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3 common “tell” constructions and how to turn them into “show”

So many writers are fond of reciting the mantra "show, don't tell" like it's some holy passage that will lead writers to the land of glory. New writers hear this being said and are always left wondering what it really means.

When I first started writing fiction, nearly twenty years ago now, I too was confused beyond belief.

"Describe the action. Describe how the character is reacting." Wasn't that what I was doing?

It actually took a fellow writer who writes fantasy to explain it to me—properly.

Imagine your book being turned into a movie or television series (the ultimate dream of most fantasy writers). A scriptwriter is going to take your book and fashion it into a script where the only way to get an insight into a character is through their actions. How true that scriptwriter remains to your book will be related to how much show you give them to work with.

And trust me when I say that seeing your words of descriptions transformed into the visual format is an incredibly satisfying feeling. (I've had commissioned artwork done based on lines of my manuscripts.)

I have written about the concepts of show vs tell before in Show the story. Tell the ride through the countryside.  and in Is First-Person Really More Intimate?

Today, I want to take this from a different perspective, explaining how to identify a tell statement and how you might transform it into one of show.

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Woman reading on a tablet

Promises to the Reader in the Opening Pages

In the beginning sections of a story, the first pages or chapters, the writer gives a promise to the reader about the nature of the story that they are about to read. There will be a hint of the genre, the pacing of the story, what the story is about, and the way the story will be told (the narrative construction). In fact, the reader should be fully aware of the nature of the story they are reading by the time they hit the 25% mark (or thereabouts)—ideally earlier. This doesn't mean that they should know 100% what the twists and turns will be, but they should know what the main story is and what sort of experience to expect.

If your story is going to be a high-octane thriller, then there needs to be action in those early scenes. If you are writing a sweet contemporary romance, then we should have met the main characters in this romantic coupling and already be able to see those sparks between the characters—even if they want to kill each other in the beginning. And if your story is going to contain religious or political overtones, then those overtones need to be present early too.

Today, I want to talk about the promises that we make to the reader with the opening pages of our books. It's the promise of the premise.

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Guilty

Should Social Media be an Adult-Only Zone?

Every so often, I encounter another teenage nightmare unfolding on the internet. It starts out innocent, but as the social media machine takes over, it's an avalanche that threatens to bury everyone alive. And I sit on the sidelines, watching all the chaos as society spirals down into another hate-fest.

For years, I've been obsessed with how social media has taken such a hold of our everyday lives. The writer in me is watching every worst-case scenario play out within the digital world, and I keep asking how it could get worse. (Because as any writer can tell you, it can always get worse.)

In the beginning, social media was a brilliant concept. It was a place where people could connect with each other and form working relationships with people who were on the other side of the planet. But as its popularity grew and more people flocked to various platforms, the social dynamics changed. In some cases, the interactions descended into a toxic cesspit needing a HazMat suit with breathing apparatus to even enter. At which point, another platform would seem to spring forth with the promise of a safe-and-inclusive environment.

Regardless of what social media has become, social media and the internet form a huge part of the world we now live in. My children have never known a life where the internet didn't exist—and my oldest is now in his 20s.

Two decades. So much of our world has changed in those two decades.

So, when I see the teenage nightmares unfolding on social media, it's not surprising to me that there is an outcry of people wanting to make social media an adult-only zone. I can understand where the viewpoints are coming from that want to classify social media usage in the same way we do alcohol and driving. But as the number of these negative events grow—sometimes, resulting in the death of yet another teen—there is only one thought that goes through my mind:

Where are the parents teaching their children how to socially behave on the internet?

If you're willing to stick around, I'll do the best I can to explain why I feel that the deplorable nature of social media is actually the responsibility of parents and how I went about teaching my children to cope with the social media cesspit.

It's an interesting tale, involving Scouts, my children, my writing, and my obsession with social media and online behavior.

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Daylight Savings… Curse you!

Every six months, the clocks change by an hour. And every six months, I go mental as I try to reconcile the clock changes on my daily and business life.

It might be only an hour, but that's only if you focus on the one time zone. If you are like me, you live your life based on multiple time zone (having an international business), so it's not just one hour that changes. Nope. It's one hour one month as Daylight Savings starts in one time zone, but it's another hour the next month as Daylight Savings ends the next month. And by the end of it, the clocks have moved two hours and you lose total track of everything.

Every six months, I face this two-hour shift, and sometimes the results are me grumpy because I'm up at all godly hours in the morning.

Let me tell you of my crazy when the clocks shifted in New Zealand earlier this month.

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Are we dumbing down language?

Recently, I took a grammar refresher course to help with some aspects of my editing. I took the course because often enough I encounter something in ProWritingAid or in conversations with other editors that I don't understand. The terminology occasionally goes over my head. So, I thought that perhaps a refresher course would help with some of the terminology confusion.

The course certainly did do that, and I was glad I took the course. However, there were a few comments that actually irritated me—and they all revolved around this philosophy that we're dumbing down language.

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