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June 15, 2006
Let the Old Lady Scream
The one comment I make more than any other on student work is “show, don’t tell.” When a story is told, the reader has no choice about how to feel, how to understand, how to experience the story. In other words, the reader is not involved. He or she is kept at arm’s length. And the reader will no doubt keep such a story at arm’s length -- or farther! – away. When we show a story, we create scenes that draw our readers in so they can experience the story for themselves. This is our goal as writers.
Here are some tips for avoiding the telling trap in your writing:
Write more than one draft. Without exception, first drafts are rife with telling. And that makes sense because the first draft is when you’re telling yourself the story. Once you understand what the story is, then you can go about creating scenes, bringing the story to life. I love the way Anne Lamott describes the revision process in her indispensable book, Bird By Bird. She says the first draft is the “down draft,” where we get the story down. The second (third, fourth and forty-fourth) draft is the “up” draft, where we fix the story up. If you are only doing one or two drafts of your work, you’re not giving yourself a fair chance to fix it up.
Listen to Mark Twain. I keep this Twain quote by my computer: “Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.” Memorize those key words: “bring her on.” Twain tells us to make sure the important parts of our story are on scene, played out in front of the reader. It’s as if your words are the screenplay for the movie playing in the reader’s head. How do you know if you have a scene? You’ve got Dialogue, Emotion, Action, and Description on the page. (Notice the acronym: DEAD. That’s what your writing will be if you don’t create scenes.)
Let’s say your main character, Jenny, and her brother, Luke, are trying to get to the barn to escape a bad storm. In your first draft, you might write:
Dark clouds gathered overhead. Jenny and Luke ran as fast as they could toward the safety of the barn.
This tells us about the storm and about the kids’ attempt to escape from it. Watch what happens when I punch this up with dialogue, emotion, action, and description:
The sky overhead churned with oily clouds.
“Come on, Luke,” Jenny tugged on her little brother. “We’ve got to get going.”
“But I didn’t catch a fish!” Luke stomped his foot.
Jenny didn’t want to frighten him. But those clouds signaled trouble. Big trouble. “I forgot the net,” she lied. She picked up the tackle box. “Race you back to the barn to get it.”
“But I didn’t catch a --,” a gust of wind snatched the pole from Luke’s hands. He grabbed for it.
“Let it go.” Jenny had to yell to be heard over the roaring gust. “Run!” She grabbed her brother’s hand and they pounded toward the barn.
You’ll note that it takes more words to create a scene. But the results are well worth it. With the addition of dialogue, emotion, action, and description, we can now see those two kids racing against the storm to reach the barn. Our hearts are racing along with them, because we’ve been shown the story, rather than told.
Weigh what’s important. Sometimes when we try to show a story, we succumb to the temptation to include everything. We would do well to recall Elmore Leonard’s advice: “Leave out the parts people skip.” Yes, we need to add details to bring a story to life, but we need to make sure they are the right details. Let’s say you are writing a story about Carmen. Her problem is that she borrowed her friend’s book and lost it. Now, you may know that Carmen has red hair and that her little brother swallowed his tooth yesterday and that her grandmother makes great cannoli. These are fabulous details! But they have nothing to do with Carmen’s struggle to reconcile with her friend over the lost book. So leave them out. Don’t fret. They are such great details that you’ll be able to work them into another story.
So go ahead:
• Write more than one draft,
• Measure the importance of each detail,
• And let that old lady scream.
Because when you do, you’ll bring your work to life on the page. And when you do that, you’ll soon be screaming, too, with joy because you’ve sold a story.
Posted by kirby at June 15, 2006 08:32 AM
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Comments
Hi Kirby,
Thanks for sharing the great tips on letting the old lady scream. It's so good to have this on line so I can refer my writing students to it in the future. There's no better way to invite the reader to get inside the book and live through the story.
Have a great time at Haystack!
Janet
Posted by: Janet Carey at June 17, 2006 12:41 PM