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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33985
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33985
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

My exercise for this is forcing my imagination.

First we must define the difference between showing and telling in a useful way for writing.

**Showing** is writing that assists the reader's imagination so what they remember is a scene as if it were experienced. That is the job of the writer, to imagine the scene fully enough, what the character(s) see, hear, taste, smell and feel emotionally or physically. We do this because fully imagined scenes is why the reader is reading, that is the entertainment. Like a movie they want sight and sound, but also the other senses, and the emotional feelings thrown in.

**Telling** is relating facts, that do not evoke a scene, or at best evoke some generic scene that ls likely different in each reader. So it is inaccurate and vague, and you are being a poor imagination assistant. "A car", "a house", "a girl" will all trigger **_different_** images in each reader. In other words, they are too **abstract** and to evoke a scene we need **concrete details.**

As a rule of thumb, presume readers have a good memory for a scene they imagine, and a very poor memory for abstract facts they are told. "Bubbles the Clown was angry" is abstract. The words evoke no scene, so it becomes a fact about Bubbles we have to remember, and ... we don't. for a scene, we need to know what actions Bubbles took, his posture and behavior and perhaps internal thoughts and desired that prove he is angry. (Without his thought being, 'I am so angry.')

For all "Tellings", and particularly for emotions, you would like to show the **consequences** of what you are telling us, instead of the fact. Anger has consequences in how Bubbles behaves, his manner of speech (can including profanity where there normally is none), physically acting out violence he desires to commit (breaking something, punching the air).

I will get to your "exercise" in a moment, but I would relate this all to other similar problems in writing. The "wall of dialogue" problem is quite similar, a long conversation in which there is nothing but two characters having a conversation. The scene is under-imagined by the author. Putting aside other problems it may have, like a lack of conflict, the author is probably not being a good assistant to the reader's imagination.

This is also related to the problem of info-dumping about the world and setting and relationships. Most info-dumps are **not at all** presented as scenes to be imagined, they are a wall of facts the reader is supposed to remember **throughout the story** , and that memory is easily overflowed. If they do not evoke an imagined scene (which can be scenery of course), then the reader is bored, they are not building a picture in their head of anything.

The distinction about memory here is that in most scenes, the reader can remember a fair amount of detail for the duration of the scene in short term memory. It isn't important for them to hang onto those details for any longer. Info-dumps are generally about story structure and reasoning, and that requires long term memory: Memorization for the duration of the story, which may be weeks for some readers.

The exercise: Recentering. When I begin a scene, I close my eyes and imagine how it opens. I am a discovery writer, so I don't even necessarily know where it ends or how it goes. I just begin at the opening and try to choreograph the movements and emotions brought to the scene for the first minute or two. I try to imagine this in enough detail that I can find five "showings", things to assist the reader's in imagining this scene as it opens.

You can remember that character feelings have consequences in emotion and actions, and new information has consequences on character feelings or thinking which is the feedback loop of the story.

I write notes on the page **[in brackets like this]** about what I want to describe, e.g. [she sees and smells flowers]. I put these in the order I imagined them. As I write I retire them as each is accomplished, so the next is up, and I write to get to it. If I can't come up with something, I may leave the note as a placeholder while I continue the scene I imagined, so I don't get hung up on a good description of "flowers".

If the idea I had is too awkward or difficult, I pick a different sensory experience instead, or emotion to describe, but don't skip the showing of something. (I do not choose details so far ahead that I can't remember the scene segment I just imagined; it should be easy to pick a different thing to focus on.)

When I have retired (or skipped) my five showings; I stop and do it again. More imagination, more things to describe, more notes written to be retired.

I don't use [square brackets] anywhere in my fiction writing, so I can search for these "showing" notes to make sure I did them all. If you do use [], pick some characters you'd never use to flag show notes. Like @@ or {} or ||.

The point of this exercise is to train yourself to always stay focused on assisting the reader's imagination of what is going on and what is being felt and where they are in concrete language that leaves **little** to their own imagination. That is the point of you assisting them! You want them to imagine what is in **your** mind. _(Obviously you have other things to weave in too, conflicts that produce plot developments and actions and decisions.)_

This may be difficult if your habit is telling, it can be hard to break any habit. You can adapt this idea to your own style: vary how many notes you write, or how much writing you want them to span. A page or a few paragraphs. I vary them myself to control pacing of the scene and story; some allow the narrator more time for leisurely description than others.

Original score: 2