rude not to make it, but I cannot do it without feeling like I’m hitting on the person. It’s too intimate.  It’s too much.

  29. Kalen Hughes says:

    Regarding dialogue tags, I’m revising a novella right now where I forbade myself from using any sort of dialogue tag whether it’s “said,” “replied,” or the more descriptive ones. It’s the best story I’ve ever written because I forced myself to show emotion in ways I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

    Hope it works for you. I pretty much try never to use dialogue tags. I much prefer using physical tags and bits of description to ground the dialogue. I also have a mad hatred for thought tags: “he thought” “she wondered” etc. They pull me out of the story. If the POV isn’t strong/deep enough for me to know without a tag that these are thoughts of character X, you’ve got serious work to do.

  30. MarieC says:

    ROTFL! I never really thought about it (eyebrows furrowed)! Thanks Sarah! Now, I’m going to end up laughing in every book I read!

  31. Amanda in Baltimore says:

    Speaking of eyeballs, apparently in the Romanciverse, it’s pretty uncommon to have blue eyes, or brown eyes (aka, the most popular eye colors on the planet). Heck no, blue and brown are The Dull. Romance heroines have eyes of violet, steel grey, golden, and green.

    And if the eyes are blue, they are azure,beryl, blue-gray, blue-green, cerulean, cobalt, indigo, navy, royal, sapphire, teal, turquoise, ultramarine, or the color of your favorite blue flower…

    I understand that it’s all some kind of shorthand for “She’s pretty. NO, not just pretty, she’s extra special, uniquely, double-plus Gooooood Lookin’.” But damn, all those violet eyed chicks get on my nerves.

    On their passport applications, do you think Romance Heroines put “Cerulean” for Eye Color, and “Sable” for Hair Color?

  32. Jess Granger says:

    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

    OMG!  I deliberately had a little fun with mood ring eyes in my book.  I had the hero’s eyes literally change color with mood, and glow on top of it so we can see all those vivid colors in the dark, because that always drove me nuts too.

    I also think the mysterious color changing eyes thing is silly so I set out to try to make it plausible.  It was fun, but clearly driven by all these magical eyes in romance novels.  This whole discussion has me falling out of my chair.

    I don’t mind eye descriptions in the novels I read so long as they aren’t a crutch.  Eye contact is intimate, and eye contact is the first spark of real intimacy between the characters.

    But I completely see your point, enough that I had to play with the trope in my own work.

    Fun fun, this is one of my guilty pleasures of romances.

  33. Suze says:

    In all fairness: anybody who thinks eyeballs can’t talk needs to watch Colin Firth as Darcy watch Lizzie play the piano.

    This!  Holy cow, that was AWESOME!  That’s the bit I remember best out of the whole miniseries.

    I like talking eyeballs.  Yes, it’s shorthand, but it is an attempt to show emotion, show body language, instead of “He became very angry with her, and showed it in his body language.”

    I dunno. Go to crazy with the facial details and I end up seeing Jim Carrey going rubber-faced. This is not a good look. Sometimes shorthand works.

    This, too.

    And (she admitted, a little embarassed) when I was a ‘tween I was TOTALLY intrigued by the one eyebrow raising.  I practiced it in a mirror for months, and now I do it automatically.  I can also wiggle my ears, which may be related…

  34. Suze says:

    By the way, is that whole changing of eye colour for people with multiple personalities a myth?  A quick google search is inconclusive, and I have no time for an in-depth one.  Anybody know off the top of your head?

    Ha!  groups53

  35. aphasia says:

    This is brilliant! I too have actually spent time wondering if perhaps I was just less perceptive than others because I was unable to see the darkening of arousal, etc in others’ eyes…….so this really cracked me up.

    Then I put down the computer and picked up my book, only to find within two pages- I am not making this up- his eyes “burning her exposed flesh with his gaze”!!! OUCH!!

  36. JenD says:

    I often find myself mimicking all the eyeball emoting in a book as a read.  I also often embarrass myself on the bus during my commute.

    Mfred, I do the same thing!

    I’ll be reading and I feel Hubbs staring at me so I look up- he’ll ask if I’m okay because my eyes are squinching and my forehead is warped like an old record. Uhm, yes hon I’m fine- just finding out that the man I loved was really my Father’s killer’s twin brother. 

    The one thing I have never been able to do is bat my eyelashes. I have lashes longer than a mile yet I can’t look through them or bat them about. How do people do that?
    (I may or may not have tried for hours and only ended up with a headache.)

  37. Pam says:

    I used to referee judo tournaments, and a revered, high ranked, international referee used to say that you could tell which player was going to throw by watching their eyes.  Since I never reached a level beyond watching their bodies so I could get out of the way and hopefully score the throw correctly, I can’t testify to this personally. 

    I can sometimes tell when people are lying by looking in their eyes, but I think that says more about why I’m looking in their eyes in the first place (to evaluate truthfulness) and how people use their eyes to convey or mask emotion.  My kids would sometimes stare fixedly into my eyes while telling whoppers; in fact, I may have done it once or twice myself, no doubt having heard that liars are betrayed by their shifty eyes.  I’ve also seen people widen their eyes when trying to fight off tears—like exposing more surface area will air dry the eyeballs.  My youngest daughter’s hazel eyes also seem to show much greater play of color when she’s happy than when she’s depressed, except when they’re shiny with suppressed tears.

    I can’t say I spend a lot of time staring into people’s eyes; I find it intrusive.  However, I do think people use their eyes deliberately at times to try to communicate.  Unfortunately, interpretation is all.  I tried staring down an obnoxious high school student once, thinking that my eyes were saying “I’m on to you, you little creep.”  He and his equally obnoxious buddies read it as “The bitch thinks you’re hot!  Ha-ha-ha!”  Therefore, I now avoid these experiments.  Seems to me that a writer could have a lot of fun with the potential for misinterpretation, though.

  38. Kristen Plank says:

    This post SERIOUSLY cracked me up! Especially the “harbored in their eyeballs” phrase.

  39. Rebecca CH says:

    Yes! Yes! Yes! This one really bugs me. It’s the laziness in writing that helps prejudice readers against the “bodice-rippers” and sort of ruins some books that would otherwise make my favorites list. Let’s stop with the cliches, please. It’s not just about the eyeballs, although this is a perfect example. I dislike reading the same descriptions in different books OVER and OVER again because writers don’t take the time to really SEE what their characters are doing. And the whole discussion on eye color change. Yes, eye color does change (my eyes are hazel and they can go from greenish brown to yellowish brown) but the changes are almost always subtle and don’t happen in a flash. I’m so tired of reading about hero’s eyes flashing to black because they’re horny. Even if their eyes started out blue in the first place. Black, for god’s sake!

  40. Maisey says:

    Just on the subject of the horniness darkening eyes, or the ‘black eyes’ thing…which, I’ll admit is a bit overboard…It’s because pupils expand when your aroused. Yep. It’s true. I used to scoff at it when I saw it in books, but I watched the Science of Sex on TLC or History or something, and they mentioned that.

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