Show vs Tell

Good Thursday morning!

Today's really cold where I am and it's gonna be a lot colder over the next few days, yuck! lol ;) Anyway, as promised, today's blog post is about showing vs telling, with an extra tidbit of sensing it up!

Most if not all authors, whether they're just starting out or have a few finished books under their belt, those whom are published or polishing and ready to query out, have more than likely heard or read publisher's tips; and this one is usually towards the top... 'Show don't tell'. A new author may not really understand what this means and even those who do, may still stumble over it a time or two.  So, you scratch your head and wonder, well, that's great it's pointed out, but it doesn't help if you're not really sure what it is or how to correct it. Hopefully, the examples will help get your thoughts flowing, as well as digging deeper to flesh out realistic characters and lives as much as you possibly can. And with a little or more than a little practice, hopefully, your next letter will not include.. your characters don't feel real enough/couldn't connect with your characters/story.. or you need to work on showing and not telling.



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.


We reworded the sentence, fixing the show vs tell problem, but by sensing it up a bit, the small sentence grew into a paragraph that didn't feel so flat or general, but more appealing.

Show vs Tell..

As he stepped from the shadow of the corner, there's a firm strength within him.

The word "there's" in this sentence is telling and not showing. Below we'll fix this one too, as well as sensing it up a bit.

A well groomed, tall, tanned skin man. Massive shoulders with rippling muscles under his tight blue shirt. He stood still, devilishly handsome and aware of every female's delicious stare, looking as if they would devour him, ever so slow.


Okay, now that you have samples of how to take a simple sentence from basic to more bang for the buck so to speak, while fixing show vs tell..go ahead and try sensing up your characters and their worlds. Because readers who can relate/connect are more likely to be drawn in and invested in your characters and what he/she does as the story unfolds.

Some words to be on the look out: it, it's, there, could, felt, feel, get, heard. Also you'll wanna be on the look out when reworking from telling into showing, that you don't fall into a passive voice while making these fixes in your ms. So be on the look out for 'was'. We'll touch more on passive voice in a later blog post but 'was' is a big one for me, and I wanted to mention it. A couple more are 'have, had'. These too, can be added to your list of words to look out for while editing.

Hope this helps :) Happy Writing!