|
The Basics
Tell, Don't Show
The first rule of
writing is show, don't tell. But let's face it, if
we showed everything, our novels would run tens of thousands of pages,
and readers would die of exhaustion. So what do we do? We must decide
what information the reader needs. Just because we know everything
about our characters and just because we spent weeks researching, it
isn't necessary to share everything we know with our reader. We must
choose only the details we need to authenticate our story and omit
everything else.
NARRATIVE is telling the reader
what happens. This is useful when acting out the story (by dialogue and
action) does nothing to further our understanding of the characters or
plot.
For example, does the
reader really need to see every action during a meal, or would the
scene work just as well if used narrative. "We ate dinner in silence,
the way we always did. The only sound was the scraping of utensils
across the plate."
EXPOSITION is explaining why
something happened or giving the reader background information. There
are a number of ways to use exposition in our writing. A writer can use
direct exposition through the thoughts of the main character. Or the
writer might choose to use indirect exposition. To do this, we use
items like a purse or a handkerchief to indirectly tell the reader the
gender of a person.
One of the most
difficult and most crucial elements in story-telling is knowing when to
give play-by-play action and when to back off and summarize. Beginning
writers often try to cram the background information of a story into
the opening pages of the work rather than allowing the story to come
out naturally. Evaluate each scene to determine whether these tools can
make it better. If a scene doesn't hold your interest, maybe it's
better to summarize it in a sentence or two and go on to something more
important.
In a pivotal scene
that is critical to our understanding of how the character reacts in a
given situation, be especially careful of which techniques you use.
Give us action, give us dialogue, and let us experience and savor every
single moment of it.
Play around with
narrative and exposition. Find ways to speed up the pace of your
writing by using them, but keep in mind that both techniques have the
potential to bog down your writing, to slow the pace, and to bore the
reader. You must continue to be creative and utilize your character's
voice through narrative and exposition. For help with this or any other
technique, hire one of our editors.
For additional
tips, worksheets, and discussions, order your own copy of the
Inspiration for Writers Tips and Techniques Workbook.
All
rights reserved. You may reproduce
this article for educational purposes like writing workshops as long
you distribute our copyright notice and our URL (inspirationforwriters.com)
with each page.
For use in conferences, websites, blogs or other uses not mentioned
here, please contact us.
|
