Have a look here: (http://www.susancanthony.com/resources/writing/show.html)
I'll quote.
The best writers show rather than tell. The reader must make inferences, or "read between the lines."
For example, a "telling" sentence might be, "The room was empty." A "showing" paragraph about an empty room might be:
The next show didn't start for another hour. As I repositioned the spotlight in the upper balcony, the squeaks of the rusty screws seemed to echo throughout the desolate building. I walked down aluminum stairs that resounded throughout the auditorium with the sound of rain beating on a tin roof. I opened the curtains to the large, lonely stage, dark and forbidding.
~~~
All the boats, swaying level with the quays on the high tide, were moored at one side, leaving a clear rectangle of water marked out with strings of bobbing white floats. As they came down the road they heard the faint thud of a starting-pistol, and six brown bodies flung themselves into the water and began thrashing in a white flurry of spray across the marked course. The crowd began to cheer.
Susan Cooper in Over Sea, Under Stone
What is happening? (swimming race) - It's obvious it's a swimming race, but the author never 'tells' us that it is.
Instruction manuals 'tell' things, and no-one reads those for pleasure, neither will they win awards for wonderful writing.
~~~
she just doesn't really strike me as novel material.
Any character can be novel material, as long as the author works hard to make them novel material.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-03-24 12:53 pm (UTC)Have a look here: (http://www.susancanthony.com/resources/writing/show.html)
I'll quote.
The best writers show rather than tell. The reader must make inferences, or "read between the lines."
For example, a "telling" sentence might be, "The room was empty." A "showing" paragraph about an empty room might be:
The next show didn't start for another hour. As I repositioned the spotlight in the upper balcony, the squeaks of the rusty screws seemed to echo throughout the desolate building. I walked down aluminum stairs that resounded throughout the auditorium with the sound of rain beating on a tin roof. I opened the curtains to the large, lonely stage, dark and forbidding.
All the boats, swaying level with the quays on the high tide, were moored at one side, leaving a clear rectangle of water marked out with strings of bobbing white floats. As they came down the road they heard the faint thud of a starting-pistol, and six brown bodies flung themselves into the water and began thrashing in a white flurry of spray across the marked course. The crowd began to cheer.
Susan Cooper in Over Sea, Under Stone
What is happening? (swimming race) - It's obvious it's a swimming race, but the author never 'tells' us that it is.
Instruction manuals 'tell' things, and no-one reads those for pleasure, neither will they win awards for wonderful writing.
she just doesn't really strike me as novel material.
Any character can be novel material, as long as the author works hard to make them novel material.