Category Archives: show don’t tell

Gawking Characters

by
Jessica Murphy

A “gawking character” is a narrator who tells the reader what happens in a scene instead of letting the reader experience it directly. This is called narrator intrusion, and it robs the reader of the full experience, thus distancing him from the story. A gawking character looks like this:

Gawking: Adam saw the orange glow and the rolling black smoke in the sky from where he stood on the corner of the block. As he jogged down the sidewalk toward it, he felt a cool breeze and smelled burning wood. He ducked under the branch of a tree and saw the burning house. From where he stood, he felt the intense heat and heard the flames roar and pop. Adam stepped forward toward the open front door but felt the searing heat from the sidewalk that drove him back.

The bold words show you where the narrator steps between the reader and the action and tells the reader what happens. This detracts from the reader’s experience. A scene must allow the reader to experience the action directly in order to grab him. Would you prefer to watch a friend eat a hot fudge sundae and tell you how sweet it tastes, or would you want to eat it yourself?

A gawking character is also redundant. If the scene is told from the character’s perspective, we already know that he experiences what we read. We don’t need to say the same thing twice. Here is the same sentence without the gawking character:

Direct: Adam glanced up from the corner of Kingwood and Beechurst. The starlit sky glowed orange, and thick smoke rolled across it. He spun on one heel, crunching grit on the sidewalk beneath his shoes, and ran down the street. The cool autumn breeze carried sparks and the smell the burning wood. As Adam brushed the branches of a tree out of his face, the burning house appeared.

A rushing roar filled Adam’s ears, and a wave of heat lifted the hairs on his tan arms. Shading his blue eyes with his right hand, he squinted against the blinding light. Flames engulfed every inch of the house and licked at the cloudless sky. Pops and crackles from inside the house echoed down the empty street. Adam rushed toward the front porch, but the heat seared his face and drove him back.

This time, the narrator does not water down the scene. We see no “Adam felt,” “Adam saw,” “Adam heard.” Instead, the reader is the one standing on the sidewalk, the one who sees the flames, feels their heat, hears their roar. This kind of direct experience captivates the reader and keeps him interested.

Nonphysical Gawking

A gawking character can also filter internal experiences, such as thoughts or emotions. Again, if the scene is being told from the character’s perspective, we can assume that any thoughts belong to that character (unless he or she can read thoughts or sense emotions).

Gawking: Blood soaked through the fabric, and Preston realized he had plunged the blade into Jack’s side.
This scene is told from Preston’s point of view, so he must be the one realizing something. We don’t need to state the obvious.

Direct: A red stain spread across Jack’s gut, matting the shirt to his skin. The silver blade glinted from where Preston had plunged it in Jack’s side.

The same holds true for emotions:

Gawking: I felt worried, but a breeze made me feel a little better.

This is told in first person point of view, so the narrator must be the one who felt worried. After all, he cannot feel another character’s emotions. So, stating what the narrator felt is redundant.

Direct: My stomach churned, but the crisp air cooled my feverish skin and the nausea settled for the moment.

If you take out the gawking character, the reader can experience every scene directly. Any less cheats him out of the story and, in the end, loses him.

Don’t Traumatize Your Reader

by
Sandy Tritt



Did you ever think about what happens to an unsuspecting reader when a scene changes? He’s been comfortable, hanging around and experiencing your story, aware of where he is, when he is, and through whose eyes he’s seeing/hearing/feeling things, when all of a sudden one scene ends and another begins. Your poor reader is snatched out of his comfort zone, zoomed through time and space, and is plunged into a new scene. God—er, um, YOU, only know where he is now. He may crash into the same physical space he’s just vacated—or he may end up across the globe or even in a new galaxy. Five seconds may have passed—or ten days or a dozen centuries. Even more jolting, he could now be seeing and hearing and smelling through a different body.

