This is really helpful, thank you 🤩 I have struggled to understand how to apply show don’t tell in my writing for a while now, but you have explained it in a way which is very easy to understand. I think maybe it just clicked! 🎉😁👍
I am so glad. I also struggled with it for years. Once you have a grasp on it, your writing will be so much better. You can look at some of my earlier writing and clearly see when I struggled with it and when it clicked. What are you writing?
Hi, thanks so much for replying. It is great to know it’s not just me. 😃 I am working on a ya science fiction/ fantasy novel and have spent over 3 years writing and trying to improve it. There was a fair amount of world building so I didn’t exactly make my first novel easy on myself! When I first started out, I had no idea how hard it would be and had no clue how much effort and time goes into producing a reasonably decent novel. I think my main problem is some of the writing sounds flat and I have recently realised it is probably because I’m doing far too much telling! 😊
I'm glad you like my commentary the walls really do rattle when my brother slams the door he is partially deaf right now he has an eye infection and is having a hard time doing much this makes him angry so a little humor to keep me from getting made
Ok. 1. Create an outline: what is showing - what is telling; when and why does an author use one or the other; how do these correspond to POV; examples of how you changed telling to showing and how that affected the narrative. 2. Changing run to dart is not changing telling to showing. 'When the time was right, he darted to the bush,' is telling. 'Jake looked around. "All clear - good." Keeping as low as he could, he ran straight to bush beside the big window,' is showing. In other words, you need to rethink the info in point one. 3. You need to use words and sentence structure to paint a picture. Sudden actions require short sentences, long, drawn out actions lengthy sentences. 'The lions advanced in perfect synchronicity until they spied Blaze, who was trying to aim a pistol at them. Her hand was shaking so violently that one would find "aim" to be a very generous description indeed. Wide-eyed, Victoria vaulted into the open truck bed. Like a lioness couldn't follow her there. ...' (Not my greatest, but this is a throwaway text from my perspective, not part of a book I am writing or editing.) I used passive voice. Why? The lions are active so they have active verbs. Blaze is passive, unmoving, so she needs passive verbs. Also, the lions achieved their goal - they advanced. Blaze never succeeded in aiming the pistol, so an imperfect tense was used, not a passive. Notice, the lions advanced for a long time, thus, a long sentence, looming danger. Blaze is frozen in place, thus a long sentence. Victoria vaulted - a short sentence. Then the thought - Why did she do that? - also a short sentence, because it dawned on her suddenly. Short sentences are your punctuation, not exclamation points. 4. Your second text/description makes no sense. 'faded quilt' 'dirty glass' and 'cracks in ... panels' but fresh clean 'pink frilly curtains'. First, they would be dusty. Second, if the light was so good that she could see color, she would not see much outside that room through the glass unless the outdoors was well lit. If the room is in such abject disrepair, who is paying the electric bill? That's a road, not a street. A person living in a house like that is likely not to have electricity. Enough said.
Thank you for your comment. I will consider what you've said, but this is a work in progress, and many of your points are explained in the passages before and after the selected passage.
@@DaveandAngieSmuin Ok, I am not clear what was meant, so I am listening a second time. 1. Mary and Joe being angry. I would not have imagined this is the way you two express anger. You are talking about irritation and anger, but your showing was of absolutely furious. How the clock's flashing or his hair has anything to do with being angry is beyond me. It is not connected up in the passage. If you wanted to show time, cold food unattractively slopped on a plate or a well wrinkled Sunday blouse would have shown lateness. Flashing usually means power interruption around here. Messy hair sounds like he changed a tire, when it has been ages since I saw anyone stopped at the roadside to change one. If you wanted to show previous activity, grease on a shirt or a trousers' knee would be more effective. I doubt the girl he had been visiting would have allowed him to leave with his hair a mess. Slamming the book down is sooo melodramatic, and so hard on the telephone. You haven't mentioned that this was set in the 1960s when flats were common and men didn't yet worry about their hair being messy. Changing the mood shows the readers that showing makes a story sound melodramatic, which is totally inaccurate. 