Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How to "Show" and not "Tell" for nervousness?

I was told to ask this question here. There’s a saying in writing to “show; don’t tell”. For example instead of saying: “She was angry”, you would write: “Steam started coming out of her ears”, or:...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by iiRosie1‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T07:32:10Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/32043
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar iiRosie1‭ · 2019-12-08T07:32:10Z (about 5 years ago)
I was told to ask this question here. There’s a saying in writing to [“show; don’t tell”](https://thewritepractice.com/show-dont-tell/). For example instead of saying: “She was angry”, you would write: “Steam started coming out of her ears”, or: “Her fists slowly clenched up”. So it’s being more specific when showing emotions, actions etc. happening.

I am looking for a “showing” phrase for being nervous. The only one I could think of was: “Her heart was pounding heavily.”

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-12-17T17:03:48Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 0