On Show, Don't Tell

Ever found yourself lost in a book, feeling like you're right there in the thick of the action? That's the magic of 'showing' in writing. Instead of simply telling readers what's happening, it's about painting vivid scenes, evoking emotions, and letting readers experience the story for themselves.

Well-meaning writing advice givers often tell us to 'show, don't tell' in the hopes it will help us make our writing better. But no-one really tells us what that means or how to do it.

Today Storycraft Gateway is going to guide you on the how of showing, not telling. To help enhance you're writing and give your readers the best immersive reading experience we know you want to give them.

Here's how you can master the art of 'show, don't tell' in your writing

Sensory experiences

Transport your readers to another world by appealing to their senses. Think sound, smell, touch, the elements of the senses we often miss out in writing.

Let your readers feel the chill of the wind, hear the crunch of footsteps on snow, and smell the aroma of freshly baked bread. It'll paint a whole new picture for your readers than just telling them what things look like.

Actions and reactions

Actions speak louder than words. Show characters' emotions through their gestures, expressions, and movements. Let their reactions speak volumes about their inner turmoil or joy.

Instead of saying 'Elemere was angry', show us how she's angry by having her stomp through the streets, bumping carelessly into passers by, and turning to give her friend a scowl before throwing her door open and slamming it behind her.

Show emotions through actions. Slouching against walls, kicking stones ... how you can 'show, not tell' how your characters are feeling?

Dialogue

Dialogue isn't just about what characters say; it's about how they say it. Use tone, pacing, and choice of words to convey emotions, relationships, and conflicts with subtlety and depth. Do they speak through gritted teeth? Do they yawn and struggle to finish their sentence and trail off? Do they speak really kindly to one person but then really stonily to another?

Think about conversations you have and those you hear around you. How do people speak with each other? When they're tired? Upset? When they're distracted? When they're talking with someone they love vs someone they dislike?

Character growth through choices

Actions define characters. Show their development through the decisions they make in challenging situations. Let readers witness their courage, resilience, and growth firsthand.

A character who started off quite cowardly and unwilling to get involved in the main action might show their development through the story by starting to chip into conversations, offering to help with collecting resources, and then in their big climax moment, they jump in and save someone else in a fight they'd ordinarily run away from.

Metaphors and similes

Turn the ordinary into the extraordinary with vivid imagery. Use metaphors and similes to infuse your writing with richness and depth, inviting readers to see the world through a new lens.Instead of explaining that a character feels lost, you could say they felt like 'a ship without a rudder, drifting aimlessly'.

The challenge with this though is using too many clichés. It's all well and good to use metaphors and similes, but over using them can frustrate the readers, especially when they're all from the same old list we see everywhere!

Environments with meaning

The world around your characters isn't just background noise; it's a reflection of their inner worlds. Use their interactions with the environment to reveal their emotions, fears, and desires.If a character is nervous, you could describe them fidgeting with objects, knocking things over, or repeatedly tapping their foot. These subtle cues allow readers to infer the character's emotions through their interactions with the surroundings, and paints the scene more wholly for your readers.

It works for joy too. Splashing in puddles, kicking sand ... show your characters engaging with their surroundings.

3 Basic Self-Editing Tip for New Writers (Part 2)

Are you a new writer staring down the huge task of self-editing your first draft? It looks like a lot of work, but don’t worry. This blog series shares basic self-editing tips for new writers, with just 3 at a time so you can look at them little by little and make the self-editing stage feel a little more palatable.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be a massive hurdle. Take it in little steps.

‘How do you eat an elephant? A bite at a time.’

So here’s the second bunch of a few bites of the elephant to get you comfortable in attacking your first self-edit.

POV and Tense Check

Point of view (POV) is crucial in fiction writing as it dictates the flow of the narrative. Consistency is key: stick to one main character's perspective throughout the story to maintain coherence. Changing POV midway can alter the story's meaning and disrupt its flow.

If POV shifts are necessary, for example some fiction stories have multiple character POVs, use section breaks (***), and ensure consistency within each section. Keeping to one POV per section or chapter aids both publishers and readers in engaging with the story.

During editing, diligently check for POV consistency in every chapter to ensure you’re not dizzying readers with head hopping.

Most genres have a standard POV to write in. Have you found the one that works for your genre?

Tense accuracy is paramount. Ensure you're using the correct tenses—present, past, and future—to convey events accurately. Most genres will have their standard tense preference (e.g. fantasy is often written in past tense). Are you writing in the standard tense of your genre?

Along with this, much like POV, be vigilant for tense shifts within paragraphs, ensuring consistent usage throughout. It will confuse readers if you start in past tense and switch to current tense a couple of sentences later. To check for this, master the proper forms of verbs for each tense to maintain clarity and coherence in your writing (completed vs completing).

Keep Language Simple

Write for your audience and their best understanding. They’ve got to engage with your writing and enjoy it, after all. And good language plays a pivotal role in how they can engage with your book. Here are some key tips for enhancing language usage during your self-editing process:

• Avoid jargon: key for nonfiction writing, substitute technical terms with simpler alternatives to broaden your audience's understanding.

• Check your sentence length: aim for easy reading by avoiding overly long and convoluted sentences that make readers work too hard, and be sure to mix up sentence length for good flow.

• Prefer common words: choose familiar vocabulary and expressions to enhance accessibility—as they say, the simplest version of a word is the best one to use to avoid alienating your reader.

“The real art is not to come up with extraordinary clever words but to make ordinary simple words do extraordinary things. To use the language that we all use and to make amazing things occur.”

