The Writing Life Too

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekov

I woke in the middle of the night listening. For the first time in days I couldn’t hear the wind or rain pounding against the roof and windows. But although the wind has died down the rain is continuing. I know that much of the country has been hit with a wide-spread snowstorm; here it’s been a pineapple express. So while the temperatures have warmed, hurricane-force winds which reached up to 129 miles an hour and heavy rain have battered our region, killing at least four people and knocking out power as the storms blocked roads with trees, power lines, high water and mud slides. I-5 is closed between Portland and Seattle, some coastal towns are still without power, and the country’s largest Sitka spruce, over 700 years old was snapped in half by the winds. Seattle received more than 5 inches in a single day.

Yesterday I went out to visit Johnson Creek which is about a block away and discovered that it jumped its bank. In fact it’s about 15 feet above the bank with most of the surrounding park under water. Neighbors milled around snapping photos on cell phones while others filled sandbags and dogs acted nervous, sniffing around the altered landscape. The creek, which flows 26 miles through Clackamas and Multnomah counties before entering the Willamette River is prone to flooding. As I watched, the neighborhood’s great blue heron came in for a landing, but then with the creek seemingly unrecognizable, he flew back upstream.

On Saturday I spent the day amid snow and slush teaching in Olympia. The college is surrounded by huge evergreens, mostly cedars and the storm began around noon and snow nestled in the branches like a winter postcard setting. Traveling home by train the snow and sleet slapped against the car the whole trip and by the time I reached home somehow the weather had seemed to infiltrate me and I arrived home feeling unsettled but grateful.

I was teaching my “show, don’t tell” workshop which is a day spent advising writers how to make their writing more alive. Show, don’t tell is probably the first technique of writing. Simply put, show, don’t tell advises writers to show via action or dramatizing, including dialogue and the five senses whenever possible and to tell, or explain or report only when necessary. Yet, while it’s a helpful guideline, all writing requires both showing and telling. Too much telling and the work is distant, static, lifeless on the page. Too much showing and the story is relentless, a full-tilt boogie. And contrary to conventional beliefs, it can also be flat and dull.

If you show me it’s a story, if you tell me, it’s a report. However, let’s clear up this simple fact: telling is not intrinsically bad, nor can be considered a necessary evil, because all stories require background information and data in order to be truly developed. Effective writing is a blend of techniques with telling used to develop characters, explain and reveal. When you tell the reader information, you’re guiding him into the story, grounding the action with much needed evidence. Too much showing in a story and the reader is abandoned, adrift, forced to read meaning into every gesture.

It seems to me that chief difference between the two approaches is that with showing the reader is involved in the story as a sensory participant and draws his own conclusions; with telling the writer is instructing the reader how to think. But you know, since Saturday I’ve been thinking that most writing techniques are accomplished word by word. In this workshop we spend time focusing on using vivid verbs and limiting modifiers because modifiers tell and verbs show. We also spent a lot of time on how using precise and sensory details brings the reader into a story and evokes emotions.

Here are some suggestions for SDT, word by word:

• Limit your use of adjectives and adverbs, instead preferring specific nouns and vivid verbs.

• Use showing for the focal moments in the story.

• Avoid abstract language, judgment or announcement words like beautiful, frightening, wonderful, hatred, envy, ugly, evil, frustration. Nail down these terms with concrete proofs and interpretations told through a character’s or narrator’s point of view.
• Describe a person’s emotions; don’t state them.
• Don’t insert long descriptions in the middle of an action scene.
• Use telling when you need to deliver a lot of information in few words.
• Use telling for transitions and quick summaries.
• Dialogue shows and is especially helpful to reveal emotions and a person’s particular slant on the world. Dialogue can also reveal by what is NOT said.

• To show, use active verbs. An example is Telling: Alice looked at the men in anger. Showing: Alice’s eyes smoldered. Telling: The house was rundown and shabby. Showing: Weeds crowded the foundation and the paint curled around the sagging windows.

• Telling, when poorly applied, makes announcements: Alice was furious, Sam was sad, Bob was feeling lonely. This is telling at its most mundane; avoid this pitfall by stapling a solid example or evidence onto this sort of statement. Telling when used by a sloppy writer can be general and stereotypical.

We know that good writing simmers, brims, sweats on the page, slips into reader’s brain with a vivid vibrancy. Most compelling writing is a blend of action, physical description and information combined to create thrust and involve readers emotionally. Experiment with your own devices to breathe life into your words remembering that there is room for suggestive and indirect approaches.

And just a reminder from American Friends Service Committee: The $720 million a day price tag for the Iraq occupation could be used instead to fund healthcare for 423,529 children or equip 1,277,335 homes with renewable electricity for an entire year.