Real Life Diagnostics: Show vs. Tell, Part Two

Our brave test subject was willing to show her next draft of this scene. For those just tuning in, we did a diagnostic of this scene a week or so ago to analyze show vs tell on a real WIP scene from a reader.

This is a great revision for two reasons. One, she did a wonderful job of getting in details that show, and two, she did a great job of going a tad too far, a common thing to do when trying to revise to show. So it's a perfect next step teaching tool.

Original Scene:

(A) I don’t care how bad Papa whops me when I get home, just someone come soon. Jaek where are you? In the pit of her stomach, she knew her brother couldn't save her.

(B) A wolf jumped for her throat. She dropped her sword, caught it by its fur and fell backwards into the snow. (C) Jaws snapped inches from her face. The one biting through her boot jerked her back and forth; pain shot up her leg. She screamed. Teeth tore into her shoulder, pulling hard. Hot fetid breath enclosed her face. Teeth pierced her body. Pain overwhelmed her.

(D) I’m going to die.

(E) Black fur, white teeth, yellow eyes, fingers locked in the wolf’s ruff. Blood running down her skin, pudding under her back. Her arms trembled.

(F) I can’t hold him! “Papa! Jaek! Somebody, anybody! Help!”

(G) She felt a loud pop through her body and her shoulder ripping. (H) Asaro screamed again. She glared at the wolf in her face.“I will not die!” (I) Yellow eyes filled her sight. She fell into them. Something in her mind expanded and opened. (J) She was pain free for a blessed instant; then, searing jolting pain imploded muscles ripped and re-grew, bones broke and realigned, her skin itched then exploded.(K) The world twisted: color no color, smells assaulted her, sound deafened her. Then, nothing.

(L) Slowly, her mind cleared. Her fingers and toes twitched. My sword! (M) She stood up, and immediately fell down tangled up in ragged furs. (N) Why can’t I stand! (O) She struggled to her knees and out of the heavy covering. Paws. (P) She pulled back; the paws pulled back. Startled, she looked down at her body and saw silver fur.

And now, my comments. A quick note here -- I did more of a general critique to go beyond just show vs. tell, because doing other things would fix SvT problems.

(A) I don’t care how bad Papa whops me when I get home, just someone come soon. Jaek where are you? In the pit of her stomach, [she knew] her brother couldn't save her.

"She knew" can be a tell flag, explaining a feeling instead of showing it in a way that lets the reader surmise the feeling. "Her stomach twisted. Her brother couldn't save her." A physical reaction followed by the thought it causes.

A secondary element here is that there are three ideas here in this paragraph: getting whopped, "anyone" coming and Jeak coming,. This makes it tough for the reader to know what the POV Is the most worried about. In this scene, it seems like the POV has a connection to her brother and that's who she's hoping will save her, yet he doesn't. That personal hope and connection could be stronger overall if that's how their relationship was setup from the start here. Getting whopped probably isn't something she's truly worried about since she's about to get attacked by wolves. That fear might work better earlier if she was lost or something, and help escalate the stakes. A good example of information that might work better in another part of the scene.

(B) A wolf jumped for her throat. She dropped her sword,caught it by its fur and fell backwards into the snow.

A good show line, but there's a missed opportunity here. See the sword? Having the POV try to fight the wolves is extra conflict and added stakes. If there's something in the scene the POV can use to make the scene more exciting, let them use it.

(C) Jaws snapped inches from her face. The one biting through her boot jerked her back and forth; pain shot up her leg. She screamed. Teeth tore into her shoulder, pulling hard. Hot fetid breath enclosed her face. Teeth pierced her body. Pain overwhelmed her.

Great details here, but they feel a little list like because it's just facts without an emotional component behind them. These are great spots for some internalization to help break it up, and there's internalization a few lines down that would go really well here. She's already being torn to pieces, so the rational thought later feels odd. Plus, by getting to the horrible stuff so quickly, there's a missed opportunity to build the fear. The wolf jumps, she tries to fight it, but can't. So she tries to hold it back, but can't. Then others wolves join in and start attacking. The events keep getting worse and worse, escalating those stakes and making the reader more and more worried.

