THE ICE PICK

Show, Don’t Tell: a Writer’s Guide, by William Noble. Middlebury, Vt.: Paul S. Eriksson, 1993.

Although out of print now, this excellent book is well worth looking for in your local library or out-of-print bookstore.

If you’ve ever been told "show, don’t tell," or wondered what that meant or how exactly to go about doing it, this book was written for you!

"Showing," versus "telling," is writing your story in such a way that "readers can become part of the story that unfolds before them." It means bringing out "the dramatic side of any incident or circumstance." Readers "want to be caught up in the drama, to feel what the characters feel and to settle into the place the story puts them in." "Showing" comes "from our imagination, not from a series of lecture notes that explain what is actually happening."

Beginning with how to create a dramatic opening, Noble goes through the process of story writing, explaining how to "zero in on where the drama lies" and "create a sense of immediacy" through metaphors and similes, dialogue, characterization, viewpoint, choosing details, plotting, pacing, and description. He advises authors to "make transitions sharp and neat. (The quicker the better, keep the bridges short)" to prevent loss of attention when changing scenes.

In one chapter, he explains how to properly use melodrama as an effective writer’s tool. In another, how to use incidents in your story to create movement and thereby drama. And he includes a chapter on how to dramatize or "fictionalize" nonfiction.

Narrative can be made more entertaining by injecting tension into it, perhaps through emotional or physical conflict, or by using anecdotes--"a story inside a story"--to dramatize prose, develop reader involvement, and make your characters "blossom." For example, in a bland description of a desert, "a brief reference to buried Indian tombs and the vengeful spirits which protect them would probably get the reader’s attention."

The index is excellent, and there is a bibliography of classic books on writing and of articles from The Writer www.writermag.com and Writer’s Digest www.writersdigest.com that discuss showing versus telling.

I highly recommend this wonderful book.

{Published in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, July 2001.}