It was a dark and stormy night
The writers I know who are really good, are trying to be precise and effective rather than flowery or impressive.
This is true even for poets, especially for poets.
I studied poetry with a MacArthur Fellow (a genius award winner). He gave us this exercise to learn to write poetry (we literally did this in class).
We had 12 people in class seated around a conference table. He sent 4 people out of the room. He got a couple of people to help him place a block of lead the size of big lunch box on the table.
Then he turned to the 1st person at the table and said, “I’m going to let one person into the room from the hall. And I’m going to ask that person to lift this block. You have two or three sentences to tell the person whatever you want so that he won’t be surprised by how heavy the block is.”
We did that four times. Once for each person out in the hall.
Even though we were in poetry class, people start with the obvious. “It’s heavy. It’s really heavy. It’s really, really heavy.”
You find out very quickly that doesn’t work. We also figured out very quickly that the challenge was to give the person in the hall the experience of lifting a block too heavy to lift, before they try to lift it.
So, you get into, “This block is too heavy to lift.” But even that does’t work well because people think about heavy suitcases that you can drag around but can’t lift.
So, you resort to hyperbole, “You won’t believe how heavy this is. It will shock you how heavy this is.” That kind of works.
But then you go to metaphor, And you quickly get to some surprising and satisfying turns of phrases. “This block is like a mountain in a lunch pail.” Not because you’re trying to be witty, but because you’re really trying to communicate how the block won’t even budge, won’t give a bit. And the metaphor seems to hold hope.
This became our goal in writing poetry. Imagine that you’re talking to a reader. And the reader won’t ever be able to experience what you are experiencing. So, you want to describe it so precisely, that if he ever did experience it, he would not be surprised in the least.
And we found that when we set that as a goal, our writing got very creative and effective very quickly.
First, eliminate most qualifiers, like “I think” and “I feel.”
I think you should wear a black dress, because I feel that would be more appropriate for such a somber occasion, and in my opinion, people don’t give enough respect to tradition. I think you should.
Wear a black dress, which would be appropriate for such a somber occasion. People don’t give enough respect to tradition. You should.
If you’re worried that you’ll come across as arrogant, then add in one or two strategically placed, strongly-worded disclaimers. They’ll go farther and be less annoying that little ones sprinkled throughout your paragraphs:
Maybe it’s none of my business, but I think you should wear a black dress, which would be appropriate for such a somber occasion. People don’t give enough respect to tradition. You should.
You can also eliminate most phrases like “I saw,” “I heard,” and “I thought.”
Yesterday, at the zoo, I heard an earsplitting howl. Then I saw a little monkey rush past, with two keepers huffing after him. And I thought about that time we chased Amy Sue around the playground.
Yesterday, at the zoo, some creature howled. A little monkey rushed past, with two keepers huffing after him. It was like that time we chased Amy Sue around the playground.
Often, you can combine several short “I” sentences into a single sentence with dependent clauses:
I got on the bus and moved to the back. When I sat down, I noticed this girl I’d seen before. I paused for a moment. I didn’t know what to do. Then I revved up my courage. I got up and moved closer to where she was sitting. I said hello. She turned and smiled at me. I blushed.
I got on the bus, moved to the back and sat down near this girl who looked familiar. I paused for a moment, unsure what to do, then revved up my courage, stood, and moved closer to where she was sitting.
“Hello.”
She turned and smiled at me. I blushed.
You probably feel more awkward than your readers. Personal writing is generally a strength, not a weakness. If I’m reading your prose, it’s because I care about what you think. (Did those two I’s in my last sentence bother you? I bet you didn’t even notice them.)
Repetition can become annoying, whether it’s I, I, I or duck, duck, goose. So by all means check your sentences for variety. But remember that we read in real time and can only hold a sentence or two in memory at once. So it’s generally okay if you’re mentioning I again, after mentioning it two sentences ago. We don’t remember that your I from before.
It’s a somewhat artificial, arbitrary rule, but you could try, for a while, pledging to use no more than two I’s in a row. After that, you have to write two sentences with no I’s, just to flush them from the reader’s mind:
I talked to Freddy about the murders. I didn't know how he'd take it. He didn't get mad or anything. He just kept insisting that Elm Street was better off without all those teenagers. Who am I to argue? But I told him to at least clean up after himself. He looked ashamed. He said he was sorry about all the guts and blood (and that eyeball George Anderson found under the front tire of his sedan), and he promised to be more fastidious in the future. I told him that was all we wanted. Then I said I had to go. "See you in your dreams," he said, winking. What a card!
A common writing trick is to include an aside, to break up a pattern. You’ll often see fiction writers do this to kill the monotony of long, dialog passages. Of course, you need to make sure you’re not throwing in gratuitous remarks. Just realize that you don’t need I, I, I and then observation, observation, observation. You an weave the two together:
“What’s for dinner,” he asked?
After wiping her hands with a paper towel, she looked at him. “Slugs,” she said.
“What?”
“I said slugs.”
“You mean like … slug slugs?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “Slugs. Slugs! You know, like you find in the garden.”
“But…”
“But what?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Well,” he said. “They … They’re bugs.”
She walked over to the sink and turned on both faucets, the hot and the cold. She watched the water pour out, over the sudsy dishes.
“For your information,” she said, snatching a spoon out of a mug, and holding a spoon up to the light, “they’re mollusks, not bugs.”
You can do the same thing:
I wrote grandma a letter, telling her all about the bank and how I think we should do the robbery on Monday, not Thursday. I know she’ll think I’m silly, but Thursday is my birthday. I want to go to the water park. I love the slide.
I wrote grandma a letter, telling her all about the bank and how I think we should do the robbery on Monday, not Thursday. Can you imagine the look on her face when she reads it? I know she'll think I'm silly, but Thursday is my birthday. Birthdays are when you get to be selfish, right?I want to go to the water park. I love the slide.
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” – Anton Chekhov
“Show, don’t tell” is a pithy way of saying “make the reader have an experience.” “It was raining” doesn’t make me feel much of anything. It’s a piece of information. I register it. But I don’t feel wet.
“She had to stand behind the counter all day wearing stiff, soaking jeans, staring at the hotel across the street, its canopies bulging with water.”
That makes me have an experience.
Another way of saying “show, don’t tell” is “tickle the readers’ senses.” Humans are sensual animals. We best understand the stuff we see, smell, taste, touch, hear, and move through.
Sensuality is just as useful–perhaps more useful–when writing about abstract ideas as it is in poetry and fiction*. Readers will have a much easier time understanding a geometry problem if you ask them to imagine peddling around the circumference of a circle on a bicycle than if you just ask them to note the circumference.
In a long piece of writing, it’s impossible to always show and not tell. At some point, you need to dump out raw information, just to get from paragraph A to paragraph B. The trick is to earn those info dumps: to lick, push, embrace, kick, and fuck the reader thoroughly enough that he doesn’t mind a break. Good writers use info dumps as teasers, leading up to sensual details. Or they use them as punch-lines, explaining the point of all the sensuality.
Here’s a a sensual passage from “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which, if told rather than shown, would be something like, “The two young women on the couch seemed lofty and magical to me. And then Tom came in and ruined the fantasy I was having.”
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor. Here, in a passage from “Cat’s Eye,” Margaret Atwood moves from showing to telling: Cordelia says, “Think of ten stacks of plates. Those are your ten chances.” Every time I do something wrong, a stack of plates comes crashing down. I can see these plates. Cordelia can see them too, because she’s the one who says Crash! Grace can see them a little, but her crashes are tentative, she looks to Cordelia for confirmation. Carol tries a crash once or twice but is scoffed at: “That wasn’t a crash!”
“Only four left,” says Cordelia. “You better watch yourself. Well?”
I say nothing.
“Wipe that smirk off your face,” says Cordelia.