It’s an extremely unsettling experience. That is, unless you, the Creator of this world the reader is visiting, are experienced enough and thoughtful enough to guide him through the trauma. Oh, my! Did you even know you had this humongous responsibility? Well, you do now.

Within the first few sentences of a new scene, your reader needs to know several things, including:

  1. Whose eyes he’s now seeing things through (if you employ a single viewpoint character throughout the manuscript, this is not necessary)
  2. Who is present
  3. What our characters look like (this is something that we usually sprinkle throughout a story, receiving bits and pieces of information as we go and is more or less important depending upon genre).
  4. Where he is in general—such as the city, state, country. If this general location has not been visited previously, we may need more information, such as if it’s rural, big city, etc.
  5. Location, specific: if inside, where he is, such as in a living room or inside a diner. If outside, if he’s in a vehicle, hiking, etc.
  6. Time period: the decade he’s in. (If this does not change throughout the manuscript, you do not need to re-establish this).
  7. Time of year: spring, summer, fall, winter—or actual month
  8. General time of day: morning, afternoon, evening, night
  9. Weather, if it affects the story in any way (and it usually does)

Additionally, the reader may need to know the date or the day of week, as well as any historically relevant happenings on that day. For example, if this scene occurs on September 11, 2001, and no mention is made of the collapse of the twin towers, your reader is going to question your integrity. I call providing this information grounding your reader, as it allows your reader to simply relax and become a part of the story instead of floating around in space, desperately trying to figure out where and when he is and through whose eyes he’s seeing.

If it were not for the First Commandment of Writing—Thou Must Show, Not Tell, we’d just open each scene with a recitation of all the necessary facts. But, instead, we must be artistic about it. We must not just give all the information, but we must sprinkle it around and create amazing prose with conflict and suspense while doing so.  The goal is to create a picture the readers can imagine in their minds. They must be able to envision where the action is happening, who is present, and what is going on. This balancing act of feeding information to your reader while maintaining interest is not easy.

Here’s an example from one of my novels, The Mistress of Gambel Hill:

Ray maneuvered between a cocktail waitress balancing a tray of drinks and a couple entwined in each other’s arms.

“Think we can fit them all in?” Gary waited on the stage with a handful of neatly-stacked requests.

Ray grabbed his brother’s arm and used it as a boost to step up onto the stage. “Yeah. And I gotta add another one before I forget.” He took a pen from his pocket and scribbled the blonde’s request on one of the notes. “Let’s get going.” He went to his stool in the center front and tuned his guitar. A line of cocktails sent by happy customers waited on the table next to him. He looked into the crowd. The stage lights glared back at him. “Glad y’all stuck around,” his deep voice boomed into the microphone. “We’re gonna get to all your requests before—”

He hadn’t checked that his brothers had taken their places. He glanced over his shoulder to his left. Danny, his youngest brother, wasn’t behind the drum set. Instead, Joey’s long arms waited over the drums, his waist-length hair draped over his slender shoulders, a smile teasing his hair-covered lips.

            Ray scratched his goatee and looked behind him. Gary sat at Joey’s keyboard, his bass guitar leaning against his chair. Danny wasn’t on stage.

What do we learn from the opening paragraphs of this scene?

  1. Ray is our viewpoint character. We’re going to be seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and thinking through him.
  2. We are in a crowded bar.
  3. Ray and Gary are on a stage. They are brothers. They have a band.
  4. Ray sits on a stool center stage, plays guitar, and is the speaker for the group. He also drinks. A lot.
  5. Ray’s brothers Danny and Joey are also in the band.
  6. Joey is tall and slender with long hair and facial hair. He normally plays keyboard, but right now, he’s playing the drums.
  7. Ray has a goatee.
  8. Gary normally plays bass guitar, but he’s playing keyboard.
  9. We have a problem—in addition to all those drinks waiting to be swallowed. Danny is missing. Because his brothers have switched instruments and are smiling, we’re pretty sure everyone but Ray is in on what is about to happen. But something is about to happen.

