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WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Helping writers become bestselling authors

7 Ways to Find Telling in Your Writing

November 8, 2022 by SUZY VADORI - Resident Writing Coach

I’ve been obsessed with the concept of Show, don’t Tell for years. I could geek out about it all day long, and don’t get me started if I find a book that drags me into its pages with Showing details and makes me skip meals, sleep, and time with my family to find out what happens at the end…

              *SWOONS*

So, when I was writing the second book in my The Fountain Series in 2017, and I got notes back from my editor on the draft I submitted, with “Show, don’t Tell, please!” in the margin, my stomach sank. I stared at the computer screen, my face hot, scrolling to see those words repeated more times than I care to admit. How could this be? I’d revised that manuscript until my eyes watered.

I thought I was doing it.

It’s Almost Impossible to See Telling in Your Own Writing Just by Reading…

If this has happened to you, don’t beat yourself up like I did. My editor’s notes on that book were the kick in the butt I needed to crack this code, and I’ve since discovered that it’s almost impossible to see Telling in your own writing just by reading. The story you’re sharing is alive in your mind, playing like a movie, with every detail available to your brain, from the pink sky your characters stand under in your scene, to the low hum of traffic in the distance. But most of that detail won’t end up in your first draft because it’s too obvious to you and you don’t want pages of description to slow your pacing.

*YAWN*

To further complicate things, when you read what you’ve written back to yourself, you won’t notice what’s missing, because your smart writer brain will fill in all the glorious details your imagination holds about the sky and the sounds in the distance. To you, your story will read like a masterpiece. The problem is, those details your brain knows didn’t make it to the page, so your reader is going to get a much flatter version of the story you’re trying to tell.

So, how do you fix this age-old writing problem if you can’t find it in your own work? Talented editors and beta readers can flag this problem for you, but the earlier you find it, the better. I developed a checklist that will help you find places you need Showing details in your work without banging your head against the wall.

7 Ways to Find Telling in Your Own Writing

  1. Named Emotions – Don’t tell readers your character feels murderous, Show us their narrowed eyes and shaking body. Search for emotions named in your draft (happy, sad, frustrated, surprised, etc.) then grab your copy of The Emotion Thesaurus and drag your reader into your character’s body by adding Showing details.
  2. Using “-ly” Adverbs – Simply, actually, slowly… these words are almost always Telling. Hunt them down and get rid of them to make your writing stronger.
  3. Info Dumping – This is too much information shared at once, without anything happening in story present to move the story forward. Scan your draft visually for text-heavy pages without much white space, and these areas will stick out like a sore thumb. Eliminate any information your reader doesn’t need, find a more creative way to deliver it, or break the information up between actions that happen in your scene.
  4. Recapping Events that Happened Off-Screen – It’s never fun for a friend to say “you shoulda been there!” If your characters are sitting around in a scene Telling each other about blood they spilled in an epic battle, bring your reader to the battle instead, so they can hear the screams and feel the wind that blows through your character’s hair, first hand.
  5. Showing Many vs. One – Rather than saying your character often went fishing, Show us a specific fishing trip, where the character’s boat sprang a leak and they had to swim to shore. Instead of writing that the crowd surged forward, show us the boy who darted in front of the surging crowd, getting trampled by their feet.
  6. Being Vague vs. Specific – Watch for words like something, things, stuff, objects, etc. that are vague, and replace them with a specific detail that adds to your worldbuilding.
  7. Saying What Isn’t in the Scene – If your character sees “nothing” in the dark, or there were “no books” on the shelf, you’ve missed an opportunity to Show your reader a detail or two about what is there – the soupy fog that swallowed up the character’s view of the forest, or the bare slats of the bookshelf covered with a thick layer of dust.

Once you find these pesky places in your writing, have fun adding Showing details, so your reader can experience your cascading purple waterfalls or dark musty caverns up close. Adding these details to your book during your revision process stretches your brain in the most creative way, and might just become your favorite part of your writing process.

              Love these practical tips? I break down writing concepts into steps you can take today to make your writing stronger in my Wicked Good Fiction Bootcamp.

SUZY VADORI - Resident Writing Coach

Suzy Vadori is the award-winning author of The Fountain Series and is represented by Naomi Davis of Bookends Literary Agency. She is a certified Book Coach with Author Accelerator and the founder of the Wicked Good Fiction Bootcamp. Suzy breaks down concepts in writing into practical steps, so that writers with big dreams can get the story exploding in their minds onto their pages in a way that readers will LOVE.

