Thursday, July 26, 2012

SCWC: Show, Don’t Tell

-        Learn the balance between showing and telling
-        Good writing reveals, boring writing explains
-        Use senses to reveal, “telling” comes from the head.
-        Experience/feel with the character instead of listing facts
-        Don’t use abstract subjective terms to convey moments.  Be more sensory/visual/tangible (SHOW)
-        Adjectives tell, verbs show.  Use precise verbs first.  Turn your adjectives into verbs.  Verbs contain the energy of the sentence.  Make a long list of verbs!  Verbs pump us up.  Make more active.
-        The Thesaurus is your friend!
-        Write from the senses.  Readers want to smell, touch, taste the world you’ve created.  We read to escape, experience other realities
-        Be the story as you’re writing it; be your character, experience their world vicariously.
-        Do the writing first, do research after
-        “I remember (sense)ing…” exercise in keeping you in touch with your senses.  Makes you pay attention to mundane sensations.  I remember tasting, hearing, smelling, etc.  “Sense inventory.”
-        Physical reactions to senses, involuntary sensory details, memories provoked, emotion from memories, and then action.
-        Metaphors/similes make writing poetic.  Easier to remember, connects on a deeper emotional level.  “The cancer ate her like horse piss eats deep snow.”
-        Observe the weather/sky and write it down.  Generalities are boring.  Take notes on observations so you remember them better later.
-        The key to description is selectivity.  In each sentence use at least one striking, provoking word.
-        Don’t be nice all the time.  Give them an image that’s hard to forget.  The truth is in the detail.
-        Choose the most powerful details during rewrites.  Also notice where details need to be added or strengthened.
-        Have a “commonplace” book—jot down phrases and words you read and like (look up “commonplace” website)
-        Scenes/mini-scenes: enter one way, exit another way.  Emotional transition during a scene. Important moment occurs within a scene.  “Telling” is the transition/summary between scenes.  Scene allows reader to experience the situation with the character.

No comments:

Post a Comment