We need to talk about item number one above. How does the reader know so quickly that Ray is our viewpoint character? This is important. He knows Ray is the viewpoint character because Ray is the first character mentioned by name. Your reader will subconsciously assume the first character mentioned will be the viewpoint character. So you must do your part and honor this agreement by mentioning your viewpoint character’s name before anyone else’s.

If a scene takes place in the same location or shortly after the previous scene, it isn’t necessary to give this information, as the reader will assume it. However, you must always let the reader know who is present in the scene. Few things are more unsettling than having a character suddenly pop into a conversation without knowing the character was even present.

One thing I do to help me remember everything I need to remember is to type all the information—the date, day of the week, location, weather, historical facts, and anything else pertinent—right into my manuscript, at the beginning of the scene. I keep it there until I’m ready to submit. And, then, of course, I save a copy with all that important information in it. That way, if I need to change the sequence of the scenes or make other changes, I’ll know to also change the pertinent facts within a scene.

Another way to do this is to create a scene overview document.  We have such a worksheet in our Tips and Techniques Workbook. How you track it yourself is far less important than that you get it right in your manuscript.

Writing is not easy. There is so much information that must reach the reader, but it must be done without an “info dump.” Study good fiction and the works of accomplished writers. Pay attention to the first few paragraphs of each scene. Notice how the writer feeds information to the reader without seeming as if that’s the goal. In fact, as an exercise, write down the information that is gleaned from a scene, as we did in our example above. It could be an eye opener for when you’re wondering how you can possibly provide so much information and still be entertaining.

If you need help with this—or with any of the elements of fiction or nonfiction—please just shoot us off an email at IFWeditors@gmail.com. We’re here, and we’re always happy to help.

Top Ten Writing Tips

by
Sandy Tritt
1. Get it on paper. Once you’ve written it, you can edit it. But until your story is on paper, in black and white, you have nothing.

2. Focus. Write one sentence—yes, one sentence—that states what this manuscript is about. Once you have that, you can refer to it to know if a scene belongs in this manuscript. If a scene doesn’t support the focus statement in some way, it doesn’t belong. Take a look at this seo magnifier text to speech that can be very helpful when you write.

3. Ground your reader at the beginning of each scene. Make sure your reader knows where the scene takes place, when the scene takes place, and who is present in the scene. If you’re using a controlled third person point of view, the first character mentioned should be the viewpoint character for that scene.

4. Know who your narrator is. If you are using the omniscient point of view, your narrator will be an invisible character who is present in every scene, but will not be any one character (although your narrator will have the ability to pop into any character’s head). If you are using a first person point of view, your narrator will be the “I” character. If you are using a controlled third person point of view, your narrator will be standing right next to your viewpoint character and will only be able to see, hear, smell, etc. what that character sees, hears, smells, etc.

5. Act it out. Yes, it’s been said over and over, but it’s still the first rule of writing. Don’t tell your reader what is happening—allow your reader to experience it through action and dialogue.

6. Use active voice. Don’t start a sentence with “there is” or “there are” or “there were” or “there was.” Doing so automatically puts you in passive voice. Instead of saying “there were seven cheerleaders at the mall,” say “Seven cheerleaders shopped at the mall.” Likewise, try to avoid words like “when” or “while.” “When John looked to his left, he saw the army advancing” is passive and has a gawking character. Instead, say: “John looked to his left. The army advanced.”

7. Use the strongest verbs possible. Replace “was” with “moved.” Replace “moved” with “walked.” Replace “walked” with “strolled.” Constantly search for stronger and stronger verbs. For truly, it is verbs that give a manuscript its power. Avoid adverbs—instead of saying “He walked slowly,” say “He strolled.”

8. Use an action or body language instead of dialogue tags. Challenge yourself to replace EVERY dialogue tag with an action by the character speaking. You’ll be surprised at how your story comes to life.

9. Never name an emotion. If you say, “He was angry,” you’re telling, not showing. Let us see him slam his fist on the counter. Let us feel the breeze as he storms by.

