Are Ya Feelin' Me?
Emotion. Fill your pages with it and readers will love you. Leave it out and they'll skip entire chapters.
One of the things I hear new writers ask is "How do I add emotion?" The answer is simpler said than done. Show, don't tell.
Incorporate the five senses. Decide which sensory details match your scene and layer them in. Be specific with details, including gestures, sound, smell, and touch.
Let's use some examples.
"Jane felt sad when she read his letter."
We know Jane is unhappy with something she read in a letter. The sentence TELLS us this. Now we'll expand on that.
"One by one, her trembling fingers curled around the paper until it formed a small ball in the palm of her hand. Choking back a sob, she threw it against the wall and ran to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. The hastily penned words seared her memory like a hot branding iron. He wasn't coming home."
Can you see the difference? More importantly, did you FEEL the difference?
Another way to add emotion is by using deep POV. Be an empath. Get inside your character's head. Feel, see, smell, and hear what they are experiencing. Don't hold back.
When adding emotion, be sure to keep gender in mind. A male will react differently than a woman. Women will talk about their feelings. Men remain silent, preferring to express themselves with body language such as a shrug, clenched mouth, or curt nod. Even your villain will respond differently from the hero or heroine, and can sometimes be more fun to write because you don't have to redeem him.
Dialogue is another great place to show rather than tell.
John had developed a good work ethic over the years.
"I know it's after five but the truck isn't unloaded. I've never been a clock watcher and I'm not about to start now."
Don't confuse "showing" with adding a long list of adjectives and adverbs. Details are important but be selective. Use what is necessary to paint the picture and get your point across. Emotion adds intensity but not every scene requires the same level.
Finally, the most important lesson of show versus tell is to practice it yourself. Don't just "tell" everyone you're a writer. "Show" them.
Until next time, BICHOK!
Deb
6 comments:
Deb, I know I struggle with the telling vs. showing. I tend to tell (don't tell anyone, but here lately I even struggle showing I'm a writer).
Great post!
I hear ya! I waffle back and forth with show and tell. It's not easy. Learning our craft becomes even more difficult (I feel a future blog topic coming on) when a writer receives conflicting advice from published and unpublished writers. Everyone has a set of "rules" by which they judge your manuscript but they don't always mesh. What happens when one pubbed author advises a writer to get rid of beginning participle phrases and another promotes their use in place of starting a sentence with a pronoun? I took an online class by Allison Brennan a while back and she suggested there are no rules. If something is done well, you can break a few rules, but you have to know the correct way to structure a sentence before you make adjustments. I like the way she thinks!
Great post, Deb.
I remember someone tried to do a whole workshop once on show vs. tell, and I kept thinking it wasn't helpful. Not becuase it didn't tell us how to "show", but because everyone's style is different.
By the end of the class, I found a lot of people were just copying what the instructor would do, instead of discovering their own show-ing voice. And that's hard.
But like a lot of well-published authors say. Sometimes, you have to tell, too. I do find that my biggest weakness is that I show too little and tell too often. But sometimes, you just have to tell. I don't want to read an entire book of every single action of every character shown on the page. But on the other hand, I don't want to read an entire book where they don't show me anything.
It's a hard balance for me to learn to strike. I always err on the unfortunate side, but I'm learning. :-)
BICHOK!
Great post.
Great post, Deb. I usually feel that I am falling short in the show don't tell area. When I revise I often feel that my characters need more emotion.
Another great post, or should I say, My heart raced reading the elegant words on the post.
I struggle with emotions, my children say I'm emotionallly stunted,but after much work I'm breaking through the barrier. Think action not reflection when writing emotions.
Jamie Burton
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