Red Flags for Telling, part 1

Showing vs Telling is a big thing when writing. Both are important for different reasons and you have to determine the right balance.

Telling communicates information (i.e., the what). It's factual, efficient, and summarizes the big picture.

Showing, on the other hand, communicates the how and why. It slows down the story and creates an emotional connection. It allows the reader to experience the story in real time.

Examples:

Telling - I was tired of being bullied at school.

Showing - Last week, Tommy stole my chocolate bar, then Ann said I smelled like a dirty sock, and all the kids laughed. I hate school.

Showing pulls you in and lets you experience what the character experiences. There's no emotion or connection with telling.

There are some red flags in writing that lets you know you're telling instead of showing.

1st Red Flag - HEDGE words

Hedge words make writing less forceful. These words tend to be weak, vague, and/or indecisive. Some hedge words follow.

very - highly - extremely - literally - truly - really - totally - slightly - utterly - immediately - suddenly - precisely - usually - generally - at least - typically - around - seems to - for the most part - more or less

These words aren't bad words. They can be useful in your story, as long as they are used judiciously and with intent.

When checking my story for hedge words, I first look at the word count to see how many times I used each word. Some I don't use at all. Others, too much. For those words, I need to reduce or eliminate them.

So I start at the beginning of my book and look for the 1st hedge word. I read the sentence to see how I used it. Is there a stronger word to use? Should I change it or delete it? Am I 'telling' too much in the paragraphs around the use of the word? I look at all of that and decide what to do. Then I search for the 2nd hedge word and I do the same, repeating that process until I've looked at all of the hedge words.

Two examples:

I use the word 'slightly' to describe Maggie. Does that word need to be changed or eliminated? Does it convey what I want about Maggie? How many times did I used 'slightly' in the book?

I only used the word 4 or 5 times throughout the entire book. And my intention was to describe her so I felt that telling was appropriate and I left it in.

'Very' is a word I have overused in the past so I'm always aware when I use it. In Treasure & Treachery, I used 'very' about 12 times. I could have changed 'very busy' to something stronger perhaps, 'swamped' is one example. But I felt comfortable leaving it as is.

As you can see, there's a lot to consider with just simple words like those above. Yes, it's time-consuming to go through the entire book looking for each hedge word and then deciding what to do about it....but it's necessary.

I'm sure you're beginning to realize that editing is not a quick pass-through looking for spelling and grammar errors, so much more is involved.

And we haven't even talked about the other red flags of telling! Yikes! :)

Tomorrow, I'll discuss the 2nd red flag, emotion words.