I say nothing.
“Crash!” says Cordelia. “Only three left.”
Nobody ever says what will happen if all the stacks of plates fall down.
Here’s some advice from novelist, Chuck Palahniuk” In six seconds, you’ll hate me.
But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.
From this point forward – at least for the next half year – you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.
The list should also include: Loves and Hates.
And it should include: Is and Has, but we’ll get to those, later.
Until some time around Christmas, you can’t write: Kenny wondered if Monica didn’t like him going out at night…”
Instead, you’ll have to Un-pack that to something like: “The mornings after Kenny had stayed out, beyond the last bus, until he’d had to bum a ride or pay for a cab and got home to find Monica faking sleep, faking because she never slept that quiet, those mornings, she’d only put her own cup of coffee in the microwave. Never his.”
Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.
Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.”
You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen was always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’d roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her ass. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”
In short, no more short-cuts. Only specific sensory detail: action, smell, taste, sound, and feeling.
More advice: “The feel of the experience is the important thing, not the ability to verbalize or analyze it.” – Stanley Kubrick “Don’t be didactic — don’t write about poverty. Write about poor people. When you dramatize their lives and let life and characters be your inspiration, you will express the ‘idea’ dynamically and without preaching.” – Robert McKee “The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it’s simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.” – Stanley Kubrick “People are very good [at] thinking about agents. The mind is set really beautifully to think about agents. Agents have traits. Agents have behaviors. We understand agents. We form global impression of their personalities. We are really not very good at remembering sentences where the subject of the sentence is an abstract notion.” – Daniel Kahneman “The truth is
https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/03/johnson-writing-style
Johnson: Writing style Use good words, not bad ones
Simplistic writing advice is best avoided
Prospero Mar 25th 2015by R.L.G. | BERLIN’
“WRITE with nouns and verbs, not adjectives and adverbs” is a traditional bit of style advice. The aim is to get young writers picking a few words that tell, rather than bulking out their prose in the hopes of convincing by sheer mass. But does good writing really prefer nouns and verbs over adjectives and adverbs? Mark Liberman of the Language Log blog and the University of Pennsylvania tried a brief experiment, choosing several pieces of “good” writing (both fiction and non-fiction) and “bad” writing (such as two winners of the “Bad Writing Contest” competition and an archetypally purple novel of 1830, “Paul Clifford”, which begins with “It was a dark and stormy night”). The surprising result was that the “good” selection had relatively more verbs and adverbs, and the “bad” writing, relatively more nouns and adjectives.
How can usage-book writers have failed to notice that good writers use plenty of adverbs? One guess is that they are overlooking many: much, quite, rather and very are common adverbs, but they do not jump out as adverbs in the way that words ending with –ly do. A better piece of advice than “Don’t use adverbs” would be to consider replacing verbs that are combined with the likes of quickly, quietly, excitedly by verbs that include those meanings (race, tiptoe, rush) instead.
Why would good writers use more verbs? One reason is that if unnecessary words are reduced, the verb-percentage goes up as a mathematical necessity. Ordinary sentences require a verb, whereas they do not require any other part of speech. Imperatives need no subject (Run!), and sentence fragments can make sense without explicit subjects: Woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head. By contrast, it is hard to write without verbs. So “use verbs” is not really good advice either, since writers have to use verbs, and trying to add extra ones would not turn out well.
What about nouns? There is a likely culprit for the high percentage of nouns in Mr Liberman’s counts in “bad” prose: “nominalisations”, also known as “zombie nouns”. Abstract words are necessary for any language: you cannot have just rocks and trees and water, but need a few phenomena and increases and observations. But too many have a narcotic effect. Judith Butler, in the essay that won the 1997 Bad Writing Contest, uses account, relations, ways, hegemony, relations, repetition, convergence, rearticulation, question, temporality, thinking, structure, shift, theory, totalities, objects, insights, possibility, structure, conception, hegemony, sites, strategies, rearticulation and power—all in a single sentence. It is not much clearer with the other words added.
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
Part of the reason why such writing bamboozles is that no one has ever seen or stubbed a toe on a rearticulation or a temporality. Abstract words make the brain do hard work. This is not always a bad thing—some good writing is difficult. But, by and large, a good style will at least dole out “metaconcept” words—words about ideas—either in manageable sentences, or broken up with more concrete nouns. That leaves us with the adjective. The key, again, is to choose wisely. “Paul Clifford” begins like this:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary way.
This is not the purplest prose of all time, but note how many adjectives are useless. Does “dark” add to the night? “Violent” to a sweeping gust of wind? If “a man” is wending his way, must we be told that it is a “solitary” one? Trying as a rule to eliminate adjectives will lead to some odd writing. But as with all words, they are best if they tell you something you didn’t already know.
There is a lot to criticise in journalistic writing. But in one way, it is good training: print journalism forces writers to put complex stories into a box defined by an editor and competing stories. Every journalist moans about favourite phrases, sentences and whole stories cut from articles. But keeping to a tight word count forces the writer to think about which words absolutely have to be there, and makes it less likely that the editor will kill the writer’s darlings. So while simple formulae such as “write with nouns and verbs” may not be brilliant style advice, one short piece of advice is worth taking: edit.
The point of fiction is to cast a spell, a momentary illusion that you are living in the world of the story. But as a writer, how do you suck your readers into your stories in this way? Nalo Hopkinson shares some tips for how to use language to make your fiction really come alive.
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-write-fiction-that-comes-alive-nalo-hopkinson
Refuse to use the word “thing.”
Each thing can be described in more detail. When we don’t we’re just being lazy. Don’t drown the cake in frosting to avoid baking a new one.
Let a device be a device, a trait be a trait, a feeling be a feeling.
Before: “This is the greatest thing my parents taught me.”
After: “This is the greatest lesson my parents taught me.”
Cousin Len’s Wonderful Adjective Cellar
COUSIN LEN FOUND HIS wonderful adjective cellar in a pawnshop. He haunts dusty Second Avenue pawnshops because they’re such a relief, he says, from Nature. Cousin Len doesn’t like Nature very much. He spends most of his days outdoors gathering material for The Lure and Lore of the Woods, which he writes, and he would rather, he says, be a plumber. So he tours the pawnshops in his spare time, bringing home stereoscopic sets (World’s Fair views, Chicago, 1893), watches that strike the hours, and china horses which hold toothpicks in their mouths. We admire these things very much, my wife and I. We’ve been living with Cousin Len since I got out of the Army, waiting to find a place of our own. So we admired the adjective cellar, too. It had the grace of line of a fire hydrant, but was slightly smaller and made of pewter. We thought it was a salt cellar, and so did Cousin Len. He discovered it was really an adjective cellar when he was working on his column one day after he bought it. “The jewel-bedecked branches of the faery forest are funereally silent,” he had written. “The icy, steel-like grip of winter has stilled their summ’ry, verdant murmur. And the silv’ry, flutelike notes of its myriad, rainbow-dipped birds are gone.” At this point, naturally, he rested. And began to examine his salt cellar. He studied the bottom for the maker’s mark, turning it in his hands, the cap an inch from his paper. And presently he saw that his manuscript had changed. “The branches of the forest are silent,” he read. “The grip of winter has stilled their murmur. And the notes of its birds are gone.” Now, Cousin Len is no fool, and he knows an improvement when he sees it. He went back to work, writing as he always did, but he made his column twice as long. And then he applied the adjective cellar, moving it back and forth like a magnet, scanning each line. And the adjectives and adverbs just whisked off the page, with a faint hiss, like particles of lint into a vacuum cleaner. His column was exactly to length when he finished, and the most crisp, sharp writing you’ve ever seen. For the first time, Cousin Len saw, his column seemed to say something. Louisa, my wife, said it almost made you want to get out into the woods, but Cousin Len didn’t think it was that good. From then on, Cousin Len used his adjective cellar on every column, and he found through experiment that at an inch above the paper, it sucks up all adjectives, even the heaviest. At an inch and a half, just medium-weight adjectives; and at two inches, only those of three or four letters. By careful control, Cousin Len has been able to produce Nature columns whose readership has grown every day. “Best reading in the paper, next to the death notices,” one old lady wrote him. What she means, Len explained to me, is that his column, which is printed next to the death notices, is the very best reading in the entire paper. Cousin Len always waits till we’re home before he empties the adjective cellar: we like to be on hand. It fills up once a week, and Cousin Len unscrews the top and, pounding the bottom like a catchup bottle, empties it out the window over Second Avenue. And there, caught in the breeze, the adjectives and adverbs float out over the street and sidewalk like a cloud of almost invisible confetti. They look somewhat like miniature alphabet-soup letters, strung together and made of the thinnest cellophane. You can’t see them at all unless the light is just right, and most of them are colorless. Some of them are delicate pastels, though. “Very,” for example, is a pale pink; “lush” is green, of course; and “indubitable” is a dirty gray. And there’s one word, a favorite with Cousin Len when he’s hating Nature the most, which resembles a snip of the bright red cellophane band from around the top of a cigarette package. This word can’t be revealed in a book intended for family reading. Most of the time the adjectives and adverbs simply drop into the gutters and street, and disappear like snowflakes when they touch the pavement. But occasionally, when we’re lucky, they drop straight into a conversation.