(D) I’m going to die.

At some point in the scene the POV realizes this. This is likely a major moment, so milk it for emotional depth. It might be a good time to mention the brother again, or any personal connection or regret she might have, a reminder of what else she has to lose besides her life. This is especially true if we know she 's the protag and probably won;t die. But if this attack can do something bad besides death, that could be an added stake.

(E) Black fur, white teeth, yellow eyes, fingers locked in the wolf’s ruff. Blood running down her skin, pudding under her back. Her arms trembled.

Since yellow eyes are used below, perhaps something else here to avoid the repetition. This is something to keep an eye out for during revisions, because it's so easy to use the same images when you're jumping between paragraphs or scenes.

(F) I can’t hold him! “Papa! Jaek! Somebody, anybody! Help!”

This internal thought and dialog might work well to help break up the above details. The wolf jumps, she tries to hold it back, her arms tremble and she can't. The other wolves come in, and she starts screaming for help because she's failed to hold back or fight the wolf herself. Look for little spots like this where you can build the danger and slip in both details and emotion.

(G) She felt a loud pop through her body and her shoulder ripping.

She's feeling a sound here, so she'd probably hear the pop or feel the rip. These little "misaligned" slips can sneak in when you're fiddling with text. I call them revision smudge.

(H) Asaro screamed again. She glared at the wolf in her face.“I will not die!”

Glaring is interesting considering what's going on. It says a lot about this character. It's another great opportunity to add something so we can understand the defiance. Something that shows where her sudden resolve not to die and glare at the wolf killing her comes from.

(I) Yellow eyes filled her sight. She fell into them. Something in her mind expanded and opened.

Perhaps an emotional response here as well, because it's another major moment. Knowing what draws her into those eyes and how she thinks about what's happening could be interesting and help the reader connect to her better. Does she think she's dying? Is she fighting? What does she think is happening?

(J) She was pain free for a blessed instant; then, [searing jolting pain imploded] muscles ripped and re-grew, bones broke and realigned, her skin itched then exploded.

There's a lot going on in the bracketed area. Be wary of using too many adjectives to describe something. Some internal or emotional reaction here would also be nice. This is quite an experience, and you can use the POV's perception of it to hint to the reader what is actually going on

(K) The world twisted: color no color, smells assaulted her, sound deafened her. Then, nothing.

Knowing what smells and sounds would help flesh out the scene, but since there are already a lot of details here, knowing that might be too much. But it would also be a good hint that she's changing, so it's worth considering cutting back a few of the other details to give room to show her senses heightening here. Knowing what to show and what to gloss over is also important in a scene. The critical story elements usually get the most attention. Which can be helpful when you have to decide what to expand on.

(L) Slowly, her mind cleared. Her fingers and toes twitched. My sword!

This seemed an odd first thought for someone who was just attacked by wolves. Survival, fear, escape, but not a sword that she purposefully dropped. But it's a good opportunity to show an aspect of her personality if she's a fighter and spent the scene trying to fight her way to the sword.

(M) She stood up, and immediately fell down tangled up in ragged furs.

Where did the furs come from? I suspect they're her, but it's a detail that jumps out because I don't know what's going on yet.

(N) Why can’t I stand!

She was just torn up by wolves, so this thought didn't feel plausible to me. She knows she got attacked and is badly injured. What other ways can show weakness or an inability to stand?

(O) She struggled to her knees and out of the heavy covering. Paws. She pulled back; the paws pulled back.

This is a great moment for her to freak out, thinking it's another wolf.

(P) Startled, she looked down at her body and saw silver fur.

Telling a bit here. This describes what she does, it's not her looking down and seeing it. And since this is the moment when she sees she's turned into a wolf, the potential for emotion is huge.

I'd like to thank our author again for submitting her work and letting me nit pick it to pieces. I also want to mention that there are a million different ways to edit. My goal here is to try to illustrate all kinds of things that could be done, and ways you could look at your own work that might help. I hope this was helpful to both the author and readers.

Summer Conests Teaser

Just a little tease that we're on the countdown to my first Blue Fire ARC giveaway. The contest will start July 1st, with the winner being announced July 15th. The prize is a signed ARC of Blue Fire, which releases October 5, 2010. It'll just be the US version this time, as the UK release date was recently changed.

