Show me, don’t tell me

This is probably going to be quite obvious but I wanted to talk about showing versus telling. I know we’ve all heard that. I know that sometimes I do it and don’t even realize it. So I’ve written three sentences below, each giving more detail and hopefully, showing more and telling less.

1. He laughed at her while she hopped around comically.

2. He laughed at the funny expression that flitted across her face

3. He laughed at her wrinkled nose and pursed lips as she hopped on one foot, clutching the other in her hand.

“Damn chair, who put that there!”

“You did.” He grinned at her.

As you can see with the third sentence I continued, going further into the scene. For me, the writing flowed easier. I also want to point out something about the dialogue, something that I only learned this year, 2009. The second line of dialogue is punctuated with a period and then a separate sentence. Why? Because a person cannot grin words, at least so I’ve been told. It is one of the ‘rules’ you can get bogged down in but it is still important. Interestingly enough, I haven’t found a book that deals with the punctuation of dialogue to an extent that I would like. So, if you want to learn more, you are probably best off going to your local library or bookstore and perusing several books to see what their dialogue sections say.

Something you can try to practice showing versus telling is to write a scene, showing an emotion.  Never use any adjective or adverb that can be linked to the emotional word, such as angry.

So, give it a go.

Anger

Happiness

Morose