|
| I really admire writers who can make me forget
I'm reading a book...everything seems so real. How does a writer
do that? |
A fiction writer’s goal should be to create a world
on the page so convincing that readers will temporarily suspend
their disbelief and enter the virtual reality created on the
page.
In order to accomplish this, a writer needs to master the art
of showing rather than telling. An accurate representation of
a fictional situation may be drawn in an expository manner,
but a fiction writer should never be satisfied with a mere representation
of life. That life should breathe.
EXAMPLE
OF TELLING:
Professor Holden was a very tall man with wiry gray hair and
a limp.
EXAMPLE OF SHOWING:
When Professor Holden came into the classroom, he had to duck
to keep from hitting his head on the door frame. “Looks
like an overgrown Albert Einstein,” Sam cracked, which
got us all snickering. Then he went and stood behind the desk,
walking just like my Uncle Fred who’d left most of one
leg in Korea, and the snickering sort of went thin and died.
EXERCISE: Write a brief story
about a blind old woman sitting in her kitchen listening to
music and the sound of a mouse in the wall. Don’t use
these words: old, blind, kitchen, music, mouse. In other words
show these things in a non-expository way. |