2. Telling has many uses, like misdirection. If you show Joe changing a tyre, then it likely happened (unless some sort of dream sequence), but if Joe says to Mary, 'Sorry I'm late; I had to change a tire,' then it could a lie. Misdirection in showing is of a different ilk, like Mary acting furious in order to manipulate Joe so that he doesn't repeat his 'misbehaviour'. It would be better to say that you show a reader what you want them to remember and tell them what you want them to skip over. Telling simply acts like a big 'and then...', moving the reader from one showing to the next. That Mary was irritated/angry/furious with Joe might be critical to the story, but the author prefers to direct the attention elsewhere and so simply tells about it. Then, a couple chapters later, Joe wonders why his car stinks so horribly. Showing Mary was angry would fix the idea in the reader's head, building tension until she has her revenge. Telling would allow the revenge to be a surprise. Since they break up in the next chapter, yeah, her being angry was important, but it could be told instead of being shown. And that is the point you need to be making. Showing just to make the story more vivid is just cluttering the story with unnecessary words. You want to look at how you the author want to shape the reader's attention. What is shown is more likely to draw the reader in emotionally. So what you show shapes what emotions the reader will have, not what emotions the characters will have. But showing is useful for the author as well. Writing a show passage helps the author get a better feel for the character, to get into his or her head. Even if the passage is later deleted, it still helps the author. So, by all means, show all you want in earlier drafts, but be prepared to delete some of those passages. Now, if you had said you were going to go back and check the show passages and look for elements of surviving telling within them that would be more effective and consistent as showing, then I would agree. But remember, every word needs to have a reason to be there. Messy hair is worth mentioning only if it is going to figure in the story in some way. Since Mary did not react to it, then that relevance needs to be presented later. For all we know, Joe always thinks his hair is messy and 'straightens' it every time he sees Mary. Thus, his gesture would show that he is blissfully unaware or unperturbed that he is late. But this is already too long. I am not risking it further. Hopefully, this will better illustrate why I disagree with your explanation.
Sat for the weak verb is the worse for me. I always try to find something that fits it, and it just never works. Then I end up reworking the sentence debating whether or not a word can feel if I bash my computer screen with Microsoft word open.
smell and taste words are hard to get around using you can describe what something taste like but the word is still used there are other words for smell but other then flavor i can't thing of anything else for taste but i might just be missing them
Taste is a hard one. I would think about what it tastes like and describe it. Bitter, sweet, tangy... You don't have to eliminate all senses words, but you should always look at them and evaluate if you can use something to create a visual picture for the reader.
I like it. However, using the words viciously and fury are potentially telling. You can do it or ask yourself, how can I describe someone closing a door in anger without stating it. I really like the "rattling the walls" and "slammed the door." Think about what his body language, facial expressions, and words can be to show his anger.
Question about the lions why didn't they shoot them it might be clear if you are reading the whole story if not you might want to ad a little thing in about it. not sure if anyone else would notice but i seem to fine all the little odd things like that like the story with a woman terrified of the dark but had no flashlight and this was before phones have them built in and the other was an old west story but they called dandelions a nuisance they are a very good medicinal herb that people back then used all the time a lot of people still use it as a food and herb
In the story, they don't want to shoot them, but that is a good point. I will go back through it and make sure that it is clear. Thank you for that feedback! And yes, dandelions are quite healthy. In fact, in the old west, they would get excited to see the dandelions come out, and they would gather them and make salads out of the greens, among other things. Those small details are actually very important so they don't distract the reader from enjoying the story.
Data varies but it ranges from 200 lion attacks on humans per annum (BBC Science Focus) to 282 during 1950-2019 (given in 2023, PLOS Biology). Lions like fast food and we are not fast enough. Better a tiger or sloth bear.
Those are interesting stats about lions. But this story takes place in North America. The lions in the story have escaped from the zoo. It is dystopian fiction and very different from what is actually happening now.
@@DaveandAngieSmuin Dystopian or not, study lion attacks before writing about them. An escaped lion would not have hunting skills and so might be hungry enough to eat human, but humans have always been the source of food for it. It might ask nicely. A nice little passage from the first Google result. 'Lions either ambush approaching prey or move carefully to within striking distance. The final charge is usually less than 50 m; any further and the lion will overheat. If the prey is captured, the lion bites at the muzzle or throat to throttle it.' 50 m is half a football field. So, do you have this attack properly planned? In an urban environment, an ambush and sudden spring sound more likely for hunting. Defending territory is done by the male. To me, it sounds like these lions are not hungry, just out for a stroll and irritated by the disruption. Fantasy is convincing only if it is based on facts, not fiction. Writing requires tons of research.
What is your greatest struggle with Show Don't Tell?
This is really helpful, thank you 🤩 I have struggled to understand how to apply show don’t tell in my writing for a while now, but you have explained it in a way which is very easy to understand. I think maybe it just clicked! 🎉😁👍
I am so glad. I also struggled with it for years. Once you have a grasp on it, your writing will be so much better. You can look at some of my earlier writing and clearly see when I struggled with it and when it clicked. What are you writing?