—Graham Swift, Author

Some people like to print their work and go over it with a coloured pen. You can do the same if you have a tablet and stylus.

Eliminate Repetition

To maintain reader engagement, do your best to avoid repetition and enrich your writing with varied language and vocabulary. Here's how you can eliminate redundancy:

• Reword sentences: rewrite sentences containing repeated phrases to convey the same meaning in a fresh manner.

• Use synonyms: written the same word too many times in the same sentence or paragraph? Seek alternative words with identical meanings to replace repetitive terms to avoid jarring your readers.

• Consider pronouns: employ pronouns to reference previously mentioned nouns, reducing repetition.

• Focus on key points: identify the central themes or ideas in your writing and trim the rest to avoid unnecessary repetition of information or dragging the message on too long.

• Use editing tools: try tools that can easily detect repetition in your writing, like Grammarly or a writing tool of your choice.

• Cut redundant phrases: helping you to trim your work all around, cutting unnecessary phrases that add little value to your writing will reduce repetition while also enhancing the clarity and conciseness of your work.

It takes time, but follow these self-editing tips and you'll get there.

Following basic self-editing tips like these will help you develop your writing skills and enhance your WIP to ensure it’s the best it can be.

Like we said last time, take it step-by-step, focusing on one aspect at a time. Following the steps in this blog series will help you do just that.

Question for the readers: which self-editing tip has helped you the most so far?

3 Basic Self-Editing Tips for New Writers (Part 1)

If you’re a new writer and you’ve just finished drafting your first WIP, you might be overwhelmed by the amount of work you’ve yet to face in the revision stage, also known as self-editing. But if you have the correct strategy, tackling the revision stage doesn’t have to be so anxiety inducing. In this series, I’ll be sharing some basic self-editing tips for new writers, with just 3 at a time so you can look at them little by little and make the self-editing stage feel a little more palatable.

It doesn’t have to be a massive hurdle. Instead, take it in little steps.

After all, like my martial arts sensei used to say: ‘How do you eat an elephant? A bite at a time.’

So here’s the first few bites of the elephant to get you comfortable in attacking your first self-edit.

Take a break

The first important part of self-editing that new writers often overlook is taking a break from your work before diving head-on into revisions. Rooted in cognitive psychology and education theory, research has shown that taking breaks between tasks can enhance cognitive performance and problem-solving abilities. It’s the same for writing a book and then editing it. When you've spent months or even years immersed in the creation of a manuscript, your brain becomes used to your writing patterns and the ideas you've developed. You know what you want it to say. By stepping away from your writing for a designated period—ideally a week or more—you let your brain rest and break away from these patterns and can look at your work with fresh eyes again.

This step is crucial for the self-editing process. Without it, you risk overlooking errors, inconsistencies, and areas for improvement because your mind remains in the drafting mode. Don’t worry. This break isn’t procrastination. It’s an essential part of the process that will enhance the quality of your writing.

The perfect break is to grab a hot drink of your choice and a book to enjoy :)

Cut unnecessary content

People are often over explainers. Oftentimes in writing we’ll overwrite or add a lot of repetition or explanations, thinking out readers might not get the concept. But trust yourself, and trust your reader. Step two I recommend to be just reading through and looking for areas you can cut. This can include whole chapters if you think they don’t work (something scary to do), or whole paragraphs, or even just lines. It’s amazing where trimming just a few words or lines can cut down on your wordcount and really tighten up the writing.

Trim down your sentences to make them more concise. Look for redundant phrases, filler words*, and unnecessary adjectives or adverbs that don't add value to your writing.

*Example filler words you can cut from your writing

1. That

2. Just

3. Really

4. Very

5. Actually

6. Literally

7. Honestly / to be honest

8. Basically

9. Kind of / sort of

10. In order to

11. Of course

12. So

13. Well

14. Anyway

15. You know

16. I mean

17. In fact

18. Needless to say

(I will add a note though that if it’s in dialogue and sounds authentic, you’re allowed to keep them!)

Print out your book and edit and cross out words with a red pen for further self-editing tips.

Focus on one aspect at a time

Be patient on yourself. Instead of trying to tackle everything at once and possibly missing crucial areas for development in the process, focus on specific elements during each round of editing. I’m sure you’ve heard of the cognitive psychology term ‘chunking’, which involves breaking larger, more complex tasks down into manageable chunks or similar pieces of work.

How can you use this in your self-editing? For example, in one pass, concentrate solely on grammar and punctuation, while in another, focus on clarity and helping people understand your message. Then do another read-through just looking at whether the dialogue and inner monologue if you have them sounds realistic.

Doing it step by step like this will feel like a lot of work. ‘I have to read through it how many times?’ But trust me, this way is much more efficient and effective in the long run, as you’ll have a mind for looking for just that one ‘chunk’ and can focus much better on what you’re editing.

Keep track of your edits. What elements have you looked at so far? Grammar? Dialogue? Keep notes to track it.

Getting into the self-editing flow

You’ll get used to self-editing in no time. By following basic self-editing tips like these, you’ll start getting used to putting structure in your editing life. Rather than the fun, creative drafting stage, this is the stage to be more analytical, really thinking about what helps the overall message and story of your writing. You’ve got to make that shift from drafting mode to analytical mode.

Take it easy, take it step-by-step. You’ll have a much better piece of work at the end of it.

And stay tuned for Part 2, where I’ll share 3 more self-editing tips for new writers with you for the next stage of the self-editing process.

Question for the readers: what are your best self-editing tips?

What experiences have you had with self-editing? What was the most difficult part of it? Comment below and let each other know what you found helpful when you were in the self-editing process.