I’ve decided that this needs to be my new motto. It’s related to “show, don’t tell,” but it’s a specific variety of the problem.

A common problem I see in manuscripts (many, many manuscripts, not necessarily ones I’m working on now) is a “tell” later in the manuscript that ought to be developed more as a “show” earlier. A great example of this is the relationship between two or more characters. If two characters are close (or if they fight, or whatever), don’t just tell the reader at a crucial time several chapters in that they’re close–have them interact in-scene, showing that they’re close in how they relate to each other. Then those “tell” moments later will come naturally and have a lot more emotional impact, both on the characters themselves and upon the reader.

So remember: If so, show.

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Tags: writing

This entry was posted by Stacy on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.