Can You Hear Your Characters?

i loved your recent answer about pacing it was so helpful! it wasn’t my question but the advice was brilliant! not sure if i’ve just missed it but do you have a post on showing not telling? i’m not great with exposition and writing descriptions about things that matter in a scene! thank you :)

Guide: Showing vs Telling

I talk a lot about showing vs telling but I don't have a whole post about it, so here goes! ♥

"Showing vs telling" is one of those phrases that strikes fear into the hearts of newer writers, but it's actually very simple and nothing to worry about.

This quote, which is paraphrased from something once said by writer Anton Chekhov, is the absolute best illustration of showing vs telling.

...

Telling: Sally walked outside and saw the moon was shining.

Showing: Sally walked outside and carefully stepped over the puddles of moonlight left behind by the evening's rainstorm.

...

Telling: It was a long walk to the road.

Showing: Sally skirted the shadows as she traversed the muddy distance between the house and the road.

...

Telling: Sally was mad.

Showing: She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, her nostrils flaring as her mind raced through every mean word Harold had said.

...

Humans are pretty good at interpreting sensory details. If it's night and we see light shining in a puddle, we know that light is coming either from the moon or an artificial light. We can look up in the sky and see whether it's the moon or whether there's an artificial light nearby. If we suddenly find ourselves standing in a forest and hear wolves howling nearby, we can probably guess we're in a remote location and are possibly in danger. If we go outside and smell wood burning and see black smoke, we can guess there's a fire. If it's cold outside and there are homes with fireplaces nearby, we might assume someone has a nice fire going in their fireplace. If we're in the middle of nowhere, we might guess it's a campfire. If it's the middle of summer, we might worry that there's a wildfire or wonder if a neighbor is burning yard waste.

Showing vs telling is all about taking the direct thing you want to tell the reader--Sally was mad--and thinking about the sensory details that would illustrate that thing for the reader. What can be seen? What can be heard? What can be smelled? What can be tasted? What can be felt?

You don't have to pull every sense into your description, though. Only the ones that best convey the thing you're trying to convey. In the case of "Sally was mad..."

What can we see? Her fists are clenched, her jaw is tight, her nostrils are flaring.

What can we hear? She is grunting, spitting through her teeth when she speaks, she's breathing heavily.

What can we smell? Well, in the case of anger, we generally don't smell anything. Though, if the thing she's angry about has any smells associated with it--like being mad about burning some cookies--that is certainly something to consider.

What can we taste? A third-party observer might not taste anything, but Sally might taste the char of the burned cookies. Or she might taste bile in her throat that resulted from anger-related stomach upset.

What can we feel? Again, a third-party observer might not feel anything associated with someone's anger--unless it's the vibration of a tapping foot of the hot breath of someone's angry words--but Sally might feel her heart racing or heat rising into her cheeks. She might feel the grit of the burned cookies in her mouth.

Showing vs telling means looking at those possibilities and choosing a few that can be combined to create the impression you want to give.

However, sometimes--for the sake of pacing, scene transitions, exposition following a time jump, and for other reasons, telling can actually be the better choice.

Here are some situations where telling is better than showing:

1) When something happened but it isn’t critical for the readers to see the thing actually play out. If the burned cookies played only a small role in Sally's anger, it may not be important to show how the burned cookies affected her. It might just be better to say, "The burned cookies only added to Sally's fury."

2) When clarifying less important things that happened during a “time skip.” If the situation that caused Sally's anger happened off the page, that might be a good time to tell rather than show. Otherwise, you have to do a little flashback to show the thing happening, but that might not make sense to do, especially if the thing that happened wasn't as important as the fact that she's in a bad mood when the new chapter begins.

3) When you need to make a long conversation, speech, or description a little bit shorter. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm your reader with page after page of description, so sometimes it makes more sense to tell things directly to the reader rather than to show them. Any time you get to something that can be told or shown, ask yourself if this is an opportunity to bring some description into the story, or whether "showing" the thing would slow things down or clutter up a section that already has a lot of description.

