A Show-Don’t-Tell Database for Writers

One thing we’re known for around here is description. For a dozen years, Becca and I have explored topic after topic, and whether it’s settings, emotions, backstory wounds, conflict, weather, or something else, we dive in and find all the ways this storytelling element can be leveraged via show-not-tell to improve your book and the reader’s experience.

As you know, once complete, some of these “thesaurus” collections become books, while others go straight to our One Stop for Writers site, so we can continue to expand on them and then fold them into our massive show-don’t-tell database.

That database continues to grow each year and is integrated with some of our smart tools, like the popular Character Builder, meaning endless character-centric brainstorming information is at your fingertips, making character creation & arc planning a lot easier.

Because we’ve restructured our database to have one main portal page rather than a drop-down menu of thesaurus topics, I thought I should give it some airspace. Too, not everyone knows that the thesauruses they first discovered here at the blog can be accessed as a single, expansive database:

If you have any of our writing guides, you’ll have a good idea of how each thesaurus functions. But if you’re new to the idea of a descriptive thesaurus, we urge you to take One Stop for Writers’ Free Trial for a spin so you can see and use this show-don’t-tell database for yourself.

When you choose meaningful details over bland, generic ones, every layer of your story grows stronger. And meaningful details is what show-don’t-tell is all about.