ElFewja
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If I recall Sable had posted some good guides on the TT but I think most of them didn't make it over here. Shame, since they were useful.
Anyway, I'm going to take a few minutes to stress the importance of Showing within writing, not that I'm any sort of authority figure in any regard. If you're at all interested in upping your writing-game, I strongly suggest going over this.
When talking about a written work you might hear the term "Telling vs showing." What that means is that the audience is being told information rather than shown it.
Most of the time this is bad due to it being very boring. This problem isn't restricted to writing but you would almost certainly never catch it in another form of media. In a movie, for example, a director would never allow an actor/character to proclaim "I'm angry" without showing emotion. Further, as an audience watching the movie, would any of you buy into that at all (excluding the 1% or the .1% of times where there's a particular reason this example makes sense)?
So compare a character commenting on another:
He looked angry.
He watched as the man's face crumpled together, burning into a furious red as he tore at his hair.
The idea is that you get a much, much stronger image of what's going on without insulting the intelligence of your audience. You don't need to be told that this guy is angry because you're seeing very clearly that he is.
You're being shown that he's upset. You're seeing action, the words are coming alive and painting a picture.
Anyway, I'm going to take a few minutes to stress the importance of Showing within writing, not that I'm any sort of authority figure in any regard. If you're at all interested in upping your writing-game, I strongly suggest going over this.
When talking about a written work you might hear the term "Telling vs showing." What that means is that the audience is being told information rather than shown it.
Most of the time this is bad due to it being very boring. This problem isn't restricted to writing but you would almost certainly never catch it in another form of media. In a movie, for example, a director would never allow an actor/character to proclaim "I'm angry" without showing emotion. Further, as an audience watching the movie, would any of you buy into that at all (excluding the 1% or the .1% of times where there's a particular reason this example makes sense)?
So compare a character commenting on another:
He looked angry.
He watched as the man's face crumpled together, burning into a furious red as he tore at his hair.
The idea is that you get a much, much stronger image of what's going on without insulting the intelligence of your audience. You don't need to be told that this guy is angry because you're seeing very clearly that he is.
You're being shown that he's upset. You're seeing action, the words are coming alive and painting a picture.
