Show, Don't Tell!
Hello from Janice Thompson, freelance writer, editor and speaker. I’m happy to bring you this course on Passive vs. Active Writing. If you have any questions about this (or any other) lesson, please feel free to contact me at: writersgps@aol.com.
SHOULD I TELL THE READER A STORY, OR SHOW HIM?
Imagine you had tickets to the theater to see what you thought was going to be a really great play. You could hardly wait to see the exquisite costumes, hear the actor’s rich voices, gasp at the breathtaking backdrop, and so forth.
“Seeing” the play with your own eyes is the equivalent of “showing” in fiction. That’s what you want to do. You want to present life-like characters, great costumes, clear visuals, etc.
Now, (back to our theater analogy)… Imagine you arrived at the theater, took your seat, waited in anticipation for the curtain to rise. Up it went—and there you sat, anticipating that first scene. . .only to find a somewhat monotone narrator appear on the stage (along with a few stick characters off to the side).
“Hmm. I’ll give this a chance,” you might tell yourself. The narrator begins to speak. “Bob went to the store,” he intones. “Bob wore blue slacks.” You look around, noticing the look of shock of the faces in the audience. Before long, many patrons are dozing. And, as the narrator carries on and on about the man Bob used to be before he became the man that he is today, you find that your eyes have grown heavy, too.
DOZING PATRONS
I think you get the point. People who’ve paid to see a play want to “see” a play. And the same is true with our readers. We don’t just want to keep them awake. We want to make them want to turn the pages. This is done by “showing” the story, and not telling it.
SHOW, DON’T TELL…
It is the goal of every good writer to show the story, not to tell it. Any time you resort to “telling” the story, you’ve slipped. There are several indicators of telling (passive verbs like is/are/was/were and words like “had”). Showing the reader is the better choice.
• Take a look at your first couple of chapters. Do you see a lot of passive verbs? Do you find yourself “telling” the reader?
• Would you say that your writing is more passive or active? In other words, do you spend more time “telling” or “showing?”
PASSIVE/TELLING WRITING:
There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of a great scene that comes to an abrupt halt so that the author can “tell” you something about the character. (“What I need you, the reader, to know is that Julie had a rough childhood. You’re going to learn more about this later in the story, but I just wanted to spend a couple of paragraphs here, early in the story, to tell you about her earlier, off-stage predicament…”)
What? I might need to know that Julie had a rough childhood, but don’t stop the action to tell me. Show me!
• Have you ever done this—stopped the action to give the reader information?
• Can you think of a better way to do it, now that you realize “telling” isn’t the best way?
CLEAN UP THAT MESS!
Passive writing is called “sloppy/lazy” writing. Readers might now know the difference, but editors do. It’s better to learn to show vs. tell now, not just because you’re going to present a manuscript that’s well written, but because it’s less work on the editing end. You won’t have to do lengthy re-writes. Ineffective narrative stops the flow of the story. To make it more active, choose active verbs; write in a more tantalizing way. Show through dialogue and action. You don’t have to tell that the character is five foot three. . .You can show through a line of dialogue of from another character. You don’t have to say, “She had blue eyes.” Maybe someone could compare her eyes to the color of the sky or her blouse.
• Why do you suppose passive writing is considered sloppy?
• Which takes more time—to write a simple, passive sentence, or to craft it into something of great beauty?
• Do you ever take the time to really “craft” your words?
• Here’s a great exercise: Go through your first few chapters and highlight all of the passive verbs in yellow. I dare you! Then try to minimize them, killing off at least half. How do you do this? By rewording sentences.
PICK UP THE PACE:
Let’s go back to Julie—the one with the troubled childhood. Imagine you’re writing her story, and you suddenly stop the action to go on and on about the color of her hair or the blouse she’s wearing. Sure, it’s okay to mention those things, but be careful with your descriptives. Don’t go on and on. If you do, the reader will soon be yawning. Just use one or two descriptives at a time. Active writing writing never causes the reader to have to say, “Wait! What happened to the story? What’s with all this descriptive?”
• Take a look at your story. Do you spend a lot of time describing the characters?
• Do you pause from the action to do so?
• Have you put too many descriptives together?
• Can you think of a way to spread things out—showing the reader “a bit here, a bit there?”
INFORMATION DUMPING:
I address this issue of “Information Dumping” more thoroughly in another lesson, but I want to touch on it here. Loading up a paragraph with descriptive narrative is what I like to call “information dumping.”
• Do you have whole paragraphs of descriptive/telling?
• How can you remedy that?
ACTIVE WRITING (C’MON! SHOW ME!)
To keep your story more active, jump in with a good, strong “active” hook. Create characters that readers can relate to. Avoid lengthy paragraphs filled with descriptives. Every single paragraph needs to be active. This means you have to choose active verbs, not passive ones. To keep writing more active, you need to incorporate as much tension as possible on each page (internal or external). Get rid of backstory (or show it in small snippets). Writers GPS has a great course on backstory.