Mrs. Gorman passed under our window one day with Mrs. Miller, coming from the delicatessen. And a little flurry of adjectives and adverbs blew right into the middle of what she was saying. “Prices, these halcyon days,” she remarked, “are evanescent, transcendental, and simply terrible. Mark my maniacal words, things are going straight and pre-eminently to the coruscated, indomitable, allegorical dogs.” Mrs. Gorman was pretty surprised, of course, but she carried it off beautifully, smiling grandly and patronizingly at Mrs. Miller. She has always contended that her ancestors were kings; now she claims they were also poets. I suggested to Cousin Len, one time, that he save his adjectives, pack them into neatly labeled jars or cans, and sell them to the advertising agencies. Len pointed out, however, that we could never in a lifetime supply them in the quantities needed. We did, though, save up several shoe boxes full which we took along on a sight-seeing trip to Washington. And there, in the visitors’ gallery over the Senate, we cautiously emptied them into a huge electric fan which blew over the floor. They spread out in a great cloud and drifted down right through a tremendous debate. Something must have gone wrong this time, though, for things didn’t sound one bit different. We’re still using the wonderful adjective cellar, and Cousin Len’s columns are getting better every day. A collection of them appeared in book form recently, which you’ve probably read. And there’s talk of selling the movie rights. We also find Cousin Len’s adjective cellar helpful in composing telegrams, and I used it, mostly at the inch-and-a-half level, in writing this. Which is why it’s so short, of course. – Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1948
Cousin Len’s Wonderful Adjective Cellar
April 5, 2012/3 Comments/in College Application Essay Tips /by Essaywise Application Essay Tips from Jack Finney
I’m staging an intervention. Cut back on the adjectives before they ruin you. If you remember just one of today’s application essay tips, remember that one. In a Ladies Home Journal article from 1948, science fiction writer Jack Finney mocks adjectives. Let’s see what other application essay tips we can glean from his piece entitledCousin Len’s Wonderful Adjective Cellar. 6 Application Essay Tips from an “Adjective Cellar” (whatever that is)
According to Wikipedia, before we had salt shakers, we had salt cellars: glass or silver vessels for holding salt. An adjective cellar is, well…I’ll let Mr. Finney explain. What application essay tips can we learn from Finney’s adjective cellar? Here are six to consider: Application Essay Tips | Tip #1: Use fewer adjectives.
You have a word limit, so you have to be concise. Especially if your essay’s running long, consider stripping out your adjectives. Focus on using the verbs to convey your meaning (just as John Kennedy Toole does in the opening lines of A Confederacy of Dunces). If you want to learn more about how to use verbs, note each verb Finney uses, and ponder the effect each verb creates. Application Essay Tips | Tip #2: Pair “odd couple” words to make a comparison.
I don’t usually associate “chihuahua” with “ferocity.” That’s why I consider these two words an odd couple. But to describe someone as mild-mannered, I might pair these odd couple words as follows: “He has the ferocity of a chihuahua.” By pairing odd couple words to introduce an image, I make my comparison more vivid than saying, “He is mild-mannered.” Finney is pairing odd couple words in a comparison when he writes that the adjective cellar had “the grace of line of a fire hydrant.” This approach is better than just saying the adjective cellar was ugly. Application Essay Tips | Tip #3: “Like” it!
I got tired of telling you to use a simile. Use the word like, and follow it with an image. Finney employs this technique at least five times in a very short article:
“…like a magnet…”
“…like particle of lint into a vacuum cleaner.”
“…like a cloud of almost invisible confetti.”
“…like miniature alphabet-soup letters, strung together and made of the thinnest cellophane.”
“…like snowflakes.”
Using “like” is not quantum physics, though it is formulaic: Like + image = something an admission officer might actually enjoy reading. Application Essay Tips | Tip #4: Consider irony.
Finney’s use of irony – in this case, sarcasm – adds humor. I’m not saying you should be sarcastic in a way that shows you’re cynical or angst-ridden (to understand the importance of optimism, see my thoughts on Oscar Hammerstein’s article). But if you can be ironic in a self-deprecating way, or in a way that shows your unique perspective, that’s great. How does Finney use irony? In describing the effects of releasing a cloud of adjectives over the Senate, he remarks, “Something must have gone wrong this time, though, for things didn’t sound one bit different.” His comment is ironic because nothing has gone wrong; senators sound so pompous already that even a release of adjectives cannot make them sound more so. Also, Finney concludes by implying that the piece is a telegram and that he used the adjective cellar to compose it, “Which is why it’s so short, of course.” This closing sentence is ironic because, of course, Finney’s piece is ridiculously long for a telegram. Perhaps you’ll find a way to use irony in your essay either to poke fun at yourself or provide insight into one of your beliefs or activities. This approach is not for everyone, so if it doesn’t suit you, move on. Application Essay Tips | Tip #5: Ask “What if?”
Finney’s whole piece is a whimsical response to the question, “What would happen if I had a magical device that collected adjectives?” He even goes so far as to imagine the adjectives’ colors: “You can’t see them at all unless the light is just right, and most of them are colorless. Some of them are delicate pastels, though. “Very”, for example, is a pale pink; “lush” is green, of course; and “indubitable” is a dirty gray.” This absurd description is absurdly funny. Of course, your college application essay is not a creative writing exercise, so I’m not suggesting you submit a creative writing sample. But as I explain in my application essay ebook, the first step to writing the application essay is to figure out who you are. Finney is someone who hates the over-use of adjectives. He could have written, “I’m someone who hates the over-use of adjectives.” That statement would be true, but it would bore us instantly. So he conveys his point of view by answering a whimsical “What if?” question. We all have our “What if?” questions. Sometimes, they’re good clues into how we’re different from the people around us. When you find a “What if?” question you know few other people ask, you’re close to discovering what makes you different. If you’re still trying to pin down who you are so you can figure out a good topic, consider reflecting on what your “What if?” questions say about you. Application Essay Tips | Tip #6: Watch your tone.
