LET’S SHOW YOU HOW SHOW VS TELL WORKS! Florida Man Poops on a Possum. We won’t show you that

Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation

Hey! Welcome to our series of podcasts and posts all about showing vs. telling, which we are on fire about right now, right Shaun?

Growls.

You can check out the rest of the series on Carrie’s Substack Write Better Now or just the podcast episodes on her blog, https://carriejonesbooks.blog/

So, a lot of my writers have a brain like mine, which is sad for them. Just kidding! Just kidding! A lot of them do better when they see an explanation of show vs tell rather than just having their editor or writing coach shout, “SHOW DO NOT TELL!”

So, here’s a paragraph that maybe could be tweaked for a little too much telling.

Once they reached Gwenda the Gerbil’s cage, Ham-Ham shoved himself inside before swiftly closing the trap door, notching it. He took a second to breathe while Gwenda stepped onto the hamster wheel. She sighed, and suddenly he felt her staring at him.

This is what happens when you immerse yourself in the scene a bit more.

Ham-Ham scurried into the cage, Gwenda following. This was bad.

“Latch the door!” she demanded, hopping to the wheel.

“I’m trying!” It clicked and his breath whooshed out, smelling of stolen dog food.

“They’ll never know,” Gwenda whispered, “come run up here with me before the human comes.”

“You have kibble on your fur.” “Oh,” she said, “I do. You want to lick it off?”

Not only is it less telling, but it’s in scene and we have a lot more context than just getting somewhere, closing a door, sighing, breathing and staring, right? One reads like blah. One reads like you’re in the moment (even though it’s in the past tense). One is flatter. One is more dimensional.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Look, you want to live your life in the moment, not have those moments told to you or via other people's/dogs/hamsters moments.

WRITING EXERCISE

This is from WillowWrites:

"Write a scene where two people are arguing. Show the anger and frustration without using the words angry or frustrated."

PLACES TO SUBMIT

NEA Literature Fellowships sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Genre: Poetry.

Prize: $25,000 grants to published creative writers that enable recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement.

Deadline: March 13, 2024.

Savage Mystery Writing Contest.

Genre: Mystery short story.

Prize: Winning stories are published in Toasted Cheese. If 50 or fewer eligible entries are received, first place receives a $35 Amazon gift card & second a $10 Amazon gift card. If 51 or more eligible entries are received, first place receives a $50 Amazon gift card, second a $15 Amazon gift card & third a $10 Amazon gift card.

Deadline: March 24, 2024. Opens March 22.

RANDOM THOUGHT LINK

We found the Florida man story here.

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.

Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It's pretty awesome.

We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.

Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That's a lot!

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