• Does your story have a great hook?
• Do you keep the tension going?
• Have you chosen strong verbs?
• Can you eliminate some of the backstory?
Are you starting to understand the difference between active writing and passive writing?
The goal is to keep the reader hooked from pg. 1 to pg. 331.
In order to do that, you must “show” the action in its fullest.
Still having trouble figuring out how to do that?
I’m going to leave you with several examples.
HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE WRITING:
Submitted by author Betsy Ann St. Amant:
• Passive: "She felt scared."
• Active: "Greer shook her head, hands clutching the blanket so hard her fingertips grew numb. The nightmare wouldn’t let go. She shivered, fighting the images trying to pull her back into the abyss."
Submitted by author Zoe M. McCarthy:
• Passive: It seemed everything was going wrong that day. Maybe she was being hard on herself, but she felt many of the disasters were caused by her lousy attitude.
Active: How many disasters could fill one day? Short on culprits, she executed a reality check. No doubt about it. Her lousy attitude had launched many of the debacles.
Submitted by author Stephanie Grace Whitson:
• Passive: None of them was dressed in anything approaching Liberty Belle's imagined finery.
• Active: Not one wore anything like Liberty Belle's imagined finery.
Submitted by author Cynthia Ruchti:
• Passive: Carrie felt a cold wind.
• Active: A blast of icy wind raked its gnarled fingers across Carrie's cheeks.
• Passive: A blue essay book and a number two pencil were laid by the sociology professor on each student's desk.
• Active: Mr. Finglethorpe slapped a blue essay book and a number two pencil on each desk. Flap. Just try to please me. Slap. I dare you. Fwop. Did I mention it's a timed test?
• Passive: The waves were hitting the shore.
• Active: Watery fingers slid forward on the sand and tickled the sunlovers' feet.
• Passive: The sun is coming up over the hill to the east.
• Active: Dawn steals over the eastern hill on pink slippered feet.
I hope you have enjoyed this lesson on Passive Vs. Active writing.
Go forth and write. . .in active voice!
SUGGESTED READING:
Writing and Selling the Christian Novel
By Penelope Stokes
Getting Into Character
By Brandilyn Collins
(I consider this the best book available for “growing” characters)
Writing the Breakout Novel
By Donald Maas
The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing
Meg Leder, Jack Heffron and the editors of Writers Digest
GREAT WEBSITE:
The Christian Pen
(They offer free articles for writers)
http://www.thechristianpen.com/Articles.html
SHOULD I TELL THE READER A STORY, OR SHOW HIM?
Imagine you had tickets to the theater to see what you thought was going to be a really great play. You could hardly wait to see the exquisite costumes, hear the actor’s rich voices, gasp at the breathtaking backdrop, and so forth.
“Seeing” the play with your own eyes is the equivalent of “showing” in fiction. That’s what you want to do. You want to present life-like characters, great costumes, clear visuals, etc.
Now, (back to our theater analogy)… Imagine you arrived at the theater, took your seat, waited in anticipation for the curtain to rise. Up it went—and there you sat, anticipating that first scene. . .only to find a somewhat monotone narrator appear on the stage (along with a few stick characters off to the side).
“Hmm. I’ll give this a chance,” you might tell yourself. The narrator begins to speak. “Bob went to the store,” he intones. “Bob wore blue slacks.” You look around, noticing the look of shock of the faces in the audience. Before long, many patrons are dozing. And, as the narrator carries on and on about the man Bob used to be before he became the man that he is today, you find that your eyes have grown heavy, too.
DOZING PATRONS
I think you get the point. People who’ve paid to see a play want to “see” a play. And the same is true with our readers. We don’t just want to keep them awake. We want to make them want to turn the pages. This is done by “showing” the story, and not telling it.
SHOW, DON’T TELL…
It is the goal of every good writer to show the story, not to tell it. Any time you resort to “telling” the story, you’ve slipped. There are several indicators of telling (passive verbs like is/are/was/were and words like “had”). Showing the reader is the better choice.
• Take a look at your first couple of chapters. Do you see a lot of passive verbs? Do you find yourself “telling” the reader?
• Would you say that your writing is more passive or active? In other words, do you spend more time “telling” or “showing?”
PASSIVE/TELLING WRITING:
There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of a great scene that comes to an abrupt halt so that the author can “tell” you something about the character. (“What I need you, the reader, to know is that Julie had a rough childhood. You’re going to learn more about this later in the story, but I just wanted to spend a couple of paragraphs here, early in the story, to tell you about her earlier, off-stage predicament…”)
What? I might need to know that Julie had a rough childhood, but don’t stop the action to tell me. Show me!
• Have you ever done this—stopped the action to give the reader information?
• Can you think of a better way to do it, now that you realize “telling” isn’t the best way?
