Ah yes, the first writing platitude we all learned: write what you know. According to an article I came across from the New Yorker, that was the prevailing mantra in writing instruction in the 1940s and ’50s (and for the next two decades, it was the also-well-intentioned-but-equally-misguided “show, don’t tell“).

One of the primary evidences people usually give against this rule is the fact that only writing what you know—or, as it seems to say, what you’ve experienced—reduces all writing to autobiography. Unless you have some sort of mental disorder (or live a very different life from me!), this rule leaves no room for fantasy, science fiction, paranormal (well, I suppose that one’s debatable). There would be no Shakespeare or Twain (well, a lot less Twain, anyway) or . . . fiction, when it comes down to it.

And that’s true. If we were completely limited to only writing about our experiences, the literary world would be a bleak and boring place, rife with . . . well, check out exhibit A at right. Most of us lead very boring lives (and would have no hope of ever receiving a publishing contract). We might be able to fashion some part of our life story into a working narrative, but at most we’d only be able to squeeze out a couple short novels from the whole of our mortal existence.

But that doesn’t mean we should just completely dismiss the “write what you know” rule. It comes, like so many stupid writing rules, from sound principles: know your subject and check your facts. But I think it goes deeper than that, too, and can apply in a way that’s still as relevant to us as it was to Shakespeare, Twain, et al.—and in fact, it’s a reason why their writing is still so powerful and resonant today.

You have to write what you know—and you have to know people. To create compelling characters and thus compelling stories, as writers, we have to intimately know and understand human behavior and emotions. A story where the protagonist does something that seems stupid, self-contradictory or flat-out foreign all the time is frustrating to a reader.

So we need to know—and continue to study and get to know—people. We have to strive to understand human behavior and motivations, how we can get our characters to act in ways we need them to (or how they’d really act and change our story accordingly ). We have to understand our characters’ and our readers’ emotions and how to express and appeal to them. (And Larry Brooks agrees!)

And while our lives are likely too narrow and boring to make a good story most of the time, we all understand many of the universal feelings that motivate people—from greed to love to jealousy to anger to joy to grief to heartbreak, we’ve been there in some form. Understanding and remembering our own experiences with these emotions—things that we know—is at the root of creating powerful experiences for the reader.

So do write what you know—but don’t be afraid to make up the rest!

What do you think? In what other ways do you think it’s important to “write what you know”?

Photo by bobcat rock

Join one critique group and you’re sure to have someone point out an instance of telling in your writing with the admonishment: “SHOW DON’T TELL!”

Now, I’m going to tell you right now: that’s quite often good advice. I’m not one for slavishly adhering to rules, but when I read a book that routinely tells me about what people are thinking rather than showing me that they’re thinking it, it drives me crazy. It’s like reading about a story rather than reading the story itself.

One common place I’ve come to focus on is showing vs. telling is in character’s emotions.

Bad telling:

She felt tired. She always felt tired. Every day, they had this meeting and she just wanted to sleep.

Better showing:

Her eyelids sagged, but Marie didn’t notice that she was falling asleep until her head began to droop. She jerked upright again with a quick glance around the boardroom. No one met her eyes—many were dozing themselves. The midafternoon stockholder report was always the most difficult time of day to focus, whether she’d gone to bed at two or ten.

But it had almost always been two.

Showing has the power to bring a reader more deeply into the story—making them live the experience rather than just read about it. Vivid details and description can do that.

BUT (and there’s almost always a but) there are exceptions to this rule. Sometimes, vivid descriptions and details get in the way of the story. Sometimes, telling is the way to go. (Gasp.)

I know, it’s horrific to even read. But every once in a while, something needs to be told. Good reasons to tell: the details aren’t significant, won’t add to the setting, slow down the story or get in the way of emotions.

Bad showing:

She stood among the racks of children’s clothing, but her eyes didn’t see the blue and yellow horizontal striped miniature polo shirts, or the pink polka dotted dresses with ruffled lace bloomers hanging on rack to her right. Nor the green, blue and orange plaid button downs, the purple beaded socks, the bedazzled jeans with magenta embroidery, the baby khakis with real zippers and buttoned pockets, in every size from preemie to 4T, folded on the shelves to her left.

What was her son doing now?

See the problem? Unless you’re trying to show us your POV character has an eidetic memory (300,000 word novel, anyone?), this level of detail probably isn’t necessary. In fact, showing the scene can be so time consuming that it drags on and becomes boring—and probably worst of all, it severely undercuts the emotional impact of the next line.

Better telling:

The bright colors and happy patterns of the children’s clothing department seemed to mock her pain, as if the miniaturized shirts and shorts could read her mind to see what she’d done, and taunt her for poor choices.

What was her son doing now?

In this case, we really don’t need to “see” every detail of the children’s clothes. Now, a better way to accomplish both might be for the character to actually handle the children’s clothes, noting the details (perhaps she’s a seamstress who appreciates clothing construction and patterns?), her thoughts slipping back to her son.

My favorite instance of confusion about showing and telling was prompted by a contest judge. She(?) marked the sentence “Sighing, Margaux pulled the hairpins from her hair” with “SHOW us the sigh.” (Note, too, that this was the only initial participial phrase in the chapter.) Well, okay:

Margaux’s thoracic diaphragm contracted, expanding her thoracic cavity and creating a vacuum in her lungs. Air at atmospheric pressure rushed in to fill her lungs. Once they were at optimal capacity, and a good proportion of the oxygen content had transpired into her bloodstream, Margaux reached the full depth of her frustration with her disheveled coif. She contracted her external intercostal muscles, audibly forcing a stream of air through her nostrils, and pulled the hairpins from her hair.

Clearly, sighing isn’t something that has to be shown like that. In fact, with some actions, simply using the verb is enough to show them.

Yes, yes, you’ll be told a million times “show, don’t tell” before you’re published, but really, telling has its (very limited!) place, too.

What do you think? Is there a place for telling as well as for showing? When do you use them?

Photo credits: shh!—Ann; shout—Maciek Łempicki

I have a problem with smiling. And nodding.

Thee problem is this: there’s only a handful of words in the English language to express those actions: smile, beam, grin, smirk, simper. Nodding is even worse: nod. Other versions of this one tend to draw attention to the words instead of showing the characters’ actions: bobbed his head (“up and down,” if you want to make it even more annoying).

But the real problem here is that every smile and every nod don’t look like or mean the same thing. There are sinister smiles, eager grins, coy smiles, small smiles, half smiles, half smirks. There are greeting nods, indicating nods, assenting nods, effusive nods, reluctant nods, slow nods, quick nods.

Obviously my problem is not identifying the kinds of smiles and nods humans use. My problem comes from describing them in writing, because that’s against the rules. There are a lot of so-called rules in writing. As with anything with a body of ad hoc regulations, many of the rules contradict each other. Like these:

1. Never use adverbs. Ever! (Corollary: adjectives are bad; they are trouble!)

and

2. Always use strong verbs. Until you make yourself, your characters and your readers tired!

(We’ll talk more about Rule #1 another day.)

When do they conflict? