One of the golden rules of writing we all get banged into our heads- “show don’t tell”. I am the queen of “tell not show” in my writing!

I knew I still had issues with this, but realised a whole new way I’m guilty of it this week.

Telling via dialogue tags, the old faithfuls like he said sadly, she said angrily, I’m aware of and know I need to change. They have their place, but used too much they definitely are telling not showing. Vicki Essex, about-to-be-published SuperRomance writer, says -

Actions speak louder than words. Try showing the reader a character’s thoughts and feelings through a shuffling of feet, the fisting of hands, instead of with dialogue tags.

She has a great short piece here about this- People are Not All Head and Shoulders.

 The other thing I notice is I write whole scenes that are nothing but dialogue. For short sections, that rapid ping-pong back-and-forth of just dialogue is great. It’s fast and pacy to read. But when it goes on too long without enough physical action and interaction with the environment breaking it up, my characters can feel like two disembodied heads talking in space. But I already knew about that too.

The big thing I only just realised I’m doing with these long scenes in dialogue is “telling via dialogue”. A whole new way for me to “Tell not show! It’s not just in this story, it’s in many of the stories I’ve written. I start off well, then there’s this chapter that’s nothing but the hero and heroine sitting in a room talking.

It’s not the oh-so-obvious infordumpy ”As you know, your three year older brother David ran away with my wife Susanna…” type telling via dialogue (at least, I hope and pray I’m not doing that!), but having one character tell the other about something that happened or is happening or is about to happen.

Sometimes that’s what’s needed. If it needs to be in there but isn’t something that would add to the story shown as a scene, it’s best just to summarise and move on. But I noticed in my current story, the Memorial Day Challenge one, times when maybe what happened would be better written as a scene in its own right.

What made me realise it is right there in Chapter One of my current story. The hero’s been asleep and the heroine tells him what happened while he was napping. It’s just a few lines, not taking up much space. It needs to be there, because it tells the reader a lot about the heroine and the mess she’s got herself into. But why didn’t I write it as a scene?

Because it would be a funny scene, in that funny-painful kind of way, like hitting your funny bone. I don’t write funny well, I really don’t think I do. I’m not very good at humor. Obviously, my writing mind knows this and neatly sidestepped the issue by letting me tell instead of show. And it did it in a way I can almost kid myself is NOT telling, because it’s in dialogue so it must be okay, right?

Well, maybe, or maybe I’m shortchanging my story, stopping it from being all it can be because I’m scared of trying and failing to write what I don’t do well.

Funny-painful is exactly what my story needs. It’s going to be too heavy and gloomy otherwise, as there’s a lot of past losses and  dealing with grief and dealing with guilt and dealing with the threat of even more loss in it. It’s got to have the humour to lighten it.

I need to push myself harder. I have to write what I don’t want to write. I need to write those scenes out to see if it makes the story better and stronger, and helps get me out of those talking heads type scenes.

Stories that are nice and easy to write, do not get read. Good writing can be hard work.

I need to do it. I need to be willing to do the work, get down and dirty in emotions, in pain, yes, even in humour.

I’m not sure how to do that. May need to re-read some of the authors who do “funny-painful” well. Read as a writer, not a reader, to see how they did it.

Then rewrite my “telling through dialogue” so it “shows” a bit more.