Showing versus telling….🤔. What you said about telling not being emotional rings true. So what I am getting from what you said is if something that’s happening in a scene can potentially evoke emotion in the character and/or the reader, show it. If there’s no emotional component, summarize and tell it. I think this goes hand in hand with “on the nose” writing concerns for me. All the detail about how someone fishes a ringing cell phone out of their huge purse, puts the phone to her ear and ….🙄☺️. Tell it: Her phone rang. It was John. I’m thinking that’s a way I can decide whether to show or tell - hope it holds water? If a character goes to the grocery store to buy ingredients for dinner, that can be summarized and told. However, if while at the grocery store the character sees a toddler getting scolded or spanked for dropping a glass jar of applesauce on the floor and it triggers a traumatic memory of something that happened to her (the character) - show it because it can evoke emotion. Don’t tell that the character was triggered by witnessing what happened. Show how her hands start to shake and her breathing becomes labored. She abandons her half full shopping cart as she hurries back down the aisle, away from the child’s crying and the mother’s yelling. She walks faster almost running; and she doesn’t stop until she reaches her car. She fumbles with her car key fob, the door locks click and she yanks open the door crawling onto the back seat pulling the door closed. She falls onto her side. Her whole body is shaking. She hugs herself, eyes squeezed shut, tears gathering behind her eyelids etc. 😂😂😂😂 This would be a good place to use shorter sentences to match the urgency the character is feeling to escape the situation, right? 🤔. I like third person close so I think I could write this as an immersive experience. Also I look at showing as an opportunity to further reveal your characters to the reader. I think conveying to the reader how someone deals with their emotions for example is better shown than told. It’s one thing to say “John was angry.” However, it provides insight into the character if you show him throwing a glass against a wall vs him leaving the room while counting to ten to conceal from other people that he’s angry vs laughing at whatever pissed him off but then passive aggressively doing something to another character out of the unexpressed anger. Sorry…got carried away. 😂😂😂
My early writing was heavy on passive voice. I switched to 100% avoidance of passive voice, which added a different kind of sterility to the writing. But then I slowly realized there were places where passive voice added productive variation, making the writing feel more natural. My number one issue today is sentences that are overly complex due to length. Some complexity is good, but too much really makes the prose seem long-winded. So now, I use that for when characters are trying to politick each other, or a topic in general.
I think mine may be a lack of clarity too. Also, as a request/suggestion for future videos: I think it'd be a cool idea if, when you're explaining a rule/mistake/whatever, you include both good and bad examples of this in published novels. For example, the not prioritizing clarity mistake could end with showing a sentence or paragraph from a Hemingway piece, as an example of what clarity can do when prioritized and/or used correctly. Perhaps there's no need for the bad example too, as I'm not out to hurt anyone's feelings by discrediting their work.
In my creative writing class. Show don’t tell was a big issue for me. I remember writing a short story for my professor. And he gave it back to me with “SHOW DONT TELL) written in red marker lol I was like “gee tell me how you really feel.”
I don't think passive voice is bad. I use it to showcase weak character instead while strong/ active character use active voice. But yeah, if you only do unconsciously, then that is not good.
In my opinion, there's a real reason for passive voice. But it should be in the vast minority of the prose. Regarding complexity, balancing sentence type makes for a far more interesting read than absolute consistency. Part of developing voice is about holding interest and yet still expressing in a unique way. Balancing it is the difference that gives us voice. Anyway, like I said, just my opinion. Writing's really very subjective and that makes it hard to make hard-and-fast rules. But this video is good for giving an idea of what publishers are looking for.
*Yeah, that old "Show don't tell" advice is awful ... it got me badly too!* I have found that telling is ideal when the pace needs to slow down after an intense mini-climax, when the character(s) need to breathe for a moment to recover themselves. Telling in those slower moments can work really well to ease the tension slightly, until a new build-up to another intense moment demands showing the reader those emotions. Telling during a fight scene, for example, destroys the intensity of the writing, but it works really well after the battle, or during a pause in the battle, as the characters try to process the situation. Getting the balance right is very tricky, so I'm asking my beta readers to give me feedback on how the balance I've chosen works (or doesn't work) for them.
I'm not editing at the moment but saw the video suggested and couldn't help but brush up on reminders There was such good advice here. Interesting what you said about using the wrong kinds of words to create voice, in newer writers and the writing ending up convokuted. I did that in querying my last book when trying to write voicey queries. Now I tend to write them with no voice and get criticized for having no voice 😂. But with my new WIP I'm drafting and am going to hold onto prioritising clarity at this stage
Well done. I will add writers using too many complex sentences. They must use a comma whereas by reordering the sentence the comma is eliminated. Many such sentences start with the word "As". Some writers I know compound almost every sentence. Fewer commas makes stronger writing.
My worst prose issue early in my first book? Head-hopping. I've never done it since then. A professional writer critiqued my story and said, "There are a lot of problems here. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but this is bad."
