RELATED TO MONSTERS AND WRITERS, GET INTO THE READER’S BRAIN IF YOU WANT TO SHOW AND NOT TELL

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation

We’re continuing with our monster “Show Don’t Tell” series of podcasts and posts.

So, hey! Welcome to our series of podcasts and posts all about showing vs. telling, which we are on fire about right now, right Shaun?

Growls.

You can check out the rest of the series on Carrie’s Substack Write Better Now or just the podcast episodes on her website.

And we're soon going to have some monthly author interviews starting with Chris Lynch.

One of the hardest places to differentiate showing rather than telling in writing (or vice versa) is when it comes to those internal thoughts and feelings.

So, here’s a quick example:

Ham-Ham groaned; he’d forgotten to turn off the water bottle drip in the hamster cage again.

So, there’s the groan. That’s all good and fine because it’s an action. BUT then you have him forgetting and thinking about what he forgot to do, right? All of that part is too much explaining and too distancing from the thought or the experience.

Instead of living with Ham-Ham as he realizes he forgot to do something important for the hamster cage bedding, we are distanced from it. It’s more a play-by-play in a ball game than being a player in the ball game actually kicking the ball and making a goal.

Instead go right into Ham-Ham’s head:

Damn it. Ham-Ham hadn’t turned off the damn water bottle. Now there’d be water drip-drip-dripping all day in the cage. The wood chips would be soggy as hell.

This seems simple. It’s not that simple.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Don't over explain everything. If you want me to sit, just say "sit."

WRITING EXERCISE

This comes from Ride The Pen:

“Some words are signs that you are telling, not showing. These bad words are (view them as villains): Adjectives and any form of the word “to be.” They will seduce you to tell, not show. You must resist their evil powers!

“With adjectives, you can put a quick label on anything; something is “beautiful, big, funny, strange…” The same is true for variations of “to be”: “he was, she is, it was…” All of these lead to quick labeling, rather than showing.

“But I will give you an anti-spell against their evilness. The formula is to ask yourself:

“How do I notice she is quick/he is funny/it is delightful/etc…?

“Answer yourself that question, and you will have a great list of descriptions to show to your readers. This question is like your secret weapon against all adjectives.”

PLACE TO SUBMIT

Able Muse (Poetry, Fiction, Essays & More)

Deadline: July 15, 2024

Able Muse is now accepting submissions for our forthcoming issue, winter 2024/2025. Submit poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews, art, and photography.

Submission opens yearly January 1 and closes July 15. Read our guidelines and submit at www.ablemuse.com/submit/.

RANDOM THOUGHT

The story about Bill Sprouse's book and his uncle being the Jersey Devil is here.

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!