If your writing feels vanilla, the likely problem with your novel or short story is that it shows rather then tells. Just what does that mean exactly, and how can you fix it? Here are seven great tips for tackling show don’t tell problems in your writing. Click the linked title for the full article:
• Avoid exposition (Show, don’t tell!)
Want to slow your story to a glacial grind and get readers to quit reading your story? Then load it with lots of exposition. Problems arising with exposition often (and rightfully) elicit cries of “Show, don’t tell!” from editors.
• How to make your writing show rather than tell
• Avoid giving readers a big info dump
• How to get rid of info dumps in your story
• Avoid ‘As you know’ Syndrome in fiction
• Avoid dumping backfill into your story
• Embedding exposition into your story
• To eliminate exposition in story, ‘film it’
• What if I edit out too much exposition?
• When exposition is necessary in a story
• Be aware of which dramatic mode you’re using
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.
Check out some of my writing guidebooks:
