Improve your Writing (Showing vs. Telling)
When it comes to writing any story or essay, there are 2 things you can do. Either tell them or show them. The difference might seem small, but can have a huge effect on what comes across to your reader and their reading experience.
I usually relate this difference to feeling a paper. When someone is showing you in their paper you can feel them in the paper and the paper becomes more realistic to you. But when someone is just telling you stuff, well it just seems like information you must now try and remember.
When you tell someone you are cool, they are not just going to start believing you. They will need to experience who you are and what you do for them to truly know how cool you are. So how would you do this? Show them, share experiences of things that happened and that you did. You can even show them by using some imaginary or description.
When it comes to describing something, use your words in such a way that it paints a picture not just describes the picture. Example: It was cold outside. Well this sentence is boring, but change it up a bit. The frost crystallised the windows as we sat inside, curled up in your warm thick blankets.
The human brain is amazing at remembering feelings, so is the reader can't feel your writing, the chances are that they will forget a lot of what you said in your writing.
Thought provoking questions, this is one of the best things to use in a paper. Instead of you painting the picture with words, you guild the reader to what you want them to create in their own mind using these questions.
Combine all of this together and your reader will feel you and love what you wrote. Leave that impression that will last a life time on your readers. Make them feel your writing and who knows you might of just change their life just by helping them feel your writing.
Link: for more examples.
Just on a little side note for self improvement. I will be doing pushups, situps and squats for the amount of $$$ (ratio;$1:1) I earn on this post and will give a short feedback every day at the end of each post. This will be split in equally between all 3. Any not done will carry onto the next day.
Thanks for all of this info
This comment has received a 0.15 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @hamzaoui.
Thanks, love the "cold outside example".
Thanks, it is actually quite cold outside today that is why I wrote that :P
Your helping a lot of people on Steemit with this !
You hit me again! 🙂
And again it's not that I didn't know, as well not using it (even most likely unconsciously), but I apparently needed that conscious reminder.
this is one maxim in writing that i really love, particularly for your distinction that "telling is just giving someone information to remember" and conveys really very little on an emotional level to the reader. it's when you start adding those phrases that connect people to the moment more fully that the writing gets really good.
Good writers like Victor Hugo master this. They leave you with such a vivid memory of the story in the book one almost is tricked into believing it to be real-life
Yes very true
You've hit the nail on the head. I teach GAMSAT essay writing (essays for entry into medical school) and the key is to write from the heart - tell them a story from your experience, and not only 'the story', but also how you feel or felt about the events in the story. This is how to connect through the written word.
Thank you, and yes if it is not from the heart do not write it, there must be a passion for what you write.
Reading is about imagination. You need to stimulate readers to create a world of their own rather than creating a rigid one yourself.
I think using metaphors to tell your story is a great way of showing what your real message is. e.g. "it's raining cats and dogs outside!"
Yes metaphors work really well :)
Great piece of advice indeed dear! Me when I write my post, I always put myself in the reader's place to see if he will understand the writing or not!
If not, got to change!
Cheers
@progressivechef
Mmm that is a great idea :)
this is a very useful piece