Don't Tell, Show

(mwahhahaha velcome to my secret lair of the internet vhere I vill attempt to complete zee A-to-Z Challenge vith my very own zeme: VITING.) I have no idea what just happened, so don't ask. Weird things happen with Anne Marie early in the morning.

This has been my greatest struggle as a writer. What? Being weird?

No, stupid, keep up. Telling and not showing. I mean showing not telling.

I hated hated hated HATED this rule so so so MUCH. I did not understand how one simply cannot tell. I have so much to tell! How could I just show it?! I'm a writer, not an artist for goodness sake.

When I took a creative writing class freshman year (best. class. ever.), this was something we definitely touched on. But I needed a blueprint, a handout, some sort of exact instruction! Because I did not understand why telling got such a bad rap.

I just love looking back at old writing and seeing how much I've grown. Even from reading things I've written less than a year ago, I can tell how much I learned.

Showing not telling was something that I learned gradually. There wasn't a formula I applied to suddenly become incredible at it (which I'm still quite far from. Being incredible at it, that is).

Since I've learned the art, I purpose that we rephrase "show don't tell" to "show over tell".

It's okay to tell. In her book This Is Not A Writing Manual, Kerri Majors discusses how a teacher once told her that it's perfectly okay to tell, as long as your telling is working. Some writers are masterful at telling. Like Kerri, my telling does not always work. It usually doesn't. My showing is more captivating and fills out the story much better.

Show over tell is the difference between telling someone about your best friend and actually introducing them to your best friend. While both are perfectly lovely, the later is the more desirable.

I think this quote sums it up quite nicely:

https://writerswrite1.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/quotable-anton-chekhov/

If showing over telling is something that you're struggling with, I encourage you to spend more time with your characters. Define them more, or "flesh them out". Show them squinting in the sun rather than saying it was sunny, show them sweating and panting rather than saying it's hot, show them holding back tears rather than saying that their hearts are breaking.

On another brief note, thank you all so much for reading my blog and for the kind comments! You all make me smile. Have a blessed Easter and I'll see y'all next week!