Showing, Telling – Now – Making

I’ve been harping on ‘Show Don’t Tell’ in some of my post here. A few days ago I received my regular newsletter from Dave Farland. His newsletters always have gems of writing tips.

In his latest, he adds to rule of ‘Show Don’t Tell’ – Make.

New writers are often told, “Show, don’t tell.” Normally this piece of advice is given when a writer gives a vague description. He might say, “Rhonda looked tired.” A good reader will wonder about that. There are varying degrees of tiredness. Does the writer mean that the character had a blank expression on her face, or does he mean that she is staggering blindly and ready to fall?

So the adage “Show, don’t tell” is used to beg for more information. Yet I’ve always felt that that advice is . . . imprecise.

Farland goes on to say that when some writers try to adherer to the ‘show don’t tell’ rule, they tend to write cinematically.

Now there is nothing wrong writing your story using screenwriting rules. Writing a screenplay, you have to ‘show don’t tell’. Ninety percent of a screenplay is dialogue. The problem comes when you overdo it.

Farland says one must have ‘Make’ in the story, too.

When a Maker tells a tale, he doesn’t just explain what emotions a character feels. He’s not satisfied with just “showing” the emotion by describing it accurately. His goal is to make you experience the tale. His goal is to bring you into the tale so forcefully, that you live through it.

But be careful. Very few of us are James Joyce’s. In other words, in my parlance, you end up writing wordy literature and not a modern story.

Yep. It’s Coming. Top Ten Signs You Had A Bad Thanksgiving.

From David Letterman:

10.”You ran out of booze by 11 a.m.”
9.”Most frequently used word at dinner: Heimlich”
8.”Meal was leftovers from last Thanksgiving”
7.”Thanks to new electric knife, kids fought over wishbone and your severed thumb”
6.”The ‘turkey’ was wearing a dog collar”
5.”Spent day in Times Square waiting for the giant turkey to drop”
4.”Woke up from tryptophan-induced sleep to find yourself naked in the driveway”
3.”When dinner came out, so did your son”
2.”Laura and the twins lock you out”
1.”Your turkey dinner was the only breast you’ve touched all year”

Don’t Use Prologues In Novels – BUZZ! WRONG!!

You’ve heard that rule before. Supposedly Publishers and agents abhor them and you risk being rejected if you do.

But I use them in almost every one of the books that write. To quote Elmore Leonard “A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.”

A well-written prologue sets the scene for the story. It should act like an appetizer to wet appetite of the reader. It should foreshadow things to come of importance – a lot of importance – in the story that is about to enfold. The opening of a story should HOOK the reader. Make them think , “I wonder where the author is going with this?”

Scribendi writes:

A prologue is used to give readers extra information that advances the plot. It is included in the front matter and for a good reason! Authors use them for various purposes, including:

• Giving background information about the story. For example, in a sci-fi book, it may be useful to include a description of the alien world, perhaps in a scene that illustrates its essential characteristics and functioning, so as not to confuse readers by plunging them into a completely foreign world in the first chapter (and having to explain it then or leave them lost, which may lead to disinterest).

• Grabbing readers’ attention with a scene from the story. The author could pick an exciting scene from the middle of the story to draw readers in and make them want to keep reading.

• Describing a scene from the past that is important to the story, such as a fire where the main character’s father is killed, which is the motivation for the action in the novel.

• Giving information from a different point of view. The story is written in first person, and the prologue is in third person. The prologue focuses on a secret of one of the characters (which the main character would have no way of knowing, and the author would not otherwise be able to tell the reader due to the first person perspective).

• Expressing a different point in time. For example, the prologue may be about the main character who is in her eighties and who is remembering her childhood, which is when the story takes place (and which begins in Chapter 1).

So you see, prologue can be very useful in a story. Try one yourself.