Finney’s piece is pure nonsense. There’s no such thing as an adjective cellar. Yet he describes it in an objective, clinical tone, as if it’s a real phenomenon, even commenting on the colors of various adjectives and relaying the effects of adjectives that jump into Mrs. Gorman’s conversation. Using a serious tone to describe a nonsensical topic makes the piece funny. Figuring out tone is challenging because tone results from the cumulative effect of all the sentences you write. But I’m not mentioning tone to stress you out. The opposite, actually. The whole purpose of your application essay is to reveal your personality. You should use whatever tone accomplishes that goal. Maybe it will be a serious tone. Maybe funny. Or maybe mostly serious. Whatever it ends up being, never assume that a serious tone is the “right” tone for an application essay. The right tone is the one that reveals – not conceals – your unique personality. If writing in a 100% serious makes you sound like someone else, you have to reconsider your approach. Anyway, that’s all I got from the adjective cellar. I hope you enjoy the article as much as I did. If you’re looking for more essay guidance, please download my free application essay ebook. For automatic email updates of my latest application essay tips, subscribe to the EssayWise blog. If you liked today’s application essay tips, please share them with your friends by clicking the “Recommend” button below. Thank you! Jon
Cousin Len’s Wonderful Adjective Cellar
For me, its most useful to make lists, which are largely based around free associating. Say I start with a sentence like “Her fear was paralyzing.” It’s not a very sensual image. It’s barely an image at all. It certainly doesn’t make me feel fear or paralysis. I need a metaphor to punch it up–to help the reader have an experience and empathize with the woman I’m writing about. So, I get out a piece of paper … an empty digital document would work, too, but I find paper better, because I can easily draw circles around words, cross words out, add connective arrows, etc. Also, in a word processor, I’m tempted to edit–to add words and then delete or change them. That’s a bad idea at this stage, because I want to keep everything, no matter how stupid, on the page where I can see it; where it can spark ideas. Anyway, I start listing what it’s like to be paralyzed with fear, writing anything down that comes to mind, even if it’s totally off-base: you can’t move feet stuck inside a block of ice in a vice traffic jam walled in strapped down like Frankenstein’s monster straight jacket trapped in a cave jail stuck for hours in he airport in line at the bank caught in a tractor beam statue tightrope trash compactor caught in spider web stuck in a coffin I then start playing around with a few of these, trying them on for size: “She was paralyzed with fear, as if she was stuck in a coffin, bound in a straight-jacket.” Is that a mixed metaphor? Maybe just “… as if she was stuck in a coffin” or “… as if she was bound in a straight jacket.” If I’m writing comic prose, I might choose to pile on the metaphors: “She was paralyzed with fear, as if she was bound in a straight jacket and stuffed into a coffin, which was then frozen in a block of ice and locked in the cargo hold of a freighter, which was then sunk to the bottom of the ocean.” “She stopped in her tracks, as if a wall had just slammed to the ground in front of her and another was pushed up against her back.” “Fear gripped her like a vice.” “Fear hit her so hard, it immobilized her, as if she’d been turned into a statue.” I think I like the last one best, because it’s easiest for me to visualize, but I’d like to play a while longer. Make sure that the metaphor you choose fits the tone and style of whatever you’re writing. If it’s a sci-fi story, set in the 25th Century, it’s probably a bad idea to write, “His fever dropped, as if he’d gone to bed and taken a couple of aspirin.”
What do bad poker players and bad writers have in common? Hint. It begins with T, ends with two Ls, and has an E in the middle.
MARCUS GEDULD
I watched the final “Hunger Games” movie last night. (Sort of spoiler, ahead.)
Here’s my guess as to what went on in the writer’s room:
Writer 1: You know that rule you always hear about in writing classes? That show-don’t-tell rule?
Writer 2: Yeah.
Writer 1: I hate it.
Writer 2: I hate it, too.
Writer 1: I hate showing. Showing is fucking hard. Why can’t I tell once in a while?
Writer 2: Nothing wrong with telling …
Writer 1: After all, we are telling a story, aren’t we?
Writer 2: And I think we’ve been pretty restrained on the telling front. I mean, there’s lots of visual stuff.
Writer 1: There’s so much I wanted to tell, but I held back.
Writer: Me too!
Writer 1: Right. So I think we’re earned the right to tell.
Writer 2: We sure have. If I don’t tell, I’m gonna burst!
Writer 1: Okay, so, for the very last scene in the movie, let’s have a festival of telling! I mean, everyone’s cool with that, right? Show, show, show. Blah, blah, blah. But at the end, you’re allowed to sum stuff up with a moral.
Writer 2: Like in “The Wizard of Oz.” Everyone loves “The Wizard of Oz,” and it told like a motherfucker!
Writer 1: In the final scene, let’s totally give up on action and simply have Jennifer Lawrence talk to the camera and explain what she’s learned from all her experiences.
Writer 2: Um … she can’t break the fourth wall.
Writer 1: You’re right. Damn. [Pause.] I’ve got it! Let’s give her a baby. She can hold the baby and tell it all the lessons she’s learned!
Writer 2: That’s genius.
Writer 1: I know!
Writer 2: It’s never been done before.
374 views · 14 upvotes · Written Mar 13 Upvote14 Downvote Comments3 Share
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Matthew Gordon
I haven’t seen the movie but wow, that’s scathing.
We writers refer more to show-tell balance than outright beginner workshop-style “show, don’t tell”, but I get you here.
Upvote · Downvote · Report · Mar 24
Brad Tittle 1 vote Show
Show… I don’t count as a writer, but I completely agree with show. Telling works about never. Showing works only a little bit better. Showing has the chance of the reader/viewer/listener engaging and finding a reason to figure out what to tell themselves. I have to give up completely on telling. Most especially when someone wants me to tell them.
Upvote · Downvote · Report · Mar 17
Ravi Babu
It’s never been done before.
hahaha.
(If the subject of this question confuses you, click here: E-Prime) We often blunders by thinking in terms of “to be.” For example … Fred: I’m generally attracted to women, but this one time, when I was 17, I got turned on by a male friend of mine and had sex with him. Am I gay? I will focus, here, on “am I gay.” Let’s say we respond by saying, “Yes, you’re gay.” What, then, can we say about Fred? He will still most-often have sex with women, but he’ll remember this one time, at the age of 17, when he had sex with a man. Let’s say we agree that he is straight. In that case, he will still most-often have sex with women, but he’ll remember this one time, at the age of 17, when he had sex with a man. That will happen if we say he is bisexual, asexual, pansexual, or a klingon. We’ll change nothing about his traits or actions by labeling him. Nor will we say anything useful or interesting about him. Perhaps when he asks, “Am I gay?” he means something coherent like, “Given the facts of my life, will most people label me as gay?” We can’t tell what he means, because he expressed himself with a form of “to be.” When we write or speak “to be,” we often muddle our conversations, prose, and our thinking. Examples:
When I force myself to redraft in E-prime and reread what I’ve written so far, I often feel shocked at the vacuousness of my prose. I see “X is Y” sprouting up in my sentences like weeds, and I realize that I’ve merely labeled things while convincing myself I’d made profound remarks or at least interesting claims.
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” – Anton Chekhov
“Show, don’t tell” is a pithy way of saying “make the reader have an experience.” “It was raining” doesn’t make me feel much of anything. It’s a piece of information. I register it. But I don’t feel wet.
“She had to stand behind the counter all day wearing stiff, soaking jeans, staring at the hotel across the street, its canopies bulging with water.”
That makes me have an experience.
Another way of saying “show, don’t tell” is “tickle the readers’ senses.” Humans are sensual animals. We best understand the stuff we see, smell, taste, touch, hear, and move through.
Sensuality is just as useful–perhaps more useful–when writing about abstract ideas as it is in poetry and fiction. Readers will have a much easier time understanding a geometry problem if you ask them to imagine peddling around the circumference of a circle on a bicycle than if you just ask them to note the circumference.
In a long piece of writing, it’s impossible to always show and not tell. At some point, you need to dump out raw information, just to get from paragraph A to paragraph B. The trick is to earn those info dumps: to lick, push, embrace, kick, and fuck the reader thoroughly enough that he doesn’t mind a break. Good writers use info dumps as teasers, leading up to sensual details. Or they use them as punch-lines, explaining the point of all the sensuality.
