Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-23872426-20140612023622/@comment-24821182-20140613170019

General ways?

It honestly depends on the situation your character's in. Think of a human being not as a single individual, but as several different people sharing the same body; when I go to school, I'm a completely different person than when I'm at work. We all have a variety of different personas that we switch between all the time depending on which is the most favorable to be in a given context.

If your character is by him- or herself, that character would act a lot like he/she actually is, as there's no chains of etiquette or expectancy of behavior tying that character other than the ones he/she imposes on him- or herself. You can act however you please when no one's watching.

If your character is somewhere public, it's expected that the character remains calm and collected in an everyday situation, and distaste, horror, or excessive joy should be revealed in subtle things like walking around while trembling or moving with a steady rhythm.

When nothing's normal about the situation your character is in, it would make sense for them to openly display their horror - or whatever they're feeling. An extreme situation justifies an extreme reaction.