<\/em><\/p>\nWhen they read their written responses out loud, I acknowledged their sentiments, frowning all the while.\u00a0 Getting the theory of \u201cShow, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d is one thing.\u00a0 Putting it to good practice is another.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0It is time, I announced to them, to introduce some constraints!<\/p>\n
Late in Booklife<\/em>, Jeff Vandermeer suggests introducing constraints as a way of re-vitalizing creativity and as a way of, perhaps, jarring writers out of ruts into new directions.<\/p>\n“The introduction of a constraint,” Jeff writes, “forces you to work within a boundary, and by staying within that boundary finding new opportunities.\u00a0 For example, take a problem part of your text and ban the letter ‘t’ or ‘a’ from it.\u00a0 See if you can reconstruct the text and have it roughly mean the same without using that letter.\u00a0 In forcing your mind to perform this exercise, you often hit upon a new path out of your problem” (221).<\/p>\n
I love this passage.\u00a0 I love the idea of “forcing your mind” and opening “new paths.”\u00a0 In this case, I needed constraints to get my students around a conceptual block.<\/p>\n
Last semester, my freshman humanities class was reading Booklife<\/em> while my sophomore English class was having trouble putting into practice the difference between showing and telling.\u00a0 So I devised the following exercise.<\/p>\n1.\u00a0 As a group, list all the synonyms for love on the chalkboard.\u00a0 Include as many words as you can think of, including words closely and distantly associated with “love”.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 Write about someone or something you love without using any of the words listed on the board.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 Read what you’ve written out loud.<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0 Discuss.<\/p>\n
I started by writing “Love” on the board in great big letters.\u00a0 I asked the class to list all the words they could think of that meant love.\u00a0 The seventeen of them generated dozens of words, such as like, affection, caring, respect, admiration, etc.\u00a0 One joker in the back said “sex”.\u00a0 We filled up the board as quickly as I could write.\u00a0 They were quite proud of themselves.\u00a0 Look at all those words!<\/p>\n
Little did they know that they had dug a deep hole for themselves.<\/p>\n
“Now,” I said, “write about something or someone you love…\u00a0 without<\/em> using any of the words that are on the board.”<\/p>\nSilence.<\/p>\n
After a few long seconds, the guy who’d called out “sex” earlier said, “I don’t get it.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the others fell into writing.<\/p>\n
A few nights ago, the students in my night class did this exercise.\u00a0 Many of them are fifteen or more years away from their last English class.\u00a0 Only one or two had even a vague idea when we started of what I meant by “Show, Don’t Tell.”\u00a0 One of the women wrote about her favorite flavors of ice cream in such a way that one of the men actually blushed.\u00a0 Her classmates were fanning themselves by the time she got to the part about stirring the rich chocolate and creamy vanilla together in her bowl.<\/p>\n
One student, who wrote about his wife who is also in the class, came to this conclusion:<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 Telling = “I love you,” he said to her.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 Telling + Showing = He greeted her at the door with a hug and her favorite chocolate ice cream.\u00a0 “I love you,” he said.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 Showing = He greeted her at the door with ice cream.<\/p>\n
The first one (telling<\/em>) doesn\u2019t do enough to stand alone.\u00a0 He says he loves her.\u00a0 Does he mean it?\u00a0 What does “love” mean to him?\u00a0 To her?\u00a0 We haven’t been shown much about him or her.\u00a0 We hear a sort of radio silence more so than the words; there is a background drone, but no music yet.<\/p>\nThe second one (showing + telling<\/em>) tells us what he said and backs it up with actions.\u00a0 Good stuff.<\/p>\nThe third (showing<\/em>) is all action.\u00a0 We know that he gives her chocolate ice cream, but we don’t know what his action means<\/em>.\u00a0 Does he love her?\u00a0 Does she like chocolate ice cream?\u00a0 Is she fatally allergic?\u00a0 Is she on a diet and he’s trying to sabotage her efforts?\u00a0 We have to read on, to know more.\u00a0 We are engaged.<\/p>\nIn both the second and the third, we have enough information to wonder about the back-story and enough to wonder what comes next.\u00a0 Both crucial elements in fiction.<\/p>\n
Will she eat the ice cream?\u00a0 Will she knock it out of his hands and…\u00a0 ravish him?\u00a0 Kick him where it hurts real bad?\u00a0 Will he massage her feet while she eats the ice cream?\u00a0 Will he listen to the ups-and-downs of her day without trying to fix all her problems?\u00a0 Or will he expect a little sugar in exchange?<\/p>\n
\u201cShow, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d is fundamental to what we do as writers.\u00a0 It\u2019s been around for so long for a reason.\u00a0 Essayists combine the two.\u00a0 Fiction writers use both but skew toward showing.\u00a0 The pure showing of an objective point of view can be\u2026 cold and distancing.\u00a0 Telling isn\u2019t all bad.\u00a0 But all telling is definitely dull.<\/p>\n
Every now and then it is fun to introduce a constraint into your work and see what you get.\u00a0 It\u2019s also fun to drag out old rules and take a fresh look at them with pen or pencil in hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most writers have heard the old creative writing rule “Show, Don’t Tell.”\u00a0 There are variations on it, of course, such as “Show, Don’t (Just) Tell)” and “Tell Less, Show More.” In general terms, the idea is that instead of telling the reader things–I am happy or she was sad–try showing the reader–I jump smiling into the air or she curled, weeping, into a ball.\u00a0 Those of us who have taken creative writing classes or read writing how-to books or listened closely at a master’s knee have heard this admonition often enough that we may feel like there’s no need to repeat it. However, I think \u201cShow, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d is important enough that it can\u2019t hurt for us to be reminded of it every now and then. Also, I am often surprised at how many of my students haven’t heard “Show, Don’t Tell” or who have heard it but don’t get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}