: Re: In fiction, what is meant by phrases such as "his eyes flashed anger for a moment"? I've read a lot of such phrases, but that one in particular doesn't make sense to me. Physically, what
Taking this phrase at face value, I'd assume that the area surrounding the character's eyes (and not just the eyes themselves) show a very brief sign of anger that the character then manages to get back under control.
This is called a micro expression and lasts about 1/5th of a second: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microexpression
In the case of anger, for this brief instance, you'd see one or more of would be the following facial muscle movements:
eyebrows lowered and drawn together (in a V shape)
vertical lines between the eyebrows
lower eyelids tightened
upper eyelids raised
directly staring at the other person
You could try to come up with a more descriptive sentence based on these. The "tightened eyelids" ("narrowed eyes") are probably understandable enough as well as the "lowered eyebrows" or the "vertical lines between the eyebrows".
Describing the quickness of the emotion might be trickier. You could say something like "he put on a placid smile again" or "but when I blinked, he looked as composed as ever".
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