Showing v. Telling

As I said in last month’s blog, it’s been a delight to catch up with former students on Facebook. A small group of students I taught many years ago in a creative writing class remain my all-time favorite—and through the magic of Facebook, I’ve become reacquainted with a few of them.

They came to my classroom eager, precocious and word-smart. All I had to do was give them a writing prompt, a few good examples and they set their pens to scratching. They were a teacher’s dream. After leaving high school, all of them used their writing skills—either as students or aspiring authors—and several continue to write for a living. Alas, I can take none of the credit. They were gifted from the start. All I had to do was nurture their talents.

Back in the day (a perfect cliché for pre-technology), teachers rarely had the chance to discover if their efforts paid dividends for students later in life. So you can imagine how thrilled I’ve been to discover that most of my students remember at least one writing tip I stressed in creative writing class. One student, who works in public relations as a technology writer, told me, “I still live by the “Show, Don’t Tell” mantra—and my clients are quite tired of hearing it!” I admit, I preached “show, don’t tell” like the gospel.

But when I wrote my former student back, I asked, “Now that you can’t get the ‘show, don’t tell’ mantra out of your head, have you spotted reasons for flouting the rule when it serves a good purpose?” (Of course she has!) Like any rule, it’s sometimes meant to be broken—especially when narration, argumentation or interpretation are the most logical means to an end.

But before flouting “show, don’t tell,” make sure you’ve mastered it and know when to use it for maximum effect. Instead of droning on about a time you were nervous, “show” us how your heart quivered, your stomach plunged and the blood throbbed in your temples. Instead of “telling” us about a serious car accident, help us “hear” the screeching tires, the shattering windshield, the crunching metal, and “see” the driver as she unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out of the broken window, shards of glass raining down on her head. Instead of describing an argument with a co-worker, insert the actual dialogue so we can “hear” the heated volley of words. Invite readers inside by engaging their senses. In short, “show, don’t tell.”

Writers would be foolish not to “show” dramatic action, dialogue and vivid description whenever possible, but don’t be afraid to move beyond it when it serves your purpose. Sometimes, the only way to unearth the underlying story is to “tell” your readers about it, to suggest or interpret its larger meaning. Consider Ralph Ellison’s opening line, “I am an invisible man,” to his 1953 novel, “Invisible Man.” Rather than “showing” the color of the character’s skin, he “tells” us how society views him because he is a man of color.

Also, never try to “show” every detail in an effort to stick to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (whether real or imagined). If the crux of your story is a car accident that occurred at midnight, do you need to “show” the driver as she wakes up, stretches and yawns the morning before the crash? Probably not. Be selective.

So it boils down to this: “Show, don’t tell,” unless telling is the best way to show. Proceed with caution.

In Defense of Facebook

A version of this month’s blog was published in July’s edition of The Jacksonville Review, as a rebuttal to the publisher’s note that appeared in May’s issue of The Review.



Although a busy workload—followed by a vacation—forced me to skip last month’s column, I still had time to stew about the publisher’s note, “Forget Facebook—Meet Me at Pony,” in May’s issue of The Jacksonville Review. It’s been stuck in my craw for the past two months.

You see … well … I have a confession to make: I use Facebook … that’s right. And I’m getting tired of Facebook-cynics’ knee jerk reactions to the mere mention of FACEBOOK (let alone invitations to join!). They provide a litany of reasons why they’ll never be caught lurking in the denizens of Facebook.

As publisher Whitman Parker said in May’s issue, “I fear too many Facebook folks are building their sense of community and self-esteem based on the number of hits they receive and the number of online friends they ‘collect’.”

But he didn’t stop there. “Here in Jacksonville,” he conjectured, “I bet the majority of citizens would prefer to have a live [rather than online] discussion at Pony Espresso, The Good Bean, the Bella Union, or many of the other places fostering healthier, human-focused interaction.”

“Unfortunately,” he went on to say, “I suspect many are using Facebook as a digital meeting place to substitute stepping-out into the real world.”

Hold the phone! I use Facebook and I step-out into the real world every day. I see, I touch and I hug someone—every day. For me, and most of my “friends,” Facebook is not a “substitute” for personal interaction. Emphatically. My sense of community is derived from face-to-face contact with real live people in real time.

But I also use Facebook.

