Confidence

So, I've been fighting this left-brain/right-brain battle for a few months, and I've finally gotten back the attitude that writing is more important than method of writing.

Okay, so I'm writing again, and maybe a little blogging as well.

I just found a little item on confidence by Murderati author Toni McGee Causey.

I have to agree that confidence accounts for a lot in writing. Which is one of the reason that the "show not tell" maxim is poisonous to young authors. Honestly, do you think Neil Gaiman has a problem with telling? If he wants to tell, he tells. And he does it with confidence, style, and masterful language.


Hat tip, Janet Reid.

Andy Meisenheimer on Show and Tell

As a guest blogger on Rachelle Gardner's Blog, Zondervan fiction editor Andy Meisenheimer gives this and more on Show versus Tell:

[Showing is...] Letting the audience put together the clues; presenting simply a sensory experience through the lenses of a character’s viewpoint. Passing no judgment, but allowing the characters to speak for themselves.

Down in the comments, he adds this:

Telling can be very useful. Think about when you tell a story to a friend over coffee. "So, my brother, right? He's totally paranoid. Get this--yesterday..." And instead of showing me paranoid, you told it to me, but that's the only way to make the following story funny or interesting or whatever. Telling is usually reflective of your point of view character.

So he's using "Tell" to include viewpoint attitude or tone, rather than just being a level of detail or summary in the writing.

Interesting.

Maria Snyder on Show and Tell

Lots of authors have written on this particular item, but I really like Maria V Snyder's take on the subject. In particular, she talks about exactly how to show things.

Show and Tell

Lots of people write about "Show vs Tell". It's a good concept to be aware of, but it should be and in the phrase, not vs.

What do I mean?

Well, let's start with being honest. If you write prose, it's all tell. Except for little visual tricks, illustrations, doodles, perhaps visual page layouts when you are describing a sign, or other modifications of form- except for those, everything you are doing is telling.

Everything is telling.

It isn't so in movies, where almost everything should be visual, but in prose, everything is telling. Even when you go so far towards subtle detail as Raymond Chandler's "A line showed on her jaw", you are still just telling about the line on the jaw. Okay, Chandler didn't tell that she was angry, he told a detail that allows the reader to infer two levels - that her jaw muscle was tightening, and that it was anger that made it happen.

But it's all tell.

The question is, what level of detail are you telling? Is the level of detail appropriate to your story and your audience?

Look at the following sentence, and then decide whether it is showing or telling.

John loved Marsha.

Well?

If you've fallen for the "Show vs Tell" fad, you probably said "tell."

Nope.

The correct answer depends upon context. It is impossible to know without seeing the scene and the surrounding phrasing. Look at it in the following paragraph:

John loved Marsha. John's brother Abel loved Grace. Marsha loved Abel, but had an obvious liking for Grace as well. And then there was Prudence, who thought her brothers would be better off staying away from the brothel completely.

In this case, "John loved Marsha" is a detail regarding the current emotional situation in the family. If you buy the "show vs tell" concept, it is a "show" statement.

Really, any sentence or detail can be a "tell" at one level, while it is a "show" at the next higher hierarchical level. The proper question is, what layer of detail is appropriate to the audience and the purpose of the scene?

More later.