show vs. tell

Quick Link: 3 Secrets For Writing Like A Pro

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Wanna know the secret to taking your writing to the next level? It’s all about the tweaking between telling and showing. But those changes make a huge difference in the quality of your story. Award-winning author Stacey Keith, guest posting at Writers And Authors, has some great examples to show you how!

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3 Secrets For Writing Like A Pro

by Stacy Keith

Writing an email is easy. Writing a novel is the kind of hard that requires years of apprenticeship. “Apprenticeship” in this case means getting it way wrong before you get it even a little bit right. Hey, I should know.

You’ve got to commit to a lot of bad writing in order to reach a level of basic competence. Most people don’t go the distance. Most people don’t realize their beginning writing sucks. Most people, even ones who have talent, lack that most essential ingredient to success as a writer: STAMINA.

Stamina (or persistence, if you prefer) determines whether you’re going to be a hack or a writer. Not only must you suffer the slings and arrows of writing bad prose (if you stay at it, you do get better—sometimes a lot better), but if you want to level up, get an agent, get a publishing contract, trust me, you’re going to need stamina for that, too. It can take years.

Now might be a good time to ask: How badly do I want it?

Read the full post on Writers And Authors!

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Quick Link: The Basics of Show Don’t Tell

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

I know, I know. We share a lot of “show don’t tell” posts. But in my defence, I think it is one of those subjects that seems easy until you try and do it and this is a really great post by  at Pub Crawl. She has some excellent examples.

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The Basics of Show Don’t Tell

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Hi all; Julie here! Today’s post goes back to basics with a discussion of Show Don’t Tell. (For other approaches to this rule, you can read JJ’s piece on balancing the mix of showing and telling, Pub Crawl alum Susan Dennard’s post on using showing and telling on macro and micro levels, and Kat’s approach to when to show and when to tell.) There are few rules of craft that can be applied to a draft that will lift the level of the writing with the same effect as this simple rule. With every first draft I write, I find I fall into the lazy habit of telling, and with each revision, I look for places I can show more. Some basic rules are basics for good reason. 🙂
Let’s start with the real nitty-gritty. What does it mean to “show” or “tell” in your writing?One simple way of thinking about it is this:

  • Writing that “shows” creates a mental image and lets the reader draw conclusions about what’s happening.
  • Writing that “tells” explains what’s happening and provides the writer’s own conclusions.

For example:

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

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Five "Show Don't Tell" Danger Zones

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This post by Diana Hurwitz originally appeared on The Blood Red Pencil on 3/5/15.

Showing is illustrated through actions and interiority rather than the author telling us how the character is reacting and behaving.

Telling often involves adverbs and adjectives. Look for bland descriptive words like: attractive, dumb, embarrassing, fabulous, fascinating, handsome, hilarious, mad, powerful, pretty, smart, stunning, stupid, tired, and ugly. Telling is fertile ground for clichés. Make it fresh.

Here are five danger zones to watch out for.

 

1. Action: Don’t tell us what a character does; describe what constitutes the action.

Telling: Dick worked hard.

Showing: Dick wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He lifted the axe and swung: thunk, swipe, thunk. The chunk of wood sheared into small pieces. Each blow reverberated through his shoulders and back.

Telling: Jane walked quickly through the aisles, tossing in items without looking at them.

 

Read the full post on The Blood Red Pencil.

 

Show Versus Tell

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This post by Ksenia Anske originally appeared on her blog on 1/14/14. Note that it contains strong language.

Amazing how in the years of writing my blog, I’ve never touched on this subject. How did it get skipped? Perhaps because it’s spoken about everywhere all the time, so it became one of those obvious things everyone heard about and is therefore sick of. I dunno. Let me try a crack at it and see what you think. Of course it’s all about showing and not telling, as we have been told by teachers, writing peers, and all the other smart folk who have written awesome shit and are willing to give out advice. Well, I’ve written shit too, but not much yet, only on my 3rd novel. I can tell you that it’s not so much about show vs tell as it is about you vs your characters. WHAT THE FUCK? You say. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO SAY THAT? I know, just a newbie writer, but bear with me. Let me explain. Okay, here goes.

It’s not you who is writing the book, it’s your characters. This was hard to realize, because it meant I had to rewrite whole passages in my current draft. What is it, you wonder? It’s life philosophies, the outlooks, the goals, the whatever you want to call it (various sources will call it various things), but basically, it’s what your characters want from life, at least from life you carved out for them in your book. It can be as primitive as getting drunk, still, it’s a valid goal, and with it comes a certain belief in certain things. Like, for example, in IRKADURA I’m describing one old drunk, a chauvinistic communist to the bone (I’ve met people like that) and a people hater, he especially hates those who are not Russian.

 

Click here to read the full post on Ksenia Anske’s blog.