Category: Writing Exercise

Writing Exercise: Show Don’t Tell

Erin Penn

From the Internet Hive Mind

Earlier this month, I shared a Magical Words on the need to tell instead of show, when telling keeps the story moving. Today’s writing exercise is flipping that advice to the more traditional Show Don’t Tell.

Carrie Ryan, in a Magical Words post from April 16, 2011, wrote about “The Reader Experience”.

Both Faith Hunter and Carrie Ryan’s advice center around the reader. When showing, not telling, a writer is immersing the reader into the characters and action. When telling, not showing, the “camera” is pulled away from the action, letting things happen offscreen or, at least, more impersonally. My attempt at the Writing Exercise for the Tell, Don’t Show advice has a person getting out of the vehicle, climbing their front steps, and opening their front door. Not usually something necessary in a story at all. Ms. Ryan gives several examples of Tell vs. Show examples for when showing is better than the telling.

Again the URL is . Be sure to read the comments so you can understand “Experience, don’t dictate.”

WRITING EXERCISE: Write something as a TELL instead of a SHOW that should be a SHOW, and then rewrite the same something as a SHOW. Finally explain why SHOWING was necessary in this case.

My Attempt

Tell instead of Show: I felt invaded, not only by the dead body in my living room, but also by the killer. There had to be a killer based on the three bullets holes neatly spaced across the chest black with crusted blood.

Show instead of Tell: My lunch pail and purse dropped to the floor, and my stomach dropped even further bringing me to my knees. I cover my mouth, gasping for breath, tears of panic teasing the corners of my eyes. Pressing my mouth, I push all emotions back inside. I force myself to break eye contact with the glazed sightless dead eyes, dragging my watery vision across the dead body with three neat bullet holes in its chest to my purse. Risking everything, I lift my hands from my mouth, take two big gulps of air and dive in with both hands, searching for my cell phone. 9-1-1. As I hit the second one on the screen, I realized I knew the body, which meant I also knew the killer.

Answering the question: As before, showing takes longer than telling, but the emotions are necessary.

Show and Tell Series
Part 1 – 8/3/2023
Part 2 – 8/22/2023

Magical Words: Show, Don’t Tell – Except When You Tell

Erin Penn

From the Internet Hive Mind

One of the hard and fast rules of writing is SHOW DON’T TELL … except when it isn’t.

Showing takes time. A lot of time and words. And if what is being shown is boring or slow, well, maybe a quick tell is better.

Faith Hunter wrote a Magical Words post on 9/1/2010 which provides some guidelines for breaking the rules … and writing as to guide the reader through transitioning the borders of rules and rulebreaking. “Rules of Writing: Show, Don’t Tell, (Except When You Tell)”

Rule number one of When NOT to show is “Transitions”. Read the blog post for the rest.

Full URL is:

WRITING EXERCISE: After reviewing the blog, write something that should be a TELL instead of a SHOW as a SHOW. And then write the same something as a TELL. Why is the Tell better than a show in this case?

My Attempt:

As a Show: The distance from the car to the front door contained only seventeen steps, not counting rounding the car. Since I parked backwards, that wasn’t as much of an issue as most days. The minivan took a while to walk around, at least four steps, more like six. I hopped out of the front seat, closed the driver’s side door, opened the passenger door, dragged out my lunch pail and purse after the long day of work. The front steps brought my quick walk to a pause. Age charges a toll, and the knees collect most of it. While I’m much more confident walking up the step than down them, gravity and balance strangely work in my favor mounting the trivial three steps, a pause to verify all the skills I need to walk up is still warranted. Yes, my body is willing to not be disrespectful of my inner vision of youth and verve today. One, two, three steps. After juggling the keys out of the purse while holding the lunch pail and the screen door, I unlock my front door and step inside. That’s when I notice the smell.

As a Tell: The long day at work gave me exhausted fits unlocking the front door while juggling my purse, my lunch pail (so I could save money to pay off my mortgage before I die of the old age my knees say I already reached), and the screen door. I’ll claim concentration on the task at hand as an excuse to my dying day for not noticing the smell. Someone else had reached their dying day sooner than me, and I don’t live with anyone. And yet, my living room contained a dead body.