In addition to her online courses, Suzy offers 1:1 Developmental Editing and Book Coaching services, and gives practical tips for writers at all stages on her vlog and Free Inspired Writing Facebook Group.

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Filed Under: Resident Writing Coach, Revision and Editing, Show Don't Tell, Writing Craft

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. ANGELA ACKERMAN says

    November 8, 2022 at 5:58 pm

    Great list! Telling can be hard to spot in your own work, and this is a great map of places to look. Thanks Suzy!

    • Suzy Vadori says

      November 10, 2022 at 9:36 pm

      You’re so welcome! I’m always looking to codify concepts that can help writers. Thanks for having me as a Writer in Residence!

  2. Shannon Allen says

    November 8, 2022 at 1:50 pm

    This is a great article! So many tips that are practical and useful, thanks Suzy for a fabulous checklist for revisions and proofreading my work. I think this is a tool all writers, new and seasoned should have in their tool kit.

    • Suzy Vadori says

      November 10, 2022 at 9:37 pm

      You’re so welcome, Shannon! The more tools, the better!

  3. Elizabeth says

    November 8, 2022 at 1:19 pm

    Love this! I’ve always heard to cut the -ly adjectives, but some of the other bullet points are things I’ve never thought of before- especially the ‘describing nothing’ and things happening offscreen. I’m definitely guilty of those two! 😅 Thanks so much for this list!

    • Suzy Vadori says

      November 10, 2022 at 9:39 pm

      The new ones are less Telling but definitely missed opportunities to Show your visual readers something interesting about the scene!

  4. MINDY ALYSE WEISS says

    November 8, 2022 at 11:01 am

    Thanks so much for your awesome post, Suzy! I especially love the checklist and knowing that others find it more difficult to notice Telling in their own writing, too.

    • Suzy Vadori says

      November 8, 2022 at 11:26 am

      Thanks Mindy! We know our worlds so well, we have to make sure we share so our readers can experience it too!

  5. Dedra Davis says

    November 8, 2022 at 9:58 am

    Yikes! I know I’m guilty of many of these! I now have a sticky note with this list on my laptop until I take care of all these no-nos!

    • Suzy Vadori says

      November 8, 2022 at 11:29 am

      Amazing! I love hearing this. Don’t worry about these at all when drafting, then go through and look for them one at a time. Brainstorming your way out of these Tells is the fun part. Enjoy!

  6. Erin McKnight says

    November 8, 2022 at 9:46 am

    These practical tips are what every writer needs. I wrote them all down in my project notebook to reference during my editing phase. In fact, I’m going to write it down in every project notebook from now on. Thank you so much for this easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide. It will be lifechanging.

    • Suzy Vadori says

      November 8, 2022 at 11:38 am

      I can’t wait to hear how it goes, let us know! With my own writing and with my clients, I like to break big tasks (like showing all the things!) down into actionable steps so that we can feel progress and still write the most amazing books we can in the time we sit down to write. Happy writing!

  7. BECCA PUGLISI says

    November 8, 2022 at 9:04 am

    Love this! Telling is a huge issue with so many of the first pages I critique, and the hardest part for writers is seeing the telling in their own stories. I’m adding this post to the resources I provide to those authors :).

    • Suzy Vadori says

      November 8, 2022 at 11:52 am

      Becca, this means so much! If there’s telling in a writer’s first pages, it’s definitely all the way through. I developed this checklist for writers so that they can see the patterns, versus getting overwhelmed by wondering where the “telling” is lurking in their whole book (like it’s a monster hiding in the closet) . Once you see the telling spots, the fun begins, brainstorming the sensory details that will drag readers into the scene!

  8. V.M. Sang says

    November 8, 2022 at 5:59 am

    What a great post. I will be bookmarking this for future reference. Your examples are so helpful.

    On the subject of being vague, I often tell those I’m critiquing not to use ‘seemed’. Tell us what it actually is. ‘It seemed the dawn was breaking.’ Well, was it or wasn’t it?

    • Suzy Vadori says

      November 8, 2022 at 12:03 pm

      I’m so glad you find this list helpful! You’re giving terrific advice to your critique partners. “Seemed” is a great example of a filter word/phrase that we put between the reader and your character’s experience that don’t let your reader dive in deeply (And make them care less about your character’s journey). Eliminating filter words/phrases will make your reader love your writing even more… even if they don’t know why. (Also, eliminating filters saves precious word count that you can replace with all the fabulous showing details you have in your mind!)

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