The Image List : A Great Way to Get Your Creativity Juiced

In mid-summer, my writing often takes a dive.  I feel the laziness of summertime and don't really want to work on anything, much less do the hard work it takes to be a dedicated book author.

I set myself a schedule, I set a timer, and still the stuff doesn't come out on the page.  Maybe

Read more »

Transitioning to the Image Brain: Write a Poem about Your Book

Novelist and short-story writer Stuart Dybek (Coast of Chicago) was interviewed in Novel Voices about unique approaches to writing a book.

A most intriguing idea he presented was this

Read more »

That Tricky Balance of Show and Tell in Your Writing--How Do You Work with It?

One of my favorite quotes about showing versus telling comes from Anton Chekhov, who wrote, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”  This seems to sum it up.  Readers get emotionally engaged in writing that demonstrates rather than delivers.

Not sure you agree?  Think of a book you may have read recently.  Did you skim any of it, skip some sections?  Go back and look at those pages, and perhaps you'll notice that the author went into her head a bit, perhaps.  Maybe she decided it was a good time to get on a small soapbox and explain something.  You lost interest, as a reader.  That's because telling contains less emotional charge, so we're less involved in the images of the story.

Showing brings image to the page.  It's a demonstration of scene through specific details. Most books need to have more showing than telling nowadays, partly because of our fast-moving culture.  We have a shorter attention span.  Even movies are changing to adapt to the new ways our brains work. 

That's not to say that telling isn't important too.  Once something is framed on the page by shown details, a small bit of telling can deepen the meaning, the understanding a reader gets from the scene.

This week I've been teaching a retreat with 11 writers from all over the world.  We're at Madeline Island School of the Arts, a beautiful art school located on restored farm on one of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior near Bayfield, Wisconsin.  During class this week we were reading an excerpt from William Trevor's Cheating at Canasta, a short story about a woman who has Alzheimer's.  In this scene, the woman is playing cards with her husband, and although she can't really play cards anymore, he loves her so much that he helps her win.  After a page of showing this sad and beautiful relationship they have, Trevor ends with a line of "telling" that always knocks my socks off:  "I cheated at Canasta, and she won."  Because the telling is framed by earlier shown detail, we totally get it. 

So while telling at its worst brings an almost intellectual assessment of what happened, and showing at its best relies instead on sensory detail (smells, sights, sounds), telling is important. Telling lets us back away from the moment, giving us brief perspective on what's been shown.  While showing places the reader squarely in the moment, telling gives distance.

The key to showing is to demonstrate. This means not interpreting the things you are placing in front of us.

Robert Olen Butler, author of many wonderful stories and novels and instructor at this writing at Florida State University’s MFA program, talks about this in his book From Where You Dream. To learn how to show better, I like to pass along these tips from Butler's book.  They help me deliver emotion in its purest form.

Most important:  don’t dilute your moment with interpretation.

Butler observed that emotion can be delivered to a reader (shown, versus told) generally in five ways. Here is my translation of his terms:

• what I am feeling inside my body (goosebumps on my arm, itchy foot, tight throat)

• what I am observing in your gestures and movements (tearing a small paper napkin into bits, jiggling foot)

• specific memory

• fear, anticipation, desire (projections into future)

• sense selectivity (during moments of extreme emotion, all but one sense goes away)

During the developing stage of book writing, whenever I need to change a scene to more “showing,” I will go through Butler’s list and ask myself how I can bring in one of these.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise
This week, translate a passage that "tells" into one that "shows," using one of the above techniques. What happened?

Creating the Most Engaging Environment--Working the "Container" of Your Story

Writing teachers often cite the trio of event, character, and setting:  major elements to keep track of in your manuscript.  This trio is key to any genre, memoir, fiction, or nonfiction.

All books have something happening, illustrated by scene or anecdote.  That's event.

There's always someone this event happens to, be it fictional character, real-life narrator, or reader.

And there's always

Read more »

Taking Along Your Writing: How to Keep Your Creativity Alive during Your Summer Vacation

I am packing my suitcases this week, wondering about where to fit my writing.  Clothes, check.  Great book, check.  Camera, check.  Teaching materials, check.  The pile is big, the suitcase is small.  Can I take my printout for the novel that's haunting my days and nights right now?  Will these characters, who are living with me every moment, fit in a side

Read more »

Lessons from the Movies--Planting and Returning Images to Create a Satisfying Ending

There's a place in every book where all the assembled objects begin to balance.  They have slowly come together through many pages and form a cohesive whole.

Of course, this is the end of the story.  It's supposed to be satisfying, even if it leaves us with questions and aches to know more.  It should never leave us confused, however.  All the elements brought into play during the book must be accounted for.

I find that ending a story, especially a book's story, is hard.  Every book I finish offers its own particular agony in its ending.  Endings leave me really concerned--what sleight of hand to perform that will bring delighted gasps from

Read more »

Four Levels of Learning--From Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence

I am sharing a post I wrote last summer, because my Madeline Island retreat is coming up again in July, and I remembered this wonderful experience we had there. If you're interested in learning more about the retreat, click here. One spot just opened up for the July 18-22 retreat and four spots are still open for the July 25-29 retreat this year.  Writers who went there last summer still write me about how their books suddenly came together, just from the supportive community and great atmosphere of the retreat.  It's hosted by Madeline Island School of the Arts, which provides lodging and most of the meals.  Our classroom is large and airy, there's plenty of writing time, and you get feedback for your work.  Feel free to join me--it's truly an amazing week.

At my book-writing retreat on Madeline Island (Lake Superior) last July, we were joined by a man who summered on the island. He was retired from a very successful sales career and as he was a last-minute addition to the group and hadn't taken my book-writing workshops before, I wondered how he would do.

One sunny morning midweek, the class was struggling with the learning curve of three-act structure. Suddenly Pete raised his hand with something

Read more »

Mixing Things Up--Another Look at How to Break out of Writer's Block

Alison McGhee, writing instructor and author of many wonderful novels including Shadow Baby and Rainlight, once taught a very effective exercise in a writing class I attended.

Lists were written on the whiteboard: people of different ages and different objects. She asked us to choose one specific from each list and

Read more »

Forest and Trees--Balancing the Long View and Short View as a Book Writer

When you’re writing a book, you have to simultaneously hover over the forest, while you're noticing the tiny leaves of each tree.  Being in two places at once, you must keep in mind your overall book’s focus and structure, how you want it to come together--at the same time as you work on a tiny detail of one scene or chapter.

It’s often hard to balance these two viewpoints well.  Most new book writers

Read more »

Hands-on storyboarding workshop--get feedback on your book idea

Weekend book workshop, August 6-7, Manchester, NH.  For more information click here.