Good Tuesday morning! I hope those who celebrated the holiday had a wonderful and safe day and weekend :)
Today's post is on show vs tell. I've received a few emails asking to go a little more in detail if I wouldn't mind.. so we're gonna talk about that this morning and hopefully you'll be able to spot show vs tell and be able to work through/change/reword when you're editing your manuscript easier than from the original posted topic. We'll use one of the examples that I used in the original post and take it from there ;)
Original post example:
Show vs Tell..
She felt brave.
A three worded sentence and the word "felt" is telling and not showing. Below, we'll fix that, but also breathe life into your characters a bit, aka, sensing it up.
Her courage and determination, solid as a rock inside her. Until the very second when she looked deep into his golden brown eyes. All the strength and confidence flew out the window. She couldn't afford to be distracted from the attraction pulsating through her veins, growing stronger the longer she spends time with him. In an instant she turned into a dribbling lovesick fool. Panicking, looking around the room for something to focus on other than his glorious muscular body, giving her time to pull herself together.
So, basically, we're being told she felt brave but not actually how she was acting, responding, what she was doing to show us/the readers what was going on. That's the difference really, and by switching out the word felt and describing what/how she is doing and whatnot, that takes the sentence into a different direction. The actions she's taking to make her react a certain way, what is she looking at, what she is doing, what's going on inside her mind/body etc.. all of this changes the way it goes from telling to showing.
Thank you for the questions and requests on topics :)
I hope this helps :) Happy Writing!
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