Telling over showing: How I parked, walking from the car, all of that doesn’t matter to the story. The story is the dead body. I do need a little exposition to setup the character, but not 190 of them. Two sentences of 67 words is much better – even gave me room for two more sentences to set up the story premise after the character introduction and description. People pretty much know what it means to come home from a long day at work.

Show and Tell Series
Part 1 – 8/3/2023
Part 2 – 8/22/2023

Writing Exercise: Paper vs. Tech

Erin Penn

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Last Thursday, I wrote “Learning through Paper vs. Tech” Geeking Science blog post (7/20/2023). Ready to apply science to your writing?

In the studies, scientist pointed out while tech allowed faster reading and faster note-taking, comprehension and higher level processing and retention suffered.

How would this apply to writing? I remember when I first began writing, and the computer was buried in the basement and not constantly on, writing the first draft on paper and then spending hours in the slightly damp and slightly dark basement transcribing the material. When transcribing the first draft into the second draft, I was rewriting so much of the material – making it better, getting the flow right. The story bloomed during my dark, damp times.

As time has gone on, computers and typing have become a way of life and my hand now cramps within minutes of writing instead of hours. All the muscles are for typing, not writing.

Hmm, that is telling – “not writing”. Is not writing the first draft out by hand one of the reasons I am not writing much? I know a lot of my writer friends, who are writing regularly, swear by their journals.

Obviously tech lets writing be faster with the computer, but is it better?

Today’s writing exercise is to physically write.

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a scene out by hand, and then retype the second draft. How is this product different from the normal written scene done through typing?

 

Writing Exercise: Every Ten Pages

Erin Penn

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Faith Hunter, the writer of the amazing Jane Yellowrock series, talks about how her normal rule-of-thumb is being impacted by her long-running series (then at a measly eight books) in a Magical Words post from January 28, 2014.

“Something has to happen every ten pages.” is her go-to rule-of-thumb.

Only then is the reader pushed through the story with the “I can’t put this book down” feeling.

The URL is

She say for a mystery, that is how often the clues need to hit, for a romance, that is how often the romance needs to move forward.

Unlike most writers who dream of writing novels and moan about cutting down to short story length for special projects, I’m the opposite. My natural writing form is poetry. And not just any poetry: Tanka – five lines. I’ve managed to up it to flashes, and last year I had a break through in writing series of flashes. Now I’m aiming for short stories … or, bless my heart, novellas, which are actual sellable products.

The “every ten pages” is beginning to become a reality. Interesting enough, most chapters in genre fiction published works are around 10 pages – coincidence? 

WRITING EXERCISE: Look at your present WIP (work-in-progress) and see how often the major plot has a jump forward. Does it match the rule-of-thumb? Is there a slow part of the book? How many pages between plot-moving action is that?

READING EXERCISE: Find an author, one whose books you can’t put down. Not necessarily a favorite because deconstructing someone’s writing lets you see their formulas and that makes the reading less fun. Anyway, for this book, write the beats down – does something happen every ten pages?

 

Writing Exercise: Animals

Erin Penn

Photo by Dessy Dimcheva on Unsplash

Have you ever been held up driving because of an animal in the road? Sheep, goat., dog, cow, cat, rabbit, squirrel … just to name a few that have given me and my car pause over the years. It’s like there is a world of life out there unrelated but overlapping with humans.

Misty Masey brings up the topic of “Critters in Fantasy” (and other works) in the Magical Words post from September 11, 2012. For the purpose of this writing exercise, I’m focusing on the final question “Are there animals in your stories?”

The URL for the original article is: http://www.magicalwords.net/misty-massey/critters-in-fantasy/

WRITING EXERCISE: Look over your body of work. Have you ever written an animal WHICH IS NOT a pet or an animal that is normally a pet? Do you regularly have animals when describing outdoor scenes? Today either comment about a time you wrote about animals, or create a scene with an animal. It doesn’t have to be a major part of the scene, but it could be.

My attempt: Ok, wow. I don’t write much with animals and when I do, it is usually a dog (Following a Lead) or a cat (The secrets of cats). My characters don’t tend to have pets, since with my own allergies, I’ve never been able to have them. I do have frogs and crickets mentioned in Moon Reflections. I need to work on adding flora and fauna to my white boxes.