There will be four total contests:

July 1
August 1
September 1
(Winners announced the 15th of each of those months)

And then on October 1, I'll have the final contest for a signed hardcover.

Probably no wild contests this time around, though I might add some silly stuff to help increase your chances of winning on one or two of them. If I were you, I'd start looking for zombie jokes...

How Do You Know When to Use What?

A commenter asked a great question this week, and it's similar to one I heard at a book signing Wednesday for authors Kim Harrison, Aprilynne Pike, and Ellen Schreiber.

How do you know...X?

The commenter asked how do you know when to use dramatic irony or surprise readers. The audience member at the signing asked how do you know what to cut out. (Which Aprilynne Pike had the best answer ever. "My editor tells me. In purple pencil.")

This is a tough question no matter what's being asked, because a lot of times it's hard to answer. How do yo know what to cut out? Whatever isn't working for the story. But how do you know what isn't working? It's different for every single story. Even within the same story it can be different.

I'm going to go back to the commenter's question here, because it's the easiest one to answer and really does cover the overall answer for these types of questions.

How do you know when to use dramatic irony versus surprising the reader?

It all depends on what you're trying to do with the story. If you want to surprise the reader, you'd hold back details and set it up so they don't see the surprise coming (but then can see the oh-so-subtle clues you left so this surprise fits). You wouldn't want to leave enough clues for readers to figure it out ahead of time if that would spoil the story.

Now, if you're unsure which one is better, it again falls to story and what you want. If you want to shock the reader and knock them for a loop, a surprise might be the better call. If you want to build tension and get them anticipating something, dramatic irony might be the way to go. You'd look at what each device accomplishes and then decide which works best for the story at that moment.

This is true of almost any "how do you...?" type question. It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you're editing, you cut out what doesn't move the story along. If you're struggling with back story, you add only what serves the story. How many POVs to use? What number would best tell the story?

"What works best for the story" will guide you every time, because the story is what matters.

I know how frustrating this can be. Because if you knew what was best for the story you wouldn't have the question, right?

This isn't necessarily true. A lot of times we get stuck on the plot, or the premise, or the character, and we struggle to find the answer there. But the problem might be with the plot, or the premise, or the character, and we need to step back and look at the bigger picture to figure how how to do something. Story is the big picture. The other stuff is just the pieces that go into making that story.

And sometimes, you need to figure it out for yourself. People can guide you and suggest things, but that final click of understanding has to come from you. It can take a while to get there sometimes, but if you keep trying, you'll figure it out.

And then you'll know how.

If You Haven't Had Enough of Me Yet Today...

An interview I did with Paraoddity is up now. There are so other great interviews there as well (with other folks, not more from me, that would be strange) so peek around while you're there!

Oh, the Irony: Working With Dramatic Irony

One of my favorite techniques is dramatic irony, which itself is a little ironic since I've discovered I love first person. Harder to pull of dramatic irony when there's only one POV.

So what is dramatic irony?

Basically, it's when the reader knows more about what's going on than the characters, and they see the meaning or truth where the characters do not.

This is quite effective in multiple POV stories where events happening in one POV affect another. Readers can see two (or more) points racing toward each other and they just know the crash is gonna be good. You can play up the tension between the POVs as well as within them. This can also help combat the hanging problem we talked about a few weeks ago.

Some examples of this...

Say you have a three-person POV science fiction story. One POV is Jack, the captain of a local cargo ship that makes regular runs through the system. The other is Miranda, the second in command on a space station Jack often stops at (and they have a romantic thing going on). Third is Xitic, the alien cook on a warship headed right for the system Jack and Miranda live in.

We know Xitic is heading toward the station and something bad is going on, but not exactly what. Xitic is a cook after all, and not privy to what the command staff has planned. But she can overhead enough to know something big is up.

Jack is out there flying around, and he hears stuff. Random distress signals, problems with colonies or other stations. Maybe some debris from a ship or two. Is it Xitic's people?

Miranda hears a lot of information on the station, and she get hears about space battles, missing transports, colonies crying for help. But it's spread out and not just where Xitic's ship is.

