Warning: I thought the "show don't tell" rule was overhyped until I did a 180

I scoffed at writing forums for years saying you gotta show emotions instead of just naming them. Then I took a workshop last March where the instructor made us rewrite a scene using only actions and dialogue. The difference was night and day, my critique group finally got invested in my characters instead of skimming. Now I'm paranoid I've been doing it wrong for like a decade. Has anyone else had a writing rule they dismissed that totally changed your story when you actually tried it?

3 comments

3 Comments

kai_chen27h ago

Wait, you actually had to rewrite a scene using only actions and dialogue? That sounds terrifying but also kind of brilliant. I've been writing for six years and I still have to remind myself to stop telling the reader how my character feels. Last week I literally deleted a whole paragraph that said "she felt nervous" and replaced it with her chewing her lip and checking the window twice. My beta reader actually noticed and said it felt way more real.

flores.emma7h ago

But doesn't telling the reader how she feels sometimes work better than guessing what chewing her lip means?

brooke_taylor447h ago

The part about deleting a paragraph saying "she felt nervous" and switching to chewing her lip and checking the window twice - that's exactly what happened to me. @kai_chen2 nailed it. Once I started showing those small actions instead of just naming the emotion, my readers actually cared about what happened next.