4) When you need to deliver back story or other important information. If Sally being angry about the cookies preceded an event that was important to her backstory, and this story is being told by one of Sally's acquaintances to another character in the story, this might be a time when it's better to just say, "She was angry about some burned cookies, and that's why she stormed into the village and accidentally bumped into Lord Rotherwell." Otherwise, you once again get into sort of a flashback type situation, which might work in some backstory explanations but not others.

I hope that helps! :)

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Vale, ¡es el tiempo de chisme! Tengo un novio :)

we’ve been dating for like 8 months but we’ve known each other for like 5 years as friends which I really like since we know we enjoy being around each other a lot!

we actually first became friends because we were both story people who liked talking about fandoms and such before we even knew fandoms were a thing. So pretty much every time we see each other we’re like “do you have any new story ideas?”

also he’s like one of the nicest most considerate people I know which is really nice :)

Funny story, we met just around when I was first thinking I might not be entirely straight and discovering the queer community. He was like “I’m straight but I support you!” and then we both discovered he was not actually straight which I think happens a lot to gay people

anyway this wasn’t actually very gossipy but it’s romantic so I’ll share it :D . I’m honestly really happy in our relationship! He’s super thoughtful and gives me cool gifts related to my fandom interests and has a really nice fashion sense. We had a little Valentine’s Day date which mostly involved going to the library and doing duolingo and eating chocolate strawberries and watching frozen 2. (oh another thing is I’m always like “have you done you duolingo??!?” every time we see each other because he somehow has a crazy high streak idk how he does it)

he is also very into making physical crafts too! He makes Halloween costumes every year and has this whole crafty corner with a leaf drying rack made of sticks and cloth and bottles of ink and flowers and it’s very pintrest esque

sorry this may have become Rosie rambles about their awesome boyfriend hours but I hope you enjoyed <3. Wishing you the best!

TIENES UN NOVIO?? VERDAD?? HELLO??? New Rosie lore!! This is so sweet my god. I'm so thrilled for you! You can't see it but imagine me doing lil claps rn, because that's what I'm doing. I am very much enjoying the rambles.

this may be the aromantic in me but friends to dating always just makes so much more sense to me than trying to start with a stranger romantically. of course no judgment to anyone who does that, i'm just a different kind of person. for exactly your same reasons!! you get to know them and you know you like spending time around each other. chef's kiss !!

and the mutual self-discovery!! my partner and I did a similar thing where we started as the lesbians of the friend group (neither of us ID'd as lesbians but it was a lil joke thing they called us because we were, at the time, two girls dating), then both went hey. not a girl. also aromantic. qpr time? qpr time. (this was over the course of several years). it's a level of mortifying ordeal of being known i hadn't experienced before

also that valentines date sounds so sweet. libraries and language and movies?? it sounds like you two are quite happy together, and i'm happy for you!! here's to much more sweetness to come <33

character motivations:

fear

hurt

survival

failure

being pressured

instability

desire / hunger

guilt

belief they are doing something good

love

loyalty

vengeance / revenge

inequality

unfulfillment

hatred

honour / dishonour

pride

jealousy

death

humiliation

pain

greed

shame

rejection

loss

power

Drawing bases #22

some sword poses, i plan to more like these c:

I am so very normal about this

Editing Tips: Watch Out for Tautology

When you say the same thing twice with different words, it's a "tautology". They make manuscripts wordy.

Examples:

He shrugged his shoulders. -> He shrugged.

She clapped her hands. -> She clapped.

Her feet stepped back. -> She stepped back.

He hand picked up the knife. -> He picked up the knife.

If a movement is necessary for an action, the movement is included in the action and doesn't need to be spelled out separately.

He reached out his arm and took the book from her -> He took the book from her.

She lifted the glass to her lips and drained it. -> She drained her glass.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* . ───

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this is so mean but sometimes i see published writing and suddenly no longer feel insecure about my own writing ability. like well okay that got published so im guessing i dont have much to worry about

Drawing bases & pose references pt 62 🫶

3 extra drawings for patrons!

Fanart poster made by me (Instagram / Twitter )

This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…