I check out photos, videos, comments, links, musings and lame jokes from friends and family who live both nearby and far away. It’s the best way to swap photos with my kids, who live in Eugene and Portland, and keep up with my nephew in Texas. One of my “friends” is a former exchange student from Alba, Italy who stayed with us—and whom we visited in Italy. And the best treat of all has been reconnecting with old friends from high school and college, as well as former students. None of it would be possible without Facebook.

I’m also networked with people I see regularly: friends, neighbors, colleagues, clients. And ironically, Facebook has brought us closer. When we see each other—face-to-face—the time together is richer because we’ve shared bits of our lives with each other on Facebook. All it takes is a half-hour or so, three or four times a week. (Sure, some people—especially teenagers—are obsessive about social networking, but my experience tells me they’re the exception, not the rule.)

And another thing: I haven’t sacrificed my privacy. I haven’t splashed the gory details of my life for the entire online world to see. (And thanks to Facebook settings, users control who can and cannot see their pages.) I’ve developed a profile and a “voice” that honestly represent who I am without revealing information best reserved for intimate conversation. Unremarkably, I am a friend, a colleague, a professional and a social networker at the same time. I run a business and a household, parent my kids (albeit from afar), work in the garden, walk my dog, clean the garage, read, write, exercise—and use Facebook.

But the best part of each day is spending face-to-face time with loved ones, friends, neighbors and my dog Walter. Facebook could never replace or replicate that.

There’s no disputing that technology has revolutionized both the workplace and our personal lives. E-mail remains a constant, but the evolving world of online communication—social networking, blogging, podcasting, photo sharing, texting—is radically changing the way we think, communicate and interact. Facebook (and all its variants) reflects the world we live in today. We can choose to join that world or resist it, but if we “ignore” its inevitable advance, we risk obsolescence.

If it’s true that a newspaper is history’s first draft, then Facebook just eclipsed it. For a literate society, it’s become a way to document life as we live it.

See you in July!

I'm on vacation this month, but I'll be back in July!

The Real Story

In the age of technology, books and newspapers face stiff competition. Americans spend huge chunks of time watching television, surfing the Internet, gawking at You Tube and scrolling through Facebook. How can writers begin to compete?

By never forgetting that we’re storytellers, regardless of the medium we use. Whether we write TV scripts, web copy, blogs, Facebook postings, editorials, features, short stories or novels, it’s the underlying human story that hooks readers.

In an interview with “Rolling Stone” magazine, Don Hewitt, who recently stepped down after 36 years as the executive producer of CBS’s “60 Minutes,” explained the guiding principle of the show this way: “A producer came to me one day and said, ‘Why don’t we do a story about acid rain?’ I said, ‘Acid rain isn’t a story. It’s a subject. Tell me a story about somebody whose life was ruined by acid rain, or about a community trying to do something about acid rain, but don’t tell me about acid rain.’”

Hewitt said that most stories on “60 Minutes” rely on the dramatic structure common to all good stories: conflict, struggle and resolution. He called them, “little morality plays.”

It’s not the facts about the city council meeting, the teabag protests, a family’s deportation to Guatemala, the fictionalized account of a woman’s immigration from England to America that fascinate us. It’s the human story behind the facts. It’s the human emotion—told through specific details, descriptions, anecdotes, conversations and narratives—that pull us into a story.

Just like everyone else, I received an e-mail link a few weeks back to a You Tube video of a woman named Susan Boyle. She recently wowed judges on a show called “Britain’s Got Talent” and became an instant You Tube sensation hours after she belted out a song from “Les Miserables” that brought the house down. But why all the fuss?

It’s the human story behind her performance that’s taken the world by storm. Here was an unemployed, plain-looking, 47-year-old woman dressed in a party frock, who had never performed in front of a large audience, who turned a house of skeptics into true believers. She was sensational, yet humble—and she touched a chord in us all.

No matter what the medium or genre, as long as we never lose sight of the Susan Boyle stories and the “little morality plays” underneath the facts, opinions, events and plots, we’ll pull readers in and keep them hooked.

Yes, readers need to know who, what, when, where, why and how, but not to the exclusion of the story’s beating heart. An infusion of dramatic structure—conflict, character development, dialogue, struggle, anticipation, climax and resolution—can pump life-blood into fiction and nonfiction alike.