Now, here's where dramatic irony can be super fun. You can show issues going on in all three POVs, but since they each only get a piece of the puzzle, the reader can start to put the whole picture together before the characters know what's going on. Readers will see that Jack discovering there's a ship out there attacking folks is true, but it's not the ship he thinks it is. Miranda sees the overall span of the problem, so readers know it's not just Xitic and her ship. Xitic gets enough details to prove her ship is not the ones doing the attacking.

Something is going on and it's big. You can show all kinds of things without ever giving away the secret because not every POV has all the information. But eventually, the reader is going figure out what all these pieces mean and see the real threat: An alien force Xitic's people are currently at war with. But readers will also see how on edge all three POVs are, and they'll know when they all meet up things are not going to go well. Half the fun will be seeing what goes wrong before they figure out the threat is bigger than all of them.

Playing one side against the other gives you a lot more opportunities for conflict, and even when the reader knows what's going on, you can still be unpredictable because the characters still are clueless enough to make mistakes and misunderstand true motives.

This is so much fun it makes me want to write something in third person multiple POV.

Guest Blogger Joanna Bourne on the Simple Things

Today, we have Joanna Bourne, author of Forbidden Rose, talking about the simple things in writing.

Take it away, Joanna...

I was thinking the other day about elaboration of prose and simplicity of prose. Thinking about it in terms of what I'm doing in my own manuscript.

Overall, I'm aiming for straightforward, spare, stripped-down prose. The goal of general narrative is to be invisible to the reader. The story goes along just talking. Just building a picture. This ordinary narrative -- for me -- shouldn't be something that's going to make the reader stop and look at the writing, either to remark on its cleverness nor, I hope, to wince at how awkward it is.

It's not easy to write short and simple. Mark Twain, famously, is said to have written to a friend, "If I had more time this would be a shorter letter."

And then we got POV.

When we're in Point of View, we should sound like the character. When we do that, the reader is maybe going to notice the taste and tenor of the language itself.

To take two extreme cases:

My simplest, youngest folks should have a great directness to their experience. A concrete observation of the world. Dead simple language.

An example of the prose I'm thinking about would be this dialect passage from Steinbeck's 'Grapes of Wrath'. Here, the POV character demands the simplest of expression.

And then the raids -- the swoop of armed deputies on the squatters' camps. Get out. Department of Health orders. This camp is a menace to health.

Where we gonna go?

That's none of our business. We got orders to get you out of here. In half an hour we set fire to the camp.

They's typhoid down the line. You want ta spread it all over?

We got orders to get you out of here. Now get! In half an hour we burn the camp.

In half an hour the smoke of paper houses, of weed-thatched huts¸ rising to the sky, and the people in their cars, rolling over the highways, looking for another Hooverville.

For other characters, we try for more mannered speech. Elaborate and complicated speech. For an extreme example, look at Bramah's 'Golden Hours'.

"Your insight is clear and unbiased," said the gracious Sovereign. "But however entrancing it is to wander unchecked through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance?"

I love this clever complexity, this joyous sport with the language. I want to put something like this in the mouth of the characters.

It is immensely hard to write plainly. To catch the immediacy of an experience unfiltered by complex thought. It's also blindingly hard to write the speech of a complicated, eloquent character where every word comes to us already weighed in a discerning mind.

Hardest of all to slip from one voice to another as we change POVs. Just enough to make a poor innocent writer want to take up knitting or something.

A career is blooming...

A glittering French aristocrat is on the run, disguised as a British governess. England's top spy has a score to settle with her family. But as they're drawn inexorably into the intrigue and madness of Revolutionary Paris, they gamble on a love to which neither of them will admit.

Joanna Bourne writes historical fiction set in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France and Regency England. It was a time of love and sacrifice, clashing ideals, and really cool clothing. She in the Appalachian Mountains with her family, a dog, a cat and a goldfish. She's the author of the RITA award-winning My Lord and Spymaster, the American Library Association RUSA genre choice, Spymaster's Lady, and Forbidden Rose, which comes out out in June. Joanna blogs at Historical Romance.