CLEAN UP THAT MESS!
Passive writing is called “sloppy/lazy” writing. Readers might now know the difference, but editors do. It’s better to learn to show vs. tell now, not just because you’re going to present a manuscript that’s well written, but because it’s less work on the editing end. You won’t have to do lengthy re-writes. Ineffective narrative stops the flow of the story. To make it more active, choose active verbs; write in a more tantalizing way. Show through dialogue and action. You don’t have to tell that the character is five foot three. . .You can show through a line of dialogue of from another character. You don’t have to say, “She had blue eyes.” Maybe someone could compare her eyes to the color of the sky or her blouse.
• Why do you suppose passive writing is considered sloppy?
• Which takes more time—to write a simple, passive sentence, or to craft it into something of great beauty?
• Do you ever take the time to really “craft” your words?
• Here’s a great exercise: Go through your first few chapters and highlight all of the passive verbs in yellow. I dare you! Then try to minimize them, killing off at least half. How do you do this? By rewording sentences.
PICK UP THE PACE:
Let’s go back to Julie—the one with the troubled childhood. Imagine you’re writing her story, and you suddenly stop the action to go on and on about the color of her hair or the blouse she’s wearing. Sure, it’s okay to mention those things, but be careful with your descriptives. Don’t go on and on. If you do, the reader will soon be yawning. Just use one or two descriptives at a time. Active writing writing never causes the reader to have to say, “Wait! What happened to the story? What’s with all this descriptive?”
• Take a look at your story. Do you spend a lot of time describing the characters?
• Do you pause from the action to do so?
• Have you put too many descriptives together?
• Can you think of a way to spread things out—showing the reader “a bit here, a bit there?”
INFORMATION DUMPING:
I address this issue of “Information Dumping” more thoroughly in another lesson, but I want to touch on it here. Loading up a paragraph with descriptive narrative is what I like to call “information dumping.”
• Do you have whole paragraphs of descriptive/telling?
• How can you remedy that?
ACTIVE WRITING (C’MON! SHOW ME!)
To keep your story more active, jump in with a good, strong “active” hook. Create characters that readers can relate to. Avoid lengthy paragraphs filled with descriptives. Every single paragraph needs to be active. This means you have to choose active verbs, not passive ones. To keep writing more active, you need to incorporate as much tension as possible on each page (internal or external). Get rid of backstory (or show it in small snippets). Writers GPS has a great course on backstory.
• Does your story have a great hook?
• Do you keep the tension going?
• Have you chosen strong verbs?
• Can you eliminate some of the backstory?
Are you starting to understand the difference between active writing and passive writing?
The goal is to keep the reader hooked from pg. 1 to pg. 331.
In order to do that, you must “show” the action in its fullest.
Still having trouble figuring out how to do that?
I’m going to leave you with several examples.
HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE WRITING:
Submitted by author Betsy Ann St. Amant:
• Passive: "She felt scared."
• Active: "Greer shook her head, hands clutching the blanket so hard her fingertips grew numb. The nightmare wouldn’t let go. She shivered, fighting the images trying to pull her back into the abyss."
Submitted by author Zoe M. McCarthy:
• Passive: It seemed everything was going wrong that day. Maybe she was being hard on herself, but she felt many of the disasters were caused by her lousy attitude.
Active: How many disasters could fill one day? Short on culprits, she executed a reality check. No doubt about it. Her lousy attitude had launched many of the debacles.
Submitted by author Stephanie Grace Whitson:
• Passive: None of them was dressed in anything approaching Liberty Belle's imagined finery.
• Active: Not one wore anything like Liberty Belle's imagined finery.
Submitted by author Cynthia Ruchti:
• Passive: Carrie felt a cold wind.
• Active: A blast of icy wind raked its gnarled fingers across Carrie's cheeks.
• Passive: A blue essay book and a number two pencil were laid by the sociology professor on each student's desk.
• Active: Mr. Finglethorpe slapped a blue essay book and a number two pencil on each desk. Flap. Just try to please me. Slap. I dare you. Fwop. Did I mention it's a timed test?
• Passive: The waves were hitting the shore.
• Active: Watery fingers slid forward on the sand and tickled the sunlovers' feet.
• Passive: The sun is coming up over the hill to the east.
• Active: Dawn steals over the eastern hill on pink slippered feet.
I hope you have enjoyed this lesson on Passive Vs. Active writing.
Go forth and write. . .in active voice!
SUGGESTED READING:
Writing and Selling the Christian Novel
By Penelope Stokes
Getting Into Character
By Brandilyn Collins
(I consider this the best book available for “growing” characters)
Writing the Breakout Novel
By Donald Maas
The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing
Meg Leder, Jack Heffron and the editors of Writers Digest
GREAT WEBSITE:
The Christian Pen
(They offer free articles for writers)
http://www.thechristianpen.com/Articles.html
posted by Janice Thompson at
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