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.

Sprinkling Seeds of Description: Enhancing World-Building in Your Writing

Let me tell you a story that will help you enhance your world building through description immensely, creating a more immersive experience for your readers.

Two of our friends have two little girls. One is three, and the other six. Our friends live in an apartment and so have no garden, but they really wanted to teach their girls essential gardening skills and give them that important experience.

We have a massive garden, and because we rent, there's not much we can do with it, but there's a little area we're allowed to grow vegetables in if we wish. We offered this space to our friends as a communal gardening area, where they could bring their girls over and we could all plant vegetables together.

The girls came armed with their welly boots and trowels, so excited to start gardening, and we showed them how to prepare the soil before planting the seeds.

And then came the time they were most excited for: planting the seeds.

The three year old, in her excitement, would grab a handful of seeds and BAM! She would dump them all together in the same place.

No matter how much we tried to show her to gently place them little by little in spaced out intervals, she couldn't contain her excitement and her motor skills were still developing that her control over these tiny seeds wasn't quite enough to help her spread them carefully.

So she took another handful and BAM! More went in another big clump.

I think new writers are a little like this.

They get so excited about the world they're creating, and they understand in their heads how they want it to look and sound, but they're not quite ready to describe the setting in the way the readers need.

But I think looking at it like this, in the concept of spreading seeds, would really help.

Imagine your world like the garden, and you're trying to describe it to the readers to help them immerse into your story and see what you see.

Instead of info dumping them BAM! all in one go like the little three-year-old, imagine you're spreading seeds with enough space for the plants to grow.

Sprinkle a little bit here, a few here, and some there.

At regular intervals.

Seeding your descriptions like this well up-level your world building in such a way that it will give your readers an incredible and much more immersive reading experience, rather than info dumping in large, overwhelming clumps.

Seed a few hints on character hair colour, eye colour, personality here ...

Sprinkle some information on the landscape or building design there ...

A little more on how narrow the alleyways are a bit later on my describing how even children can jump from rooftop to rooftop to play.

What sounds and smells do your characters notice?

Again, just hints, just seeds.

Remembering it like this, like sprinkling seeds carefully throughout the book rather than dumping them all in one place, will give your writing skills that next level you're looking for, keeping your readers constantly engaged in your world.

If this helped you develop your world building through description, sign up for our newsletter for more writing and publishing tips, and share with people you think this would help too.

And you can watch the full storytelling video here!

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?