10. When in doubt, leave it out. If a sentence makes sense without “that” or “of,” leave it out. Leave out any word or phrase or paragraph or scene or chapter that is optional.

Be a Cinematic Novelist

by
Charlotte Firbank-King

As a break from my study of the novel, I’m studying scriptwriting. In the process, I realized that perhaps we novelists should follow the scriptwriter’s methods—meaning we should write more concisely and keep the action moving at a fast pace. Most movies are just under two hours long, some less. Can you read your novel in that amount of time and pack in as much action and drama as a scriptwriter does? Scriptwriting is all about economy of words.

When explaining what makes a good story, Alfred Hitchcock said, “Life, with the dull parts taken out.” We need to visualize the movie and write with that vision in our brains. The story needs to be all about action—showing, not telling. For example, we can eliminate internal monologues and allow our reader to reach his own conclusion about what our character was thinking by the way we’ve described a look or an action.  

Scriptwriters can argue that writing is easier for a novelist. They can switch heads at will and go into any character’s head, whereas a scriptwriter has to show all this. So, take a break from all the tools you have available and try writing like a scriptwriter by showing your reader. When you’re about to switch heads to tell the reader how the other character feels, pretend you’re making a movie. How would you make the audience see what you want them to see?

When we first learn to write fiction, we may think that writing dialogue is all about making it sound like real life. More experienced writers know it’s basically smoke and mirrors. You make the reader feel as though they’re reading real dialogue, but it can’t be, because real-life conversations are mundane. Listen to people talk. Most talk is repetitive and downright boring, even if the dialogue is a heated argument. I would go so far as to say record an argument on your mobile phone and then edit it—you’ll take out most of what is said.

Dialogue is a tool used to illustrate a character’s personality or even the character of the person being addressed or discussed. It’s a way to reflect a character’s mood and emotions, or it can convey the relationship the characters have with each other. Dialogue can expose a motive or hide it. Dialogue must always have a root in what was said or what happened before and must lead smoothly into what happens next. It must convey meaning pertinent to the story, and it can be a portent of what might happen next. Above all, dialogue must be concise and easy to understand, not convoluted like real life. Again, see dialogue as if it is in a movie. Make your characters act it out rather than telling the reader what happened.

Scriptwriters have what they call subtext. It’s the understated scene. For example: 

A single mother comes back from a double shift at work. She worked the extra shift to help a friend who needed to attend her little girl’s school play. Dark rings underscore the mother’s eyes and she drags her feet as she walks into the sitting room. Her teenage son sits hunched over, glaring at the TV.

The mother drops her bag on the floor. “How was your day?”

He transfers his glare to her. “Just great!” He jerks up and stomps from the room, punching the wall on his way out. 

The mother sighs heavily. But as she’s about to walk to the kitchen, she stops and stares at her shattered glass-top coffee table. An MVP Trophy lies in the center of the ruin. Tears fill her eyes and she bites her lip.

 

He said his day was “just great.” Obviously, it wasn’t. He feels rejected and angry that his big day was forgotten by the only parent he has. We can see she feels guilt and regret. She sacrificed her son’s big day of getting this prestigious award so a small child’s mother could see one of perhaps many plays.

This is the under text. It isn’t served to the audience on a plate. They must figure it out on their own. On a subliminal level, this makes the reader/viewer feel clever for having figured it out. Although the writer could have done the work for them and written the scene out with a lot of dialogue and argument, it would still be showing. Many times, the understated is best.

Leonardo da Vinci said: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

As a novelist, we need to kick it up a notch and describe the scene because it isn’t a movie and the reader cannot literally see the characters in action. But if we can start off by doing what a scriptwriter does by just describing the action, then later we can add the bits between. With clever writing, our characters’ actions, emotions and dialogue should have filled in most of the blanks—the things a reader can’t see like a movie-goer can—and we should have a tighter story that is much more powerful.