For this seventh post in this special series by Beth Barany and me on Travel and Writing, we share our personal experiences with how body language can communicate culture and country, and how you can use your experience of it to add dimension and detail to characters and setting. Look for more posts from us every other Wednesday. And get information on our destination retreats, Beth’s in Paris, and mine near Delphi, Greece.
Even before I met my husband who is 100% Italian, people used to ask me if I was Italian. Most of the time, they were kidding because with a last name like Chaffee it wasn’t likely. But they would comment.
Why? Because, I use my hands a lot in conversation. I wave and gesture and point.
It’s a cliché, isn’t it? And yet, like many clichés, one with some truth behind it.
For example, on the third day of our trip in Tuscany, Italy last May, Bob, my husband, and I settled into the back seat of a limo for a tour through Chianti country. The driver, Andrea, was taking us to tour three small boutique wineries in the region.
He picked us up at our small apartment in Florence, then drove onto the Autostrade A1 (the Italian equivalent of an interstate highway that connects Milan to Naples). We were speeding along when a car started to pass us and “bump”!
Andrea applied the brakes, rolled down his window and shouted at the car’s driver, who also slowed down. Both cars were pulled over to the side of the highway.
Andrea, with his dark hair and eyes and his neatly trimmed beard, looking very Italian, stepped from the car muttering in his native language. As I leaned over to watch him from my window, he turned to look back at the other car parked behind us, chin jutted out, and he…
Flicked the back of his fingers of his right hand beneath his chin.
As tense as the moment might have been, I had to laugh. The gesture was so Italian! No translation needed.
If the driver of the other car didn’t know that Andrea was angry, there was something wrong with him. That gesture said it all…”I’m angry. I think you are an idiot (polite version) and you know what you can do…”
Andrea could have done any number of other things and I wouldn’t have remembered the event so clearly but that gesture anchored me in Andrea’s world.
A simple gesture like that from one of your characters can do the same for your reader.
Because long before there were words there were gestures—a reaching hand, a cupped hand, a hand with palm out, a fisted hand.
And that is just the hand. There are so many ways to communicate with the body that numerous books have been written about it. In fact, there are almost 100,000 entries in Amazon on body language.
Yet, as writers, it is easy to forget that non-verbal language when we are busy being verbal.
That is why traveling to other countries, even other parts of this country, can be so beneficial. Watching how the locals communicate—or don’t—with their bodies can give you an immediate sense of place and culture. That stiff upper lip of the English tells you as much about culture and expected behavior there as Andrea’s did about Italy.
So whether you are in England or Italy, New York City or New Orleans, pay attention to the body language.
What do the gestures tell you about the people and the culture of the place? How can you use that to add dimension to character and setting in your writing?
Your best way to find out? Travel…and write.
And for more on the benefits of travel and language, check out Beth’s post this week. And, if you love writing on a beach or writing looking out over water or mountains, then check out my Greece writing retreat at www.retreatwithyourmuse.com.