Here’s a a sensual passage from “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which, if told rather than shown, would be something like, “The two young women on the couch seemed lofty and magical to me. And then Tom came in and ruined the fantasy I was having.”
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor. Here, in a passage from "Cat's Eye," Margaret Atwood moves from showing to telling:
Cordelia says, "Think of ten stacks of plates. Those are your ten chances." Every time I do something wrong, a stack of plates comes crashing down. I can see these plates. Cordelia can see them too, because she's the one who says Crash! Grace can see them a little, but her crashes are tentative, she looks to Cordelia for confirmation. Carol tries a crash once or twice but is scoffed at: "That wasn't a crash!" "Only four left," says Cordelia. "You better watch yourself. Well?" I say nothing. "Wipe that smirk off your face," says Cordelia. I say nothing. "Crash!" says Cordelia. "Only three left." Nobody ever says what will happen if all the stacks of plates fall down. Here's some advice from novelist, Chuck Palahniuk"
In six seconds, you’ll hate me. But in six months, you’ll be a better writer. From this point forward – at least for the next half year – you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use. The list should also include: Loves and Hates. And it should include: Is and Has, but we’ll get to those, later. Until some time around Christmas, you can’t write: Kenny wondered if Monica didn’t like him going out at night…” Instead, you’ll have to Un-pack that to something like: “The mornings after Kenny had stayed out, beyond the last bus, until he’d had to bum a ride or pay for a cab and got home to find Monica faking sleep, faking because she never slept that quiet, those mornings, she’d only put her own cup of coffee in the microwave. Never his.” Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it. Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.” You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen was always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’d roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her ass. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.” In short, no more short-cuts. Only specific sensory detail: action, smell, taste, sound, and feeling.
More advice:
“The feel of the experience is the important thing, not the ability to verbalize or analyze it.” – Stanley Kubrick
“Don’t be didactic — don’t write about poverty. Write about poor people. When you dramatize their lives and let life and characters be your inspiration, you will express the ‘idea’ dynamically and without preaching.” – Robert McKee
“The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it’s simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.” – Stanley Kubrick
“People are very good [at] thinking about agents. The mind is set really beautifully to think about agents. Agents have traits. Agents have behaviors. We understand agents. We form global impression of their personalities. We are really not very good at remembering sentences where the subject of the sentence is an abstract notion.” – Daniel Kahneman
“The truth is that art does not teach; it makes you feel, and any teaching that may arise from the feeling is an extra, and must not be stressed too much. In the modern world… we are obsessed with the notion that to think is the highest achievement of mankind, but we neglect the fact that thought untouched by feeling is thin, delusive, treacherous stuff.” – Robertson Davies
“Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created — nothing” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
“There is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.” – Goethe
“Some films are slices of life. Mine are slices of cake.” – Alfred Hitchcock
I gave you my words, and my words were true, but you did not believe them. For had you believed them, the trouble that now lies between us would have ceased long ago. For in that you resist my pleading, you continue in the scornful way, but by clinging to the truth you will cease from it. And now, I provide you a time in which you can heal our friendship, which I will not provide you again, for if you do not hasten to believe me, you will find that your time is done, and the door is closed, and I will beseech you no more, forever.
It lacks concrete details, which makes it hard for me to read. It badly needs imagery. “I gave you my words…” What words? What does it mean to give someone words? Did youtalk to him? Send him an email? Yell at him? Pass him a note in Algebra class? How do you know he didn’t believe you? What exactly did he do? Call you a liar? Raise his eyebrow? Scoff? Snicker? Gaffaw? What is “the trouble that lies between us”? The two of you aren’t speaking? You’re splitting up? You’re getting divorced? And why the formal word “ceased” instead of “stopped”? There’s a deadly sort of prose I call “inert.” Inert words don’t evoke images. It’s impossible to delete all of them, because sentences can’t just be image after image. There must be connecting words, too. But it’s worth searching your prose for inert words and eliminating all that you can. “For in that you resist …” is an example. Those first four words are like styrofoam peanuts. Readers must dig through them to get to the real contents of the sentence. “… in which you can …” is equally inert. Like I said, you can’t dispense with all of these phrases. They wouldn’t drag the paragraph down so much if you’d bookended them with sharp, sensual details, rather than “resist my pleading” and “heal our friendship.” What action does someone perform when he resists your pleading? It must be something, or you wouldn’t know he was doing it. Does he leave the room, slamming the door behind him? Does he stare at you for a moment and then return to the book he’s reading? What would he have to do to show you he’d healed the friendship? Hug you? Kiss you? Hold your hand? Sleep with you? Talk to you? Here are all the inert words I’ve found in your paragraph:
Here’s another version. I have no idea if it’s what you’re trying to say, because I don’t know the details of your (real or fictional) situation. But it’s the general way I’d rewrite the paragraph:
I said I’d move to London with you, and I meant it, but you just smirked. If you had trusted me, we’d be flying coach right now, badgering the stewardess for those little bottles of gin. But you ignored me. You stuck in those earbuds and cranked up the volume on your iPhone. Damn it! This is your last chance. If you keep pushing me away, you’ll be sitting on the plane by yourself. I won’t wait for you. Sarah asked for my number. That’s right! The day you leave will be the day I call her.
How would you rewrite this passage?
“This suit is too small for me” grinned Marcus as he fought with the leather garment. “This won’t do” he added “this is just too small for me.” He kept leaping and struggling with it until he fell flat on his flat ass.
I wouldn’t use “grinned” as a speech-attribution verb, because you can’t really grin words. And I would replace “leather garment” with something more specific, because it’s hard to visualize a garment. “Flat on his ass” is a cliche, which makes it hard to visualize, too. It would be funnier if you moved the dialogue at the end:
Marcus forced his left arm into the sleeve, ripping the seam from elbow to shoulder. His right arm wouldn’t even fit through the arm hole. He yanked one side of the coat towards the other. The buttons were still over a foot away from the buttonholes. He exploded into a fit of heaving, pulling, forcing, and bodily contortions, finally falling on his ass. “This suit is too small for me,” he said.
Additionally, it is more necessary for students to emphasis the power of cooperation within the range of school. This is because the curriculum is far more complicated and difficult than that in the past. Imaginably, sometimes we fail to finish the assignments by our own efforts since there are always some knowledge we are uninformed with. My own story can well back up the rationality of above. As a physics major, my assignment require a large sum of work including conducting researches in the library and do experiments in the library. To fulfill that super difficult task, we usually do the experiments together, talk about the assigned paper in the library and share our different ideas. On the contrary, my father, a physician told me that when he was a graduate, all he need to learn was some basic concepts and theories because the technology at that time had not been sophisticated enough to give students chances of doing in-depth researches and complexed experiments. He also said that every students could fulfill their tasks without the help of others. Undeniably, the more difficult curriculum is another factor that makes the ability cooperation gain its importance
Here are some problems: - It’s full of what I call “inert phrases.” Examples are “additionally, it is more necessary for,” “This is because the,” “since there are always some,” and “is another factor that makes the ability…“ Non-inert phases tell who is doing what to whom: “Bob ate the apple,” “I own seven dogs and two cats,” “Jenny stole Mike’s wallet.” They are easy to grasp. When a row of words contains no imagery–no agent doing something and/or no object being acted on or described–the reader starts to tune out. We’re sensual creatures, best able to imagine the things we can touch, taste, smell, hear, and see. In my own writing, I can’t eliminate all inert phrases. But as I redraft, I look for them and cut any that I can, often rewriting sentences so that they’re centered around an active agent. That’s the key. For each sentence, ask who or what is doing something. Usually, there’s an agent, and you can redraft the sentence to bring him, her, they, or it to the forefront. - You’re spending too much time revving up. You don’t need to start each sentence with words like “additionally” and phrases like “this is because.” I understand that you’re trying to link ideas together–to show how one leads to the other. But just get to the point. The reader will supply the link himself. (This is a general rule. Sometimes you have to help the reader understand that A causes B or that B is an exception to A’s rule. Most of the time, it’s clear.) Compare… There was no coffee left. Bob grabbed his car keys and drove to the store. … with … There was no coffee left. Due to this lack and the fact that he wanted coffee, Bob grabbed his car keys and drove to the store. Here’s my rewrite:
Nowadays, teachers assign problems that are so hard, we students must band together. We don’t have the knowledge to tackle this work on our own. When my dad was in med school, he only had to master basic concepts and simple tools, which he could do by himself. Whereas my Physics classes force me grapple with heavy workloads, complex research, and intricate, complex equipment. I couldn’t possibly do it on my own. Cooperation is a vital ingredient for succeeding in modern schools.
