Category: Uncategorized

The first and most frequently repeated tip a wannabe fiction writer is given is show, don’t tell. You’re writing a story. Therefore you are telling a story. You are a storyteller. No one has ever heard of a story-shower. Show, don’t tell? What exactly does that mean and how do you accomplish it?

Simply put, showing allows a reader to follow the story into a scene or setting, as if they were there. There, they can feel and experience the story unfolding with the characters. It draws a reader into the story using all of their senses. Working a healthy balance of showing and telling into your story can engage your reader.

Here are five suggestions for ways in which you can show:

Dialogue. This is a staple in your toolbox to show readers something. Consider this example. You can tell: “Dad was really angry.” Or your reader can hear it for themselves: “Darin!” Dad shouted, “Get over here right now! What were you thinking? I brought you into this world, Son, and I’ll take you out!” (Wow. Flashback!)

And in that example, I’m reminded of a time I’ve seen, or heard, or otherwise experienced before. Now I’m able to connect with the characters in the story in a more personal way. Dialogue is a great way to convey emotion, attitude and give great insights into a particular character’s persona. You don’t need to say “Bobby was a jerk.” You show them in dialogue. And they’ll appreciate it all the more.

Sensory descriptives. When you want to show a scene, thinking about your reader’s many senses and appealing to them can help. Warning, though–this can easily be overdone. So proceed in moderation. Consider the mega hit from the rock band Journey for a moment, otherwise known as Tony Soprano’s swan song–Don’t Stop Believin’. “A singer in a smokey room; smell of wine and cheap perfume…” It paints a picture, doesn’t it? Brings you there much more than if he’d have simply sung, “There was a singer in a bar.” Sensory descriptives appeal, because we’ve all got a sense for what a smokey room would  ‘feel like’ to us. An asthmatic, I start to wheeze when I hear Steve Perry sing those words! Everyone has some sense of what a boozy, alcohol saturated smelling room might be, or how overwhelming cheap perfume–especially in excess–can be. So we can put ourselves in the scene.

Adjectives and adverbs. Okay, back to grammar class. You remember what adjectives and adverbs are used for in language. Again, a caution: don’t over do it. This is another one that easily identifies sophomoric writing. Here’s a hint: Can you use adjectives and adverbs to speak into the sensory descriptions mentioned above? If you can, that would be far better than loading up on gag-reflex redundant adjectives: She was very meticulously dressed in a deep ocean blue, sequined blouse, with a thick, wool scarf of fuchsia, and wore a cute, little, raspberry beret, tilted… {closed the book}.

Figurative language. This is another good tool to be applied in moderation. This one is easy to over exaggerate. You can tell: “the virtuoso played his cello.” Or you can show by using some figurative language: “he and his instrument were one, making beautiful music together.” Or, as mentioned, you can go way overboard: “like lovers they melted into one another…” Yeah … Awkward.

Specifics. When you’re finished with a story, or you’re through with a section and ready to do some revising, go back through and find every place where you’ve been vague and get specific. For instance, if you wrote: “She had never felt like this before”, spend a few minutes imagining the specific feeling, and revise. Show us what that feeling felt like to the character–and let us determine how absolutely amazing it was, something we’d never felt before.

Now, a disclaimer. I don’t share all this with you because I think I have mastered it myself. I’m very much an artist–trying. I do hope that these suggestions provide some thought provocation for you as you work on your craft, much as they do for me. So let’s get to work–showing.

Do you have any suggestions for showing that have worked well for you–either as a writer or as a reader?

My writer friends and I often talk about the tools we’ve discovered to actually help us put words on a page. Those tools range everything from hardware to software, pens to moleskine journals, settings to environments, snacks to libations. I’ve decided to sing the praises of a few of my writing tools here in a series of posts.

In earlier posts I’ve shared the computer hardware and software that powers my writing endeavors, and a few of the old-school reference books and resources I turn to as I write. Today I want to share some of my favorite accoutrements. Good thing I mentioned dictionaries last time. You may want to look accoutrements up.

My wife bought me a Mr. Coffee desktop coffee warmer. Best gift you could buy a coffee drinking writer, I tell you. Perhaps it has happened to you–you sit down at the keyboard and hit a stroke of inspiration only to realize fifteen minutes later your cup of joe is ice cold. This thing is the bomb!

I dig scents when I write. Nothing like the smell of a good strong cup of coffee. But what about those late night occasions when you don’t really want the coffee/caffeine thing? For me, it’s a simple fragrant candle (citrus, ocean and holiday scents are my favorites) or even a stick of mild incense (woodsy or earthy, my tastes).