Hi, thanks so much for replying. It is great to know it’s not just me. 😃 I am working on a ya science fiction/ fantasy novel and have spent over 3 years writing and trying to improve it. There was a fair amount of world building so I didn’t exactly make my first novel easy on myself! When I first started out, I had no idea how hard it would be and had no clue how much effort and time goes into producing a reasonably decent novel. I think my main problem is some of the writing sounds flat and I have recently realised it is probably because I’m doing far too much telling! 😊
i do like the B's best
Thank you!
I'm glad you like my commentary the walls really do rattle when my brother slams the door he is partially deaf right now he has an eye infection and is having a hard time doing much this makes him angry so a little humor to keep me from getting made
Those are the kinds of observations that are so useful in writing!
Ok. 1. Create an outline: what is showing - what is telling; when and why does an author use one or the other; how do these correspond to POV; examples of how you changed telling to showing and how that affected the narrative.
2. Changing run to dart is not changing telling to showing. 'When the time was right, he darted to the bush,' is telling. 'Jake looked around. "All clear - good." Keeping as low as he could, he ran straight to bush beside the big window,' is showing. In other words, you need to rethink the info in point one.
3. You need to use words and sentence structure to paint a picture. Sudden actions require short sentences, long, drawn out actions lengthy sentences. 'The lions advanced in perfect synchronicity until they spied Blaze, who was trying to aim a pistol at them. Her hand was shaking so violently that one would find "aim" to be a very generous description indeed. Wide-eyed, Victoria vaulted into the open truck bed. Like a lioness couldn't follow her there. ...' (Not my greatest, but this is a throwaway text from my perspective, not part of a book I am writing or editing.) I used passive voice. Why? The lions are active so they have active verbs. Blaze is passive, unmoving, so she needs passive verbs. Also, the lions achieved their goal - they advanced. Blaze never succeeded in aiming the pistol, so an imperfect tense was used, not a passive. Notice, the lions advanced for a long time, thus, a long sentence, looming danger. Blaze is frozen in place, thus a long sentence. Victoria vaulted - a short sentence. Then the thought - Why did she do that? - also a short sentence, because it dawned on her suddenly. Short sentences are your punctuation, not exclamation points.
4. Your second text/description makes no sense. 'faded quilt' 'dirty glass' and 'cracks in ... panels' but fresh clean 'pink frilly curtains'. First, they would be dusty. Second, if the light was so good that she could see color, she would not see much outside that room through the glass unless the outdoors was well lit. If the room is in such abject disrepair, who is paying the electric bill? That's a road, not a street. A person living in a house like that is likely not to have electricity.
Enough said.
Thank you for your comment. I will consider what you've said, but this is a work in progress, and many of your points are explained in the passages before and after the selected passage.
@@DaveandAngieSmuin Ok, I am not clear what was meant, so I am listening a second time.
1. Mary and Joe being angry. I would not have imagined this is the way you two express anger. You are talking about irritation and anger, but your showing was of absolutely furious. How the clock's flashing or his hair has anything to do with being angry is beyond me. It is not connected up in the passage. If you wanted to show time, cold food unattractively slopped on a plate or a well wrinkled Sunday blouse would have shown lateness. Flashing usually means power interruption around here. Messy hair sounds like he changed a tire, when it has been ages since I saw anyone stopped at the roadside to change one. If you wanted to show previous activity, grease on a shirt or a trousers' knee would be more effective. I doubt the girl he had been visiting would have allowed him to leave with his hair a mess. Slamming the book down is sooo melodramatic, and so hard on the telephone. You haven't mentioned that this was set in the 1960s when flats were common and men didn't yet worry about their hair being messy. Changing the mood shows the readers that showing makes a story sound melodramatic, which is totally inaccurate.
