Quality writing tip - Show not Tell

Quality writing tip

Readers like to be shown aspects of a character's personality, a situation, a place. When you show your readers they can use their own imagination to see or understand. Their brain synapses become very busy and they get sucked into the book.
If the writing contains too much telling it is like a lecture and the reader will become bored.

There are probably more than 2 good books on this subject, but these are the two that helped me to understand the principles involved without costing a fortune.


Show and Tell in a Nutshell
Jessica Bell
http://www.amazon.com/Show-Tell-Nutshell-


Jessica begins by describing her own problems with telling when she was a fledgling author. There are 16 scenes. You are given the objectives for the piece of writing. This scene is then written in a 'tell' mode, followed by a 'show' mode. The difference are easy to understand. She encourages you to look at the scenes in four different ways, includes an assignment and there is space for writing notes in the printed version.






Show or Tell - a powerful lesson on a Powerful Writing Skill
James Thayer

http://www.amazon.com/Powerful-Lesson-

A short book of only 41 pages, but it demonstrates the differences between show and tell fantastically.
 'What's the difference between these two sentences? His arm itched. He scratched his arm.'  Scenes from well known novels are compared to a tell version of the same scene to explain  why showing is more interesting for the reader.
This little book is well balanced as he discusses when telling is a useful tool for the writer.