Jack sat in front of his fiancée’s grave in a lotus position. He had been at the hospital until 4 AM. Emily needed very complicated surgery to remove the bullet. She was still unconscious by the time he left the hospital, but the doctors were cautiously optimistic that she would pull through.
It’s too much exposition for my taste. Let’s hunt for images: Jack sat in front of his fiancée’s grave in a lotus position. He had been at the hospital until 4 AM. Emily needed very complicated surgery to remove the bullet. She was still unconscious by the time he left the hospital, but the doctors were cautiously optimistic that she would pull through. This looks like many of my first drafts. One I’ve finished dumping all these facts on the page, its time go back and add in (or substitute) sensual details–stuff to force readers to live through it, rather than just getting information about it. What’s it like to be at a hospital until 4am? Write that! My technique is to start making lists of sensory associations with the sentence I’m trying to flesh out. He had been at the hospital until 4 AM. - fluorescent light. - vending machine. - orderly sleeping. - disinfectant. - slumped in char. - tv on mute. - someone crying in the distance. - empty corridor. Maybe … Jack sat in front of his fiancée’s grave in a lotus position. He had been at the hospital until 4am, slumped in a plastic chair, staring at his shoelaces. Does his fiancée have a name? I’d rather read …. Jack sat in front of his Anne’s grave in a lotus position. This is going to sound as if it’s contradicting what I suggested above, but do we need “in a lotus position”? Yes, it’s imagery, but I associate it with yoga, meditation, and peace. Is hehappy to be at his fiancée’s grave? Maybe he is. I don’t know the context. Assuming he feels the way most people do at graves, I would just write: Jack sat in front of Annie’s grave. He had been at the hospital until 4am, slumped in a plastic chair, staring at his shoelaces. Or I might add a slightly quirky, “stress detail.” Jack sat in front of Annie’s grave. His shoulders itched. He had been at the hospital until 4am, slumped in a plastic chair, staring at his shoelaces. By the way, what is “in front of” a grave? By her grave? On the grass by her grave? Leaning up against her tombstone? Emily needed very complicated surgery to remove the bullet. Don’t we already know about the bullet? You say “the” bullet, so I assume we do. If so, do you need to remind us of it? We know why she’s had surgery. And “very complicated surgery” is a non-image. It’s classic “telling rather than showing.” Isn’t the main point that it took forever, and Jack was there the whole time? Jack sat in front of Annie’s grave. His shoulders itched. He had been at the hospital until 4am, slumped in a plastic chair, staring at his shoelaces. When they’d wheeled Emily into the OR that morning, cartoons has been playing on the silent TV over the nurses’ station; commercials for breakfast cereals. An animated Bee. When they wheeled her out, there was only static. She was still unconscious by the time he left the hospital We know he was in the hospital, so if nothing else, I’d shorten it to “She was still unconscious by the time he left.” But “still unconscious” doesn’t make me see or feel anything. Jack sat in front of Annie’s grave. His shoulders itched. He had been at the hospital until 4am, slumped in a plastic chair, staring at his shoelaces. When they’d wheeled Emily into the OR that morning, cartoons has been playing on the silent TV over the nurses’ station; commercials for breakfast cereals. An animated Bee. When they wheeled her out, there was only static. Then He stood by her bed, hoping she’d make a fist over or sigh. She just breathed. In. Out. He whispered her name. She breathed, eyes closed. the doctors were cautiously optimistic Yikes. “Cautiously optimistic”? What did they actually say? “She’ll be okay.
He hadn't noticed the doctor in the room. Was it a doctor? Too young. Freckles. A med student? The kid picked up Emily's chart and frowned at it. Then he smiled at Jack. "She'll pull through."
"I have to go," Jack said. This is just one of many ways you could write it. The point is to minimize the number of raw facts you're throwing at the reader and do your best to immerse him in the scene.
We often blunders by thinking in terms of “to be.” For example … Fred: I’m generally attracted to women, but this one time, when I was 17, I got turned on by a male friend of mine and had sex with him. Am I gay? I will focus, here, on “am I gay.” Let’s say we respond by saying, “Yes, you’re gay.” What, then, can we say about Fred? He will still most-often have sex with women, but he’ll remember this one time, at the age of 17, when he had sex with a man. Let’s say we agree that he is straight. In that case, he will still most-often have sex with women, but he’ll remember this one time, at the age of 17, when he had sex with a man. That will happen if we say he is bisexual, asexual, pansexual, or a klingon. We’ll change nothing about his traits or actions by labeling him. Nor will we say anything useful or interesting about him. Perhaps when he asks, “Am I gay?” he means something coherent like, “Given the facts of my life, will most people label me as gay?” We can’t tell what he means, because he expressed himself with a form of “to be.” When we write or speak “to be,” we often muddle our conversations, prose, and our thinking. Examples:
Revisiting “show don’t tell.” On reddit, a writer explained that “show don’t tell” applies to character action and emotion, but not description. He makes some good points, and it’s worth reading.
Here’s my response:
This is a good rule of thumb, because if people follow it, their fiction will likely improve. However, I disagree that “show don’t tell” is only useful for character writing.
At least when I write, my goal is to give the reader a sensual (or sensory) and visceral experience. I want him to feel like he’s there (whether “there” is a saloon, the deck of a space ship, a Manhattan apartment, or inside the head of a character). That is, I want put him in the environment rather than give him a report about what’s going on in the environment.
That’s the difference:
Goal of telling: explaining to the reader the latest facts about WWI. Goal of showing: forcing him to crouch in the trenches, mud up to his knees, covering his ears as grenades explode around him.
“Showing,” in my formulation, is anything that puts the reader there. It’s anything that licks his face, tickles his ribs, wafts the stench of urine in his nostrils, or fucks him up the ass.
You can succeed or fail at showing in a variety of ways. For instance, you can fail by not providing enough detail, by providing too much (so that the reader is overwhelmed), or by providing the wrong kind, e.g. cliches like “fluffy cloud,” which the reader passes over without experiencing anything.
Your post is helpful, because characterization is where many writers fail. (“She was angry,” etc.), but it’s not the only point of failure.
Telling: It was hailing.
Showing: Hail pelted the windows.
The first version just gives information. The second puts you there.
One needn’t always show and not tell. In fact, that’s a bad idea, because if every detail is shown, then no detail will stand out as more important than others. Perhaps, in a given story, it’s not important for the reader to feel raindrops: “It was raining, so she knew this would be yet another spent on the sofa, flipping channels, only budging to get beer from the fridge and to pee…”
Or the rain might be the main point: “Water exploded out of the sky, drenching her yard and pounding on her roof, and so she stayed inside on the sofa.” As writers, we control what’s in focus and what’s blurred in the background.
