Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Choose Your Words Wisely: More on Show, Not Tell

First, an update on yesterday's blog.

Several people let me know the link to the BryonySeries blog is broken. It's not broken, but we ARE having trouble with the mobile site. Switching to a desktop view on one's phone fixes it until we can haggle it out (again) with GoDaddy.

That link again is www.bryonyseries.com.

Onward to show, not tell.

All writing by its very nature is "tell." Crafting a story that immerses a reader takes refinement of skill, practice, manipulation of words, practice, plenty of self-editing, and practice.

Straight "show," even if the writer uses an abundance of words and lays off the adjectives and adverbs, will actually sound like "tell."

The way an author makes a story come alive has much in common with writing dialogue.

Just as writing dialogue the way people naturally speak it makes it sound unnatural, so writing straight show makes a story seem like a collection of dull facts.

Rather, think in terms of when to present information in the form of a scene or as a summary.

And then play, play, play with the wording until the prose leaps off the page and sparks the reader's imagination.

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