You’ll always find a cheap legal pad next to me. I do all of my writing on my Macbook, but I’m also always wanting to jot stuff down, perhaps a page or paragraph notation so I can come back to something later, or a reminder about something that crosses my mind when I’m not ready to act on it at that moment. These aren’t notes I keep. I fill the page, cross items off as they’re no longer needed, and then crumple it up and start fresh the next time.

Even though I do all my writing on a computer, I occasionally like to print out segments and edit by hand. I’m old-school that way. Nothing like blue pencils for editing. Gotta have ’em.

Tunes are important to me, too. I’ve always got my iPod nearby, or simply play from iTunes on my Mac. I have a small desktop speaker system on hand, so I can plug in and adjust volume and EQ however I want it. I dig just about every kind of music, so depending on what I’m working on and what sort of mood I’m in, it could be anything. My playlists are mad diverse.

And I also always have a dish of Sweet-Tarts on hand. Sugar. The blue ones–you know we’ll be eating those one day in heaven, so get used to them now.

How about you? Any accoutrements you can offer up that help get your creative juices flowing? 

I am presently participating in a writing class offered through the Literary Kitchen and one of my writing mentors, Ariel Gore. Among our assignments each week is a ‘Quick Write’ exercise, which is to be completed in eight minutes or less, in response to a prompt. For this week’s QW, the prompt was ‘Somebody is knocking on your motel room door in the middle of the night.’ Here’s my QW#4 entry:

I don’t have to make this one up—it’s happened to me.

Knocking.

Middle of the night, I tell you. It was the darkest night of my life. I was scared. When you’re jarred awake and you’re in an unfamiliar place, and the things that you normally count on as ‘sure’ aren’t there—what’s for real?

Four weeks earlier—to the day—my brother Dave had taken me on that fateful fishing trip. Middle of Lake Jessop in Sanford, Florida; the most alligator populated body of water in North America. Gators were everywhere I looked—eyes, noses and backs sticking out of the water surrounding our little boat. Dave pulled a bible out of his tackle box and said, “Sit down and listen to me for a minute. I want to talk to you about Jesus. If you don’t want to listen, you can swim for shore.”

For four weeks I’d been thinking about what Dave said, considering giving this Jesus a chance to prove himself real to me. Now this?

Knocking.

Darkest night of my life started as the darkest day—at 11 that morning I learned that my father died. He went to work like every other day, but this time a disgruntled employee and a case of what they call workplace violence changed everything. Sixteen. My dad’s not coming home. He’s never coming home. Most days he’d pull in the driveway and pick up a mitt, we’d throw a ball for a half-hour before supper, talk about the day. Never again. I lay in my bed crying. Life never hurt so bad.

Knocking.

‘So Jesus, what the heck? I’m giving you a shot to see if you’re real and this is what you’ve got to offer?’

I picked up the bible my brother gave me and found my way to a list of verses he’d penciled in the back. I looked one up.

Knocking.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and eat with him, and he with me.” 

“Hey Jesus, you’re welcome to come in, but I need to warn you, I’m not really a religious guy.”

“That’s good,” he said. “I don’t hang out with religious people. My friends are drunkards, gamblers and whores, the broken, weak and weary. Haven’t you heard?”

It’s happened to you. Probably just this morning at the local cafe. The courteous server delivered your omelette and cheesy hash browns, reached to top off your coffee and asked, “How is everything?” Everything? Really? Everything?!? You are nonplussed! Does this inquisitive soul want to sit down? This could take quite a while. She’s asked. You’ll oblige. You begin, “Well, I woke up in the middle of the night with a painful charley horse; then, wouldn’t you know it, I couldn’t get back to sleep; I stared at the alarm-clock for hours; worried about my bills–did you know that my health insurance company wants to raise my deductible? Again?!? …” That kindly server wishes desperately for a chance to amend her question, “How is your breakfast?” But you’re only just getting started. “…and I have to go back to that doctor because I’ve got this fungus under my toenails, and…”

The Case of Perturbing Pronouns

In today’s episode our hero has been called upon to clarify proper pronoun and scope agreement. He arrives on scene–at the Cafe de Mot–and is immediately greeted, “And how are we this morning?” Egads! There is no time to waste. This is a job for … Grammar Man!

Words like everything, everybody and we are pronouns. Reminder from your early days in grammar class: pronouns generally stand for a noun or a set of nouns–that’s called the pronoun’s antecedent–whose identity is made clear by the context. Go ahead, read that definition again. It will help.