Not every story involves a life-and-death struggle against evil, like the recent rescue of the American sea captain held hostage by Somali pirates. But a simple story about a local group’s efforts to install a bicycle lane on a busy street might have a dramatic backstory. Maybe their efforts were set in motion by the tragic death of a beloved local teacher who was struck by a car while riding her bike on the street’s narrow shoulder. If the human toll is never revealed, readers may never understand the group’s passion, doggedness and eventual triumph. That’s the real story.

The human struggle is always the real story, no matter what the medium. Writers should plumb it for all it’s worth.

Rehearsing to Write

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), an American writer best known for her sarcastic wit, once said, “I hate writing; I love having written.”

Can you relate?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a student hammering out a term paper, a manager pounding out a report or a professional writer eking out a story just under deadline, the pressure builds. We agonize, procrastinate, flounder and finally, we choke out a draft. “Why is it so hard?” my clients ask.

I only wish more writers would turn to me before the copyediting or proofreading stage. At earlier stages, it’s still possible to turn a mediocre piece of writing into a great one. I’m happy to assist writers at any stage—and I’ll even polish without suggesting major changes, if requested—but I can’t help but feel bad about the barren stretches they traveled alone, beads of sweat dripping down their foreheads. I wish I’d been there to wipe their brows—and give advice—when the going got tough.

The struggle of writing is the stuff of legend. As the story goes, Ernest Hemingway would lock himself in a room with a bottle of whiskey and emerge a day later with a new short story. As he once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

It’s a pity Hemingway and Parker didn’t live long enough to benefit from the shift in writing instruction—from product to process—that debuted in the early 1970s. Pioneered by writing experts such as Donald Murray, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and University of New Hampshire professor, The Process Approach revolutionized the way writing is taught.

The Process Approach breaks down writing into a logical sequence: prewriting, writing, revising and editing. Each step leads to the final goal—publishing (which can include anything from a blog posting, to a letter to a friend, to a magazine article). The Process Approach is built on the premise that writing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s meant to be read by a targeted audience.

When you understand that writing is a process, you take it a step at a time, avoiding the trap of comparing your blank screen (or piece of paper) with your favorite novels and columns (“I’ll never be able to write like that!” you think). Published writers—just like you—build their work one word, one paragraph and one chapter at a time. Break down the process into bite-sized pieces, follow the logical sequence of The Process Approach and the struggle will shrink, if not melt away.

When a deadline is looming, it’s tempting to scrimp on the pre-writing stage and we usually pay the price, as Hemingway would say, in blood. Think of pre-writing as a writing-rehearsal. Once you’ve selected a topic, scene or character, give yourself plenty of time to think about it before your fingers hit the keyboard. It’s like taking notes inside your head.

After you’ve tossed your ideas around for a spell, try a free-writing, which gives you another opportunity for rehearsal. Impose a time limit, say 20 minutes, and write without worrying about spelling, punctuation, grammar or form. Keep your fingers (or the pen) moving the entire 20 minutes. Follow your ideas wherever they lead you, without censure. The goal is to loosen up enough to discover what you have to say about the topic. Usually, a focus emerges.

Now you’re ready to start the first draft. But remember: If you falter—and the sweat starts popping out on your forehead—go back to the rehearsal stage or seek the advice of a trusted peer, teacher, editor or coach. Problems at the “writing” stage—or any stage—usually crop up because you didn’t give due diligence to the preceding stage. Makes sense, huh?

Linda Bowman, a writer, editor and writing coach, has been helping people master the writing process for over 20 years. Contact her at The Writing Center at www.tuneyourwriting.com.

Use the Active Voice

Having worked with writers of all different ages and education backgrounds, I’ve observed first-hand that most of us possess an innate sense of what makes good writing—even if we don’t have the terminology to explain it. It doesn’t matter if it’s been 30 years since our last grammar lesson or if we missed grammar altogether. We know good writing when we read it or hear it.

If I explained that in “active voice,” the subject in a sentence does what the verb describes, whereas, in “passive voice,” the action described by the verb is done to the subject, would you instinctively know what I mean? Probably not.

But if I ask you which sentence in the following pairs sounds better:

• “Shawn fumbled the ball” or “The ball was fumbled by Shawn”?
• “The pilot landed the plane” or “The plane was landed by the pilot”?
• “Lightning struck the tree” or “The tree was struck by lightning”?

I’ll bet money you pick the first sentence in each pair—the active voice. It’s more forceful and direct and creates a stronger image. It’s not about right or wrong; it’s about vigor.

In the passive sentences above, the original objects of the verbs (“ball,” “plane” and “tree”) become the subjects of the sentences. None of the passive constructions are incorrect; they’re just weak.

