Hi all,
Literary Agent Nathan Bransford wrote a good post on “show not tell” last week. I am reasonably sure I am aware when I am telling and not showing in my own writing. When critiquing I frequently point out instances of telling, eg, when the POV character is described as sad or unhappy. I also often point out instances of the author writing “he felt like” or “she looked at”, where writing what he felt or describing what she looked at would do away with the need to tell of that action.
I still tell in my writing. In the novel I am working on, where the characters take a logical sequence of steps to set up their lives on a newly terraformed planet, every now and then, to speed the story along, I tell the reader a summary of what has happened between shown scenes. I might tell them how they did put in the building’s foundations before a scene where I have them putting up the walls.
I’ve just read the national bestseller lists for last week and Stephenie Meyer’s novels are back on top again, she has numbers 1,2,3,5 and 10. Her sales might have been given a boost after her novels where banned from some school libraries in Victoria for being too “racy”.
I am still slowly editing chapter eight of Stalking Tigers, with the amount of time spent on it decreasing last week. Having tired eyes and blurring vision doesn’t help.
Graham.