How would you go about describing/expressing someone suppressed feelings? I need my characters to think about his suppressed feelings and I want them to share it with my readers. 1)Is it better to use metaphors? 2)Use words such as this He hid his feelings but it was weighed him down considerably.. Or 3)a Solliloquy/inner dialogues? I want to show that my character is aware of his suppressed feelings. He is going through them in his mind.
You could use first person in which s/he can just tell the reader about her/his feelings, but if you haven't started it in first person you probably don't want to change. I'm not sure what you mean by use a metaphor for it, could you give an example of what you mean by that? An inner dialogue can work so long as it doesn't sound too cheesy which it can in third person I find. I assume by that you mean narrating a character's thoughts? Your best bet is probably option 2, as it's the clearest and I think hardest to cock up.
I would use a variant of the second, but I usually wouldn't explicitly say that "he hid his feelings", I'd try to demonstrate it. "After three hours of smiling at unruly children, laughing at muddled jokes, and complimenting food that would be rejected at any half-decent church dinner, he made his escape to the hotel room. He collapsed on the bed with the remote and turned on the news, hoping for a major disaster somewhere."
Like ChickenFreak, I would try to show it. Sometimes even just a brief mention of a disingenuous facial expression or a line of insincere dialogue is enough to indicate to the reader that they are hiding their true feelings.
