Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Writing--some random thoughts

Writers always say, "Show don't tell" but what I've found lately is that when you're in the process of choosing what to write, what to put in a scene and what to leave out, you figure out you can only really tell. I mean, your characters don't really exist, so all the reader knows is what you tell them about what's going on.

So I would rephrases "show don't tell" as "show or tell, but you can't do both at the same time." If something's really concrete, you should tell it. Like what the character's house looks like or what they did when they woke up in the morning. But if it's more abstract, it loses it's power if you tell it directly so show it by revealing the other details.

Like if the character is really superstitious you could show them having various good luck routines they go through and getting snappy when those routines are interrupted.

But you can't just come out and say, "he was superstitious" because that's just boring. The reader doesn't feel like the character really is this way, just that the author is trying to convince everyone the character is this way.

Is that playing a guessing game with your readers? I guess you can do both telling and showing as long those two techniques match up. Like show the characters routines and also say, "He did it because he was superstitious."

But I think that the most important point of any story is something that's never said directly in the story. Or it's said only once at a critical point. If there's some important truth to the story, you have to hold it very close to your heart like a charm and only let the reader see it very briefly.

Another thing about stories that I have trouble writing is the pacing. On the one hand, I love stories that are tightly woven with no dead space, and one action leading into another. I like it when a lot of story can take place within a short span of time, like a few days, and when moments of beauty come unexpectedly in the midst of turmoil.

On the other hand, I really can't stand when stories are just dramatic confrontation after dramatic revelation after another dramatic confrontation. Usually this happens when there are a lot of characters and the author can't afford to spend more time with each one than is absolutely necessary.

But you never get a sense of people just living their lives like normal people, and it drives me crazy. If there's no quiet moments of the characters just being, then the world doesn't have depth. It's just the "best highlights of" tape.

The best authors can do both at the same time. That is, they can have a character doing everyday things but at the same time the character and setting are so interesting and each detail is so well-chosen that you never get bored.

I want to get a lot better at choosing which details to put in my stories.

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