2. Telling has many uses, like misdirection. If you show Joe changing a tyre, then it likely happened (unless some sort of dream sequence), but if Joe says to Mary, 'Sorry I'm late; I had to change a tire,' then it could a lie. Misdirection in showing is of a different ilk, like Mary acting furious in order to manipulate Joe so that he doesn't repeat his 'misbehaviour'. It would be better to say that you show a reader what you want them to remember and tell them what you want them to skip over. Telling simply acts like a big 'and then...', moving the reader from one showing to the next. That Mary was irritated/angry/furious with Joe might be critical to the story, but the author prefers to direct the attention elsewhere and so simply tells about it. Then, a couple chapters later, Joe wonders why his car stinks so horribly. Showing Mary was angry would fix the idea in the reader's head, building tension until she has her revenge. Telling would allow the revenge to be a surprise. Since they break up in the next chapter, yeah, her being angry was important, but it could be told instead of being shown. And that is the point you need to be making. Showing just to make the story more vivid is just cluttering the story with unnecessary words. You want to look at how you the author want to shape the reader's attention. What is shown is more likely to draw the reader in emotionally. So what you show shapes what emotions the reader will have, not what emotions the characters will have. But showing is useful for the author as well. Writing a show passage helps the author get a better feel for the character, to get into his or her head. Even if the passage is later deleted, it still helps the author. So, by all means, show all you want in earlier drafts, but be prepared to delete some of those passages. Now, if you had said you were going to go back and check the show passages and look for elements of surviving telling within them that would be more effective and consistent as showing, then I would agree. But remember, every word needs to have a reason to be there. Messy hair is worth mentioning only if it is going to figure in the story in some way. Since Mary did not react to it, then that relevance needs to be presented later. For all we know, Joe always thinks his hair is messy and 'straightens' it every time he sees Mary. Thus, his gesture would show that he is blissfully unaware or unperturbed that he is late.
But this is already too long. I am not risking it further. Hopefully, this will better illustrate why I disagree with your explanation.
Which version do you like better? A or B?
Sat for the weak verb is the worse for me. I always try to find something that fits it, and it just never works. Then I end up reworking the sentence debating whether or not a word can feel if I bash my computer screen with Microsoft word open.
I totally know what you mean. I always want to write, "Sat down" and have to go back and rework it.
smell and taste words are hard to get around using you can describe what something taste like but the word is still used there are other words for smell but other then flavor i can't thing of anything else for taste but i might just be missing them
Taste is a hard one. I would think about what it tastes like and describe it. Bitter, sweet, tangy... You don't have to eliminate all senses words, but you should always look at them and evaluate if you can use something to create a visual picture for the reader.
how about this description he viciously slammed the door rattling the walls with his fury
I like it. However, using the words viciously and fury are potentially telling. You can do it or ask yourself, how can I describe someone closing a door in anger without stating it. I really like the "rattling the walls" and "slammed the door." Think about what his body language, facial expressions, and words can be to show his anger.
Question about the lions why didn't they shoot them it might be clear if you are reading the whole story if not you might want to ad a little thing in about it. not sure if anyone else would notice but i seem to fine all the little odd things like that like the story with a woman terrified of the dark but had no flashlight and this was before phones have them built in and the other was an old west story but they called dandelions a nuisance they are a very good medicinal herb that people back then used all the time a lot of people still use it as a food and herb
In the story, they don't want to shoot them, but that is a good point. I will go back through it and make sure that it is clear. Thank you for that feedback! And yes, dandelions are quite healthy. In fact, in the old west, they would get excited to see the dandelions come out, and they would gather them and make salads out of the greens, among other things. Those small details are actually very important so they don't distract the reader from enjoying the story.
Data varies but it ranges from 200 lion attacks on humans per annum (BBC Science Focus) to 282 during 1950-2019 (given in 2023, PLOS Biology). Lions like fast food and we are not fast enough. Better a tiger or sloth bear.
Those are interesting stats about lions. But this story takes place in North America. The lions in the story have escaped from the zoo. It is dystopian fiction and very different from what is actually happening now.
@@DaveandAngieSmuin Dystopian or not, study lion attacks before writing about them. An escaped lion would not have hunting skills and so might be hungry enough to eat human, but humans have always been the source of food for it. It might ask nicely. A nice little passage from the first Google result. 'Lions either ambush approaching prey or move carefully to within striking distance. The final charge is usually less than 50 m; any further and the lion will overheat. If the prey is captured, the lion bites at the muzzle or throat to throttle it.' 50 m is half a football field. So, do you have this attack properly planned? In an urban environment, an ambush and sudden spring sound more likely for hunting. Defending territory is done by the male. To me, it sounds like these lions are not hungry, just out for a stroll and irritated by the disruption. Fantasy is convincing only if it is based on facts, not fiction. Writing requires tons of research.
Vote Kamala so that the US can finally get its first tigers and sloth bears (Sher Khan and Baloo)
Mary and Joe's relationship is an inappropriate model for young people. Please stop presenting it to them.
I am sorry you feel that way, but it is a great example of the concept I am talking about in this video.