The key is to remember that humans are sensual creatures, and if we go too long without hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching or moving (the kinetic sense), we tend to tune out. So while every sentence needn’t (and shouldn’t) be a sensual experience (except, perhaps, in the case of some short poetry), it’s worth always asking, “How long has it been since I grabbed the reader by the balls?”
Often, telling works best as a thesis statement or a punch line. Thesis statement: “It was raining, so… [insert showing].” Punchline: “[insert showing”] … which is why she stayed home.”
Specific rules, like “don’t use too many adverbs,” may help beginning writers, but ultimately there are no rules: just goals. If, as with me, your goal is to put the reader there, you must go through your draft, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, word by word, and ask if you’re achieving your goals. Is this adverb putting the reader there? Is this sensual detail failing to do so, because it’s a cliche. Could this image be sharper? Or am a purposefully “telling,” as a setup the for sensory detail that’s to follow? Or am I delivering a punchline (a “summing up,” a conclusion…) after making the reader have a series of sensations.
Above, I used the phrase “sensory detail,” but even that’s wrong. That makes it sound like the goal is to list the color of everything or to give all sorts of micro descriptions. That’s not the goal. The goal is to use every technique in your arsenal to make the reader have experiences. Sensory/sensual details are one tool. Word sounds are another: Boom! Hiss! Crackle! Sentence structure is another. Pacing is another. Subtext (craftily omitted details) is yet another.
Rather than “show don’t tell,” perhaps we should say, “Punch the reader in the face; don’t explain to him that a fight occurred.”
Director Rouben Mamoulian (Love Me Tonight, The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand) remembers Ernst Lubitsch: “He was doing a film, and he explained to his writer that the beginning of the film had to show that this man had been married a long time and that he is kind of tired of it. He had gotten used to his wife and had a roving eye. So the writer brought him four pages of introductory exposition of character. Lubitsch looked at it and said, ‘You don’t need all that.’ He took all four pages out. ‘Just put down this—the man walks into the elevator with his wife, and keeps his hat on. On the seventh floor a pretty blonde walks in, and the man takes his hat off.’”
Do you think that is ever okay to be preachy in writing a story? This question previously had details. They are now in a comment. Profile photo for Marcus Geduld Marcus Geduld , Assisted a BBC director, son of a film historian. Answered Feb 1, 2014 “Okay” is an odd word to use for something like this. Is it okay to write stories with zombies in them? Well, I have a friend who hates horror, so it’s not okay with him.
It’s not okay to write preachy stories if you want to please me. Or if you want me to read your story. At even the slightest hint of preachiness, I will quit reading. Being preached to is not what I look for in stories.
If a character is preachy and that’s totally natural to him—if it’s in an aspect of his character—I may be fine with it. But if I have a sense that the character is being used as a mouth piece for the author, I’ll hate it.
I don’t want to think of a book as authored while I’m reading it. I want to get as close as a I can to believing that the characters are real people. I want to have a relationship with Hamlet, not Shakespeare; with Gatsby, not Fitzgerald. I won’t be able to fall in love (or hate) with the characters if an authorial voice keeps reminding me that they are his puppets.
Preachy fiction is a horribly inefficient tool at advocacy, and most of it is a symptom of the author wanting to show off his morality, rather than a sincere attempt to change the world.
If you can really get me inside the experience of (for instance) a slave, then I might wind up enlightened, because your story will let me suffer along with him. But in that case, you won’t have any need to preach. And, if you do, it will be redundant, and it will distance me from the visceral experience. Like jokes, sensual experiences are blunted when you explain them.
In the end, preaching is bad because it’s telling rather than showing. And even showing isn’t all that great. Rather than telling or showing, a good storyteller should evoke feelings and sensations.
Don’t tell me slavery is bad. Make me feel the sting of the whip cutting into the slave’s back. And once I’ve felt that, don’t explain to me what conclusion I should draw from it. Trust that I will either draw my own conclusion or accept that if I haven’t, preaching to me won’t help. Unless you’re preaching to the choir.
It all made sense. Sending them to Rochester was very risky. Jack thought his arrogance was big enough to justify the risk, but it was now clear that there was something different and important in Rochester.
It’s grammatical but lackluster prose—short on imagery and sensual detail while full of generalizations and abstractions. In most writing, except maybe a legal document, “America” is superior to “a country,” “Idaho” is superior to America, and “A filthy garage” is superior to “Idaho.”
“It all made sense.”
“Made sense” is an vague form of cognition, and telling me that something “made sense” to doesn’t give me any sort of visceral experience. It’s much better to just say what made sense or to give the reader an “it all made sense” feeling with sensuality or metaphor, e.g.
“Everything slotted into place.”
“His face flushed as he realized the truth.”
“The truth slapped him backwards.”
“Sending them to Rochester was very risky.”
“… was very risky” is an abstraction. Nothing is actually “very risky.” That’s a category. Saying “it was very risking” is like saying, “She went to the zoo and saw a life form, there.”
“What if they got arrested in Rochester?”
“The whole city of Rochester is glowing with radioactive waste.”
“Jack thought his arrogance was big enough to justify the risk…“
“His arrogance” is another category. How about something like this?
“Thinking of the time his friend burned down the condo after claiming to be a master electrician, Jack realized Rochester was just the place for him.”
“… but it was now clear that there was something different and important in Rochester.”
You know what I’m going to say: vague, abstract, un-sensual …
“But now he realized Rochester was the only city with that had banned mayonnaise!” (I’m groping, here. I have no idea what your story is really about.)
You don’t have to make every sentence brim with sensual details, and it’s fine to add in some abstractions to rev up or summarize. But you have to earn abstractions.
If you’ve given me five details, you can then step back and put them in a category or philosophize about them in abstract terms. I’ll trust that you’ll get back to nuts-and-bolts soon enough.
Or you can lead with an abstraction, such as “It all made sense,” but then make sure your next sentence is as specific as thumbtacks.
Compare these two paragraphs:
Jack couldn’t figure out how to tell his mother about Lindsey. He tried to distract himself with pointless movements. Then something occurred to him, and he stopped. It all made sense! He knew what he was going to say. He called to his mother in the other room.
Jack couldn’t figure out how to tell his mother about Lindsey. He paced a circle around the dining room, picking up each spoon and then replacing them; he thrust his hands in his pockets and pulled them out again. Then he stopped. It all made sense! “Mom!,” he called. “Come here! I need to tell you something about Lindsey.”
It sounds like you’re trying to replace an abstraction (“pretty”) with a more profound or “creative” abstraction. I say that, because you don’t need to reach for a thesaurus to describe a sunset. You know what it looks like. Or, if you can’t remember, find a picture of a one on the web. Now describe it: what colors do you see? What shapes? Do you see clouds? What do you see on the ground? Do you see grass? Trees? Don’t immediately try to sum up the sunset in “the perfect phrase.” Start with the concrete. Often, the concrete is all you need, because… Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. – Anton Chekhov Maybe, after you spend 20 minutes describing exactly what you see, a “higher-level” or “poetic” thought will occur to you. That’s fine. Then write it. But you earn that level by first being a journalist: by showing the reader what you see (hear, smell, etc). And it’s really okay if you never have that “creative” thought. Check out this powerful poem. Notice how it avoids abstractions. It does its work with concrete details: “Too Much Heat, Too Much Work” It’s the fourteenth of August, and I’m too hot To endure food, or bed. Steam and the fear of scorpions Keep me awake. I’m told the heat won’t fade with Autumn. Swarms of flies arrive. I’m roped into my clothes. In another moment I’ll scream down the office As the paper mountains rise higher on my desk. O those real mountains to the south of here! I gaze at the ravines kept cool by pines. If I could walk on ice, with my feet bare! Tu Fu (712-770) Translated from the Chinese by Carolyn Kizer
Start by making lists. Observe the object and write down everything you see, hear, smell, taste and feel. You can write down other stuff, too: what you think about the object, how it makes you feel, what it remind you of, etc., but make sure you focus on the sensual . Your reader understands the world via his five senses, so you need to ultimately write prose that stimulates those senses, or he won’t see (smell, etc.) what you see (smell, etc.)
