The 10 Commandments of Writing and When to Break Them

By Julie Daines

Writing Conferences. We go. We listen. We obey.

Maybe sometimes we obey too much.

My next few posts will be about when to break the writing commandments.

Commandment 1: Thou shalt never tell.

How often have we heard "Show Don't Tell"? Well believe it or not, there are times when it's better to tell.

• In an attempt to avoid telling, many writers resort to physical cliches. 

Tears sprung to her eyes as she thought about saying goodbye to Mark. At least they still had this one last moment together. Her heart pounded as he moved closer, and when he held her hand, a sizzle of electricity shot up her arm. He tilted his head to the side. When he looked at her like that, she felt the flush of heat in her cheeks.

This is showing, not telling. But it's so laden with physical cliches it's painful to read. The trick is to use inner dialogue to convey these feelings and not tell us what is happening to her physically, but tell us WHY. (Without sounding telly. Not so easy, but it can be done.)

• In the words of children's book editor Cheryl Klein: "Sometimes readers need the plain straightforward direction of telling to elucidate the point of all that showing."

Klein states, a great technique employed by J. K. Rowling is to have a sentence at the beginning of a paragraph that is a little more telly followed by a few awesome sentences of showing. 

These topic sentences point the reader's mind in the right direction, easing the transition from action to interiority, aiding in a place or time shift, or subtly suggesting a shift in the character's mood or focus.

When used at the end of the paragraph or section of showing, this good telling can act as a confirmation to the reader that the main character is indeed feeling or thinking what we think he/she is. 

Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. (telling) He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. ... (followed by a few more clever and poignant sentences of showing.)  -The Sorcerer's Stone, chapter 2

Can you think of other times when it's appropriate to use telling?

Showing Involves Specificity

by Deren Hansen

From time to time, I see comments about pieces having or needing concrete detail. Several years ago I came across a discussion by Annette Lyon about specificity on the Writing on the Wall blog that helped clarify my understanding of concrete details:

"Showing has several elements, but specificity is one of my favorites. The gist is to take a general noun (such as a car) and tell us more. Make us see it.

"Is it a VW Bug? Is it a little red Toyota truck with rusted wheel wells? Is it a sleek, black Jaguar? A yellow Jeep with fuzzy, pink dice hanging from the mirror?

"The more specific you are, the more clearly readers will see the “movie” in your head—and be drawn into your imaginary world."

[You may read the entire post here.]

In your quest to be specific, however, remember that if some is good, more is not necessarily better. If you describe every detail in the scene or setting minute, concrete detail, your story will grind to a halt and you stand a good chance of losing readers with anything less than a Herculean attention span.

In general, a few specific, evocative details, leaving plenty of room for your reader to fill in the rest, work best.


Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.