One strategy for building active sentences is to avoid the use of “to be” verbs: is, are, was, were, had been, would be—the list goes on and on. The subject doesn’t act, but is acted upon, resulting in less vigorous sentences. Which constructions sound stronger?

• “She was seen by Sam” or “Sam saw her”?
• “There were branches blocking the road” or “Branches blocked the road”?
• “He had been forced to move out of his home because of foreclosure” or “Foreclosure forced him out of his home”?

In the active sentences—the second one in each pair—the “to be” verbs get out of the way so the meaning rings clear. Notice, too, that the active sentences are shorter than the passive ones. A side-benefit of active voice, then, is tighter, more concise writing.

So what causes us to lapse into passive voice?

Too often, I think, we forget to apply our innate sense of good writing to our own work. And because writing isn’t easy, we get intimidated, and before we know it, we’ve downshifted into passivity. We’ll sound more scholarly if we say, “The ball was fumbled by Shawn,” rather than spitting out the truth: “Shawn fumbled the ball,” right?

We need look no further than the 85-page handbook on grammar and usage, “The Elements of Style,” for answers. Written by William Strunk Jr. in 1919 and revised and updated by E.B. White in 1959, it remains—to this day—the gold standard for composition students (which means “all of us”).

Chapters I and II offer 22 basic rules of composition, but it’s Rule 14 that makes me quake in my boots. Every time I write a passive sentence that depends on a weak, “to be” verb for its survival, I feel the ghost of Strunk shouting from the rafters, “USE THE ACTIVE VOICE,” and I heed his command.

Try this: On your next piece of writing—no matter what the purpose or audience—challenge yourself to write the entire piece without using a single “to be” verb. Enlist verbs that push hard and create motion, imagery, sound and smell. Use verbs whose sounds suggest what they mean: slither, dazzle, twirl, sizzle, pamper, sniff. When you revise, banish every passive construction you can do without. Then stand back and watch your writing jitterbug.

Cut the Fat

Robert Browning said it best: “Less is more.”

So why do we write as though “more is better”? Why do we use five words when one is sufficient? Why do we think we sound smarter if we use fancy words over simple? Why do we use passive language when arguing a point? Why do we dodge and evade when the goal is communication? Why all the repetitious redundancies? (Who, me?)

Why are we full of hot air?

As William Zinsser says in his classic writing guide, On Writing Well, “Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.” Okay, so we’re windbags. But finding out why we’re “strangling in unnecessary words” is not nearly as important to me as helping writers cut the fat. Period.

I call it “tightening.” It means making each sentence as lean and clean as possible; cutting every word that doesn’t pull its weight. As an editor and writing coach, clutter is the most noxious weed I encounter; tightening terminates it (like that fancy wording?).

Sometimes readers slog through so much clutter they have no idea what the writer means by the sentence’s end. Other times, writers use so many inflated words—trying to sound intelligent—that the sentence is unintelligible. And what about passive sentence constructions? After several in a row, the reader is left with a string of weak-kneed drivel. Then there’s the artful dodger, who dances around the truth with evasions and euphemisms. And what about all those “baby puppies,” “small smidgeons” and “true facts”? Redundancies, all.

It’s time to tighten—and you can do it at any stage of the writing process. I tighten as I’m writing a first draft and again, as I revise. Once you get the hang of it, your writing will never be the same again. It becomes your secret weapon.

Try this: Look over a recent piece of your writing with a magnifying glass. It doesn’t matter if it’s an office memo, an application letter, a short story or a memoir. Get out the red pen and mark every word that’s not absolutely necessary. Be ruthless.

Then rethink and tighten. It works like this:

• “We agreed to collaborate” becomes “We collaborated.”
• “After encouraging consultation with her supervisor, she decided the time had come to actuate her potential by going back to school” becomes “With her boss’s encouragement, she went back to school.”
• “I offered my assessment of the plan” becomes “I assessed the plan.”
• “I would tend to agree with her position in theory” becomes “I agree with her.”
• “Generally speaking, the reduction in force failed to distress him” becomes “Being fired didn’t faze him.”
• “The factual evidence proves that we heard the song once before in the past” becomes “The evidence proves we heard the song before.”

Now revise. Just make sure that in the process of tightening, you don’t squeeze the life out your writing. The goal is to cut the fat without changing your original meaning or losing your voice.