But this list isn’t for the reader, it’s for you. It’s brainstorming. It’s “Natural Science.” Be like Darwin or some other naturalist and jot down everything about the object in the most objective way you can. Be scientific; be clinical. No need for complete sentences:
rocking chair. dusty. smooth to the touch. creaks when sat in. slight chip in left arm. feels a bit fragile. musty smell. light brown. can see wood grain. looks sort of faux "pioneer" style. faded pattern painted on back. abstract. red curlicues. etc. As you convert this to prose for the reader, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Less is more. My list gives me great stuff to choose from, but I should definitely make choices. If you numb the reader with excessive details, he’ll start finding it paradoxically hard to envision what you’re talking about. This is because he’ll be trying to hold too many things in his brain at once:
In the corner of the attic, she saw a rocking chair covered in dust. When she sat in it, it creaked. Rubbing her hands along its sides, she was surprised at how smooth it felt, given that it was crafted in a rustic, faux-pioneer style. While she was staring at the light-brown wood (she could see the grain), she noticed a musty smell. Then she saw a small chip in the arm. Had she broken it? It did feel fragile. Nervous, she stood up and walked around the chair. On the back, in faded red paint, there was a curlicue pattern... And remember that I wrote "etc" at the end of the list. So in real life, if I tried to include all the details from the list, I'd bore the reader with ten pages of chair.
Even if you weren’t bored when you read that paragraph, my guess is that you reacted (maybe positively) to each detail but didn’t get a sense of a chair.
How many details should you include? As few as possible (is just “rocking chair” enough?), and the few you include should be the most evocative.
I don’t know what you’re writing about, so maybe your subject matter will dictate which details you should use. For instance, if you’re writing about an old, dilapidated house, maybe the dust and fragility is more important than the pattern on the back.
But if your goal is to just stick something memorable in the reader’s head, pick the most sensual, unusual details, and avoid anything the reader already knows (or assumes by default). Don’t tell him the chair had arms. He knows that rocking chairs have arms. (Unless it doesn’t have arms, in which case that’s an quirky, interesting, memorable detail.)
(Warning: by “unusual,” I mean the most striking sensual detail on the list, not oddness for oddness’s sake. Some beginning writers think they must infuse every sentence with eccentricity. I call it the David Lynch School of Writing. It’s not necessarily wrong to say “the chair had rusty spikes sticking up from its seat, as if a sadist had used it to torture his victims,” but don’t expect your reader to pay attention to anything else after that. And if every sentence is quirky, quirk will cancel out quirk, until nothing seems quirky.)
In general, I would avoid giving more than three details of any one object. That way, you won’t tax the reader’s temporary memory. And make them your three (two or one) best details :
The rocking chair had a chip on its right arm. When she sat in in, it creaked. She stood up, dusting off her coat. - Some descriptive details are true but weak. Let's say, for whatever reason, conveying the smoothness of the chair is important to you. The problem is "was smooth to the touch" isn't very evocative.
This is often the case when the detail is true about many objects we encounter every day. We rarely go into a bathroom and smell olives, but we are bombarded with smoothness: spoons are smooth, bottles are smooth, soup dishes are smooth, pencils are smooth, iPhones are smooth, etc. We’re so numbed to smoothness that “the chair felt smooth” almost doesn’t register.
This is where metaphor can help . Smooth as… ? What smooth things are evocative? What will get the reader’s attention? What will help him experience smoothness.
Here’s where lists are useful. Get out another sheet of paper—or open a another text file—and riff on smoothness. The list is for you, so dump everything on it, including cliches, just to get them out of your system:
smooth as a baby's bottom as the cover of a new paperback as snow as an iceberg as shaved legs etc. Especially when your goal is descriptive, you want metaphors to be sensually evocative, not showy. The reader should almost not know he's reading a metaphor: he should just feel smoothness. So don't try to be poetic. You're just gunning for something more sensual than "it was smooth."
I like “as the cover of a new paperback” (which occurred to me as I stared at my bookshelves while brainstorming), because it’s just a tad surprising. It’s not so quirky that it calls attention to itself (like “as smooth as as CGI robot”) but it’s not my first association with “book.” (“Oh yeah… paperback covers are smooth!”) So it has just a tiny pinch of quirkiness that might wake a reader up and force him to imagine running his fingers down a smooth book cover.
Or you might disagree. This is one of the many places where artfulness and aesthetics come into play, and it’s why we have so many different writers writing so many different ways. I find it kind of thrilling to come up with a metaphor that some readers will sigh at joyfully and other will shrug at.
The metaphor doesn’t need to be presented as such, though it can be: “She touched the arm. It was a smooth as the cover of a new paperback.” You could sneak the image into your prose in other ways: “She touched the arm. Smooth. It made her think of the shaved legs and the covers of new paperbacks…” Oops. I snuck in two items from my list. Too much? I don’t know. Play with it.
All writing should involve playing, testing, trying, sleeping on it, coming back to it later, rethinking it, playing again…
- There’s no law that says you have to have a paragraph of description and then a paragraph of dialog (or philosophy or whatever). Description can be interspersed with other sorts of writing :
She sat in the rocking chair and thought about what she was going to tell her husband. The chair creaked as she let it support her whole weight. "Robert," she rehearsed, "We need to discuss me going back to work." No. Too abrupt. He would flinch. He would shake his head and wander into the den. She rubbed her hands up and down the chair's dusty arms. They were smooth like the covers of new paperbacks... - Don't forget active verbs! It's all too easy to omit all verbs from description except for forms of To Be, Had, and Looked: It was green, it had gold edges, it looked ancient... It can be challenging, but the more you can evoke a person interacting with the object (moving through the landscape, etc.), the better. Your reader will identify with that person. Readers will feel as if they're tasting, touching, feeling, seeing and less like someone is showing them a picture.
The slip of paper was so light; if you put it in your hand and closed your eyes, you wouldn't feel a thing. - Ease back on modifiers. Almost every book on writing tells you to lean on nouns and verbs and avoid overuse of adjectives and adverbs. We find it much easier to picture someone doing something than a huge, green, stinky, elongated, slowly drifting barge.
Remember, the reader has to rely on his temporary memory. While he’s trying to hold the character and plot (or the ideas you’re writing about) in his head, he is also now forced to remember hugeness, greenness, stinkiness, etc. In fact, he won’t remember all those details; he’ll remember a vague mush.
Because you’re trying to describe something, you may be tempted to dump your sock drawer of modifiers on your prose. Don’t. If the thing you’re describing is old, broken, and red, either omit some of those details (are they all important?), break them up into separate sentences or—best of all—evoke them:
The red toy—a fire engine?—shattered in his hand, crumbling into bits and pieces. He turned one over and saw 1867 etched in its base. - Advanced tip: framing . This is one of my favorite passages from "The Great Gatsby," which is a masterclass in writing:
Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the moving picture director and his Star. They were still under the white plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale thin ray of moonlight between. It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek. "I like her," said Daisy, "I think she's lovely." But the rest offended her... I remember the first time I read this: it blew my mind. Fitzgerald wanted to convey how much Daisy hated the party. So he framed "the rest offended her" with something poetic and romantic, and even had the character say something pleasant. It makes the next line pop! Think of ways to make your descriptions—or the most important parts of them—pop. Contrast is your friend .
Besides stacks of empty boxes, an old filing cabinet, and a broken door was a rocking chair with a pattern of red curlicues painted on its back. Imagine a camera panning across a lot of boring details in the attic, coming to rest on the one bit of interest, the chair. But the chair is made more interesting by the crap that comes before it.