Top Tips From The Write Coach
What is telling?
What is showing?
What are the best ways to show?
Don’t be afraid to edit! Keep learning the craft of writing.
Read blogs and books about the craft of writing.
~ DiAnn Mills ~
Show Not Tell Techniques
- Deep Point of View - Creating a close bond between the character and the reader. Allowing internal dialogue, emotions, and body language to come from the character' heart and mind providing the reader with an intimate experience.
- Characterization- Backstory shows how and why a character exists. What motivates them. How adversity shows why they behave they do.
- Setting - Wise writers show enough setting to envision the story world and no more. Information overload cheats the reader. What they see may be a little different than what the writer imagines.
- Active Verbs & Nouns(Active Voice) - Active verbs keep the momentum of your writing moving. Listen to Podcast #402 - What’s The Big Deal About Active Voice?
- Senses - use all the senses. Get rid of all the sensory naming verbs… I saw, I heard, I felt, etc. Go straight to the sensations.
Example. I smell an apple. (Telling) Or
Apple juices exploded in my mouth and dribbled down my chin. (Showing) - Be Specific to establish a connection between the reader and the character. Combines everything. Drawing the reader in as if they are standing beside the Point Of View Character.
- Color Symbolism- Color show story because it affects the emotion like sensory perception does for us. (See Color Symbols Below)
- Dialogue
- Nonverbal communication - up to 90% of our communication. Body language can say it all.
"What you are not saying speaks louder than what you are saying"
~ DiAnn's Mom
Keep Your Readers Turning The Page! Download Show Don't Tell Tips ~ Interview with @DiAnnMills ~ Episode #403 -> Listen to The Write Hour with Joyce Glass, Tips From #TheWriteCoach #TheWriteHour
Color Symbols
- Red - Warm, engages strong feelings from warm and comforting to hot and angry, hostile. Stimulates appetite.
Phrases: Redneck, Red Hot, Red hot lover, paint the town red, seeing red …. Shows you instead of telling you what is going on in the scene. - Blue - prompts a range of psychological responses from calmness to serenity. Workers more productive, helps dieters keep their weight in check, sadness
Phrases: Do you enjoy the blues? Are you having a blue Monday? When is the last time you had a blue ribbon day? - Green - Symbolizes nature and growth. Has a calming effect. Working in a green office have few stomach aches. Shows wealth. Signify greed or jealousy. In the 15th century, green represented fertility.
Phrases: You have a green thumb. Someone is green with envy. Someone is a greenhorn. - Yellow - Cheery and warm. Can symbolize frustration like being caught at a yellow light. More tempers are lost in yellow rooms. More babies in yellow rooms tend to cry more. Stimulates the appetite. Coward.
Phrase: She is little miss sunshine. - Purple - shows royalty, wealth, wisdom, spirituality, but can also mean arrogance, magic, or mystery. It depends on how the writer is using purple to show. It is a mixture of red for passion and blue for calmness.
- Brown - down to earth. Phrases. Good ole farmer brown and farmer green. For a person isolated on a farm, brown can mean loneliness. Again it is how the writer chooses to use the color.
- Pink - a romance color. Loving, feminine, calming, soothing. Phrase: She’s just in the pink.
- Orange - the mixture of red and yellow. Excitement, enthusiasm, autumn - end of the growing season, and the entrance to winter. Colors can reveal season of the year.
- White - signifies purity and innocence, spaciousness or a sterile atmosphere. Many of Jack London’s story take place in the wild in the snow making the reader feel small because of the spaciousness of the scene.
- Black - evil, power, death, mourning. In the fashion world, it reveals a sophistication, and creates a slimming effect. Show something … Black death, Blackout, black cat, blacklist, black market, black tie.
- Gray - Blend of black and white. White is purity and innocence while black usually symbolize death. Mix it together and gray sky can bring much-needed rain for crops, but can also bring a horrible thunderstorm or tornado.
Sometimes Telling Is Necessary:
Show minor happenings in the most efficient manner. Show it clearly and succinctly. Events not vitally interesting, but need to be included. Condense information not relevant to the story, but necessary to know the vital portion of the information.
Readers skim over unnecessary details.
Examples:
He drove to work.
She answered the phone.
He answered he door.
NOT: He stood from the chair, walked to the door, turned the door knob and opened the door.
Four Keys To Understanding Telling:
- Cover time
- Clarify how one points affects another. Ex. She answered the phone.
Exception: Getting to phone is - State minor happenings
- Provide a change a pace to release the tension some.
- Dialogue tags. If you have a question mark, we know they asked.
If the mood is exciting, we don’t need to know “he exclaimed." - Avoid explaining words like happy, sad, joy. Show how they are enduring this emotion.
Meet DiAnn
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She weaves memorable characters with unpredictable plots to create action-packed, suspense-filled novels. DiAnn believes every breath of life is someone’s story, so why not capture those moments and create a thrilling adventure?
DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers.
She is co-director of The Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, Mountainside Marketing Conference, and the Mountainside Novelist Retreat with social media specialist Edie Melson where she continues her passion of helping other writers be successful.
DiAnn has been termed a coffee snob and roasts her own coffee beans. She’s an avid reader, loves to cook, and believes her grandchildren are the smartest kids in the universe. She and her
husband live in sunny Houston, Texas.
DiAnn is very active online and would love to connect with readers on social media. You can find the links to connect with her at the bottom of the show notes.
Episode Highlights:
00:29 Intro to DiAnn
04:08 DiAnn’s Journey to becoming a writer
06:10 What is Telling?
13:24 What is Showing? & the 9 Show Techniques
36:12 Why is this so difficult for writers?
38:29 What helped you learn this concept?
39:53 What writers do you admire who does this well?
40:05 What words of advice and encouragement do you have for new writers or someone struggling to write their book?
46:12 Tell us about your writing time… Do you have a consistent time you wrote? Do you write daily? What works for you and what are some things that do not work for you?
Connect with DiAnn:
DiAnn's Favorite Writing Blogs:
Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference Information & Blog
Live, Write, Thrive
The Write Conversation
Susan May Warren Blog