It is all too commonplace and dangerous form to use a broad pronoun when context is narrow. You can make this scene unfold yourself the next time your breakfast server opens so-wide a door. The toe-fungus usually gets quite a response. It can also be a lot of fun to simply say, “I’ve got a lot of gas this morning.” If you say it loud enough it might even open up a few seats around you.

But it’s also assumed that when a pronoun is substituted for nouns in a sentence, that the hearer will be clever enough to recognize the scope of context. If your server is asking the question, this inquiry likely references the meal set before you. Doh! So who is at fault? Who is in the wrong? What’s a grammarian super hero to do?

With words like everything and everybody the confusion is likely rooted in the first part of the word–every. Every is, by itself, and adjective. Grammarians, all together now: that means it modifies a noun. So every bicycle, every donut, and every last penny means to convey that all are included, and none are excluded. When compounded into a pronoun with the nebulous thing–imagine the possibilities!

We is a different story. That is a personal, plural, first person pronoun. We includes within it, I. This word should never be used as the exampled usage above. Consider this experience from Grammar Man’s past. Once he needed surgery. It was relatively minor, but Grammar Man isn’t a fan of doctors … with scalpels. The scrub nurse asked, “How are we this morning?” Do you see how ridiculous that is? We? Well, we’re just about to pee our pants!

Here’s the conclusion: When it comes to personal pronouns, the offender needs to be schooled. Grammar Man recommends a mild reprimand: “I think you meant to ask ‘How are you doing?'” Methinks that one or more such reminder will be sufficient to cure the offender of the faux pas. Where a thoughtlessly broad pronoun use is introduced into very narrow context–say over breakfast–Grammar Man suggests you accept the fact that so many flawed communicators inhabit our world. Throw your hands in the air. Scratch your head. Then try to be coy in your response, so as to educate. Try perhaps the following: “You’ve just used a very broad pronoun, everything. Interpreting pronouns requires one to consider context to define its antecedent. You’ve just served me eggs. Aha! My breakfast is fine. Thank you.”

On second thought … go with the toe-fungus and gas. And tune in next time when Grammar Man sorts out the difference betwixt every day and everyday.

Seen any glaring grammatical errors lately? Who uses the word betwixt anymore?

I am presently participating in a writing class offered through the Literary Kitchen and one of my writing mentors, Ariel Gore. Among our assignments each week is a ‘Quick Write’ exercise, which is to be completed in eight minutes or less, in response to a prompt. For this week’s QW, the prompt was ‘What can happen eight minutes?’ Here’s my tongue-in-cheek QW#3 entry:

What can happen in eight minutes? You can seriously further my writing life!

In eight minutes, you could go to Amazon.com and order a copy of my book Big Buts of the Bible: A Revealing Look at Jesus Christ. Did you know that as soon as you hit ‘purchase’ my sales rank improves like a million spots? A handful of your friends join you and, voila!—I’m a best-seller.

Or, if you’ve read a copy, you can go to Amazon.com and write a stellar review for me. That can have a tremendous effect on my book’s visibility. It helps those sales numbers all the more. I’ll be a whore about it—I’ll reciprocate! I’ll tell the world what a literary genius you are, too.

In eight minutes you could follow @Big_Buts on Twitter. Join the thousands who have a thing for big buts! Then you could retweet me—nothing like showing your but to your friends.

In the same eight minutes you could like Big Buts on Facebook. Won’t it be fun when your FB crowd sees “Ariel likes big buts!” come across the news feed? And oh, the fun you’ll have, explaining that it’s buts with one ‘t’, not butts with two. You could even sing ‘Conjunction Junction, what’s your function…’

In so doing you’re helping grow my platform. Thank you. I am, after all, the world’s foremost expert on buts. Says so on my LinkedIn page, so it must be true.

In eight minutes you could tell several of your friends, “I know this guy who likes buts buts!” Toss them my links. Can’t hurt, right? I think that’s how Sir-Mix-A-Lot did it in the 80s.

In eight minutes you could visit my writing website and either follow via email or subscribe to the RSS feed. While you’re at it, you could look at my Big Buts website, too. Chock-full-o-buts, it is! darinmichaelshaw.com & bigbutsofthebible.com … And GO!

In less than eight minutes you can go to iTunes and become somewhere around the 12,000th subscriber to my podcasts. Search Darin Michael Shaw in the iTunes store. Make me famous. Maybe some day an agent or a publisher will give a damn.

Can you spare a wannabe author like me eight minutes?

And last, but not least, you can type as completely self-centered and self-serving a piece as I just did—all in under eight minutes. I know. I’m good!