What Overwhelms You?

Perhaps a WIP with a plot hole that forces a major rewrite? the loss of your editor? a missing shipment of books you ordered for a book fair?

Characters should experience emotional overwhelm too if the story calls for it. This post provides a few tools to include emotion without the words overwhelm or overwhelmed.

Emotion Beats and Physical Manifestations

How do people react when they feel as though they’re carrying the world on their shoulders? Would one of these beats suit your characters?

• a fluttering stomach
• butterflies in one’s stomach [cliché]
• hyperventilating, which might cause nausea
• slumping one’s back against a wall
• chest pains
• covering one’s ears with hands
• a ringing or buzzing sound in one’s ears
• legs that buckle
• a tremulous voice
• a strangled voice
• hyperventilating
• panic attacks and labored breathing
• a loud exhalation accompanied by a low moan
• losing or almost losing one’s balance while standing
• sitting or sleeping in fetal position, with one’s knees close to chest
• standing and resting weight on one leg, with other leg angled away

If you need additional beats, consult a body language dictionary. (As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)

Adjectives and Adjectival Phrases

Showing a character’s emotional state usually takes several words or sentences, but sometimes a scene demands brevity. Pay attention to the level of emotion, and pick through this list for a suitable alternative to overwhelmed.

B to D
beaten, beleaguered, beset, besieged, bogged down, broken, buffaloed, buried, burnt-out, conquered, consumed, crushed, dazed, defeated, deluged, devastated, distressed, done for, drowning, dumbfounded

E to O
encumbered, engulfed, exhausted, flattened, flooded, floored, foundering, gobsmacked, hammered, hard-pressed, harried, helpless, immersed, inundated, jammed, licked, lost, mired, overburdened, overbusy, overcome, overextended, overloaded, overpowered, overstretched, overtaxed, overworked, overwrought

P to W
plagued, powerless, quashed, saddled, shattered, slammed, smooshed, smothered, staggered, struggling, stuck, stunned, stymied, submerged, swamped, time-poor, unable to continue, unable to cope, upended, vanquished, verklempt, weighed down

Similes and Metaphors

Consider what overwhelms you and the people around you. Then create suitable similes or metaphors. Here are a few ideas to grease your creativity gears.

• deluged with a flood of tasks that even a __________ couldn’t navigate through
• drowning in memos, emails, and __________
• like a __________ trying to dig out of __________
• multitasking like an octopus protecting her eggs from a school of sharks

Scents

A person suffering from emotional overwhelm often perspires. If the overwhelm is longstanding, it might result in depression. Knowing this, you can include characters that smell like, reek of, or are redolent with the scent of:

A to D
acetone (fruity breath that could indicate poor management of sugar diabetes), alcohol [beer, wine, or your character’s favorite indulgence], antiperspirant, bad breath, body odor, dirty laundry

N to U
nicotine (from chain smoking), too much [aftershave, perfume], tooth decay, an uncleaned kitty litter box, stinky feet (from not changing socks for days or weeks), unwashed hair, urine

Have you ever noticed an unusual scent emanating from an overwhelmed friend, coworker, or family member? How would you describe it? Remember that as you work on your WIP.

The Versatility of Verbs

Many of the descriptors in the Adjectives section could be converted into verbs:

• defeated: defeat
• inundated: inundate
• overburdened: overburden
• staggered: stagger

For example:

Twenty-seven emphatic refusals from Sonja via email and text finally defeated Thomas. He relegated romance to the “impossible” folder in his mind and transformed into an ogre of a boss.

Thomas overburdened Sonja with budgets, meeting agendas, and proposals, never suspecting that she hyperventilated every time she spotted him lumbering toward her desk.

Nouns

Emotional overwhelm may occur on multiple levels, from discouragement to desolation. Explore these words to see if any match the gravity of your character’s situation.

A to W
abjection, blue funk [informal], cheerlessness, dejection, desolation, despair, despondency, discouragement, dispiritedness, distress, downheartedness, exasperation, frustration, gloominess, glumness, hopelessness, joylessness, lethargy, melancholia, melancholy, misery, pain, torment, unhappiness, weariness, wretchedness

Props

Well-chosen props augment a story by sparking new twists or subplots. They also reveal clues about a character’s age, occupation, phobias, or leisure activities:

An exterminator wakes up one morning to discover small insects crawling through the bedclothes. They’re unlike anything she’s ever seen before, and they creep her out. (Pun intended.) Does she try to get rid of them? call an entomologist friend? give up her extermination business because she thinks the bugs are out to get her?

A cat claws through the carpeting in several rooms of the house. Its owner tries everything to discourage the behavior, including confining kitty to a bathroom at night. But that results in the shower curtain and towels ending up in shreds. Kitty once belonged to the owner’s beloved deceased grandma. What happens next? Does he move his blankets and pillow into the tub to sleep with the cat? read Grandma’s final instructions more carefully and discover __________?

A bumbling salesperson who hates technology is tasked with learning new software. He ends up on the company’s server and deletes important files. Does he blame it on a hacker? pretend he doesn’t know anything about it? call a hacker friend to repair the damage?

Pick Through This List for More Ideas to Enhance Your Storyline

A to I
allergies, applying for a job that one isn’t qualified for, bugs (literal, or a glitch in a computer program), clutter [in one’s bedroom, garage, office], a crying child, a deadline for [a college essay, finishing a book], a desire for perfectionism, a diet, a family reunion, finances, funeral arrangements, holidays, housework, a huge to-do list, an infestation of [ants, cockroaches, head lice, termites, unidentified insects]

L to S
loss of a loved one, a medical crisis, a misbehaved [child, friend, pet], new software or technology, noise, a [mother-in-law, father-in-law], a partner or spouse, planning a [birthday party, book fair, retirement party, wedding], a school assignment, a school reunion, shopping for __________­­­­, social media

T to Y
text messages from [a marketing company, an unknown stalker], training for [a dance competition, a marathon, a triathlon, a trip to Mars], travel by [air, boat, rocket, train], typographical errors in one’s published book, a work assignment, yelling of a parent or tyrannical boss

Clichés and Idioms

Platitudes function well in some types of dialogue. However, unless your writing style is informal, you might want to avoid expressions like the following.

• against the wall
• at one’s wits’ end
• at the end of one’s rope
• carrying the world on one’s shoulders
• creeped out
• down in the dumps
• in over one’s head
• knee-deep in something
• out of one’s depth
• run-over
• rushed off one’s feet
• snowed under
• up to one’s chin, ears, eyebrows, or neck in something
• with only one pair of hands