Show & Tell in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Transitions from Telling to Showing

By Jessica Bell

Revised 2019 Edition

Have you been told there's a little too much telling in your novel? Want to remedy it? Then this is the book for you.

In Show & Tell in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Transitions from Telling to Showing you will find sixteen real scenes depicting a variety of situations, emotions, and

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vine Leaves Press
• Release date: May 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781507021231

Book preview

SHOW & TELL

IN A

NUTSHELL

DEMONSTRATED TRANSITIONS FROM TELLING TO SHOWING

Jessica Bell

Vine Leaves Press

Melbourne, Vic, Australia

INTRODUCTION

When I first started to write fiction and send my manuscripts out for feedback, the first and most frequent thing my readers said was SHOW, DON’T TELL.

In theory, I understood what SHOW, DON’T TELL meant. But it was almost impossible for me to put it into practice after comments such as, Why don’t you show your character sitting in a café getting frustrated with her friend? I’d really like to see that happening, rather than just being told it’s happening. It would give us a lot more insight into their characters.

Okay. So how do I go about that? I’m not sure I understand how you can’t see it happening when I’m telling you it’s happening. What’s the difference?

I never truly understood the difference until I’d accomplished it by accident one day. My motivation was that I needed to increase the word count in one of my manuscripts. I had a 60,000 word novel that needed 80,000–100,000 before I could submit it to agents.

I combed through my manuscript, marking scenes I thought I could expand. By the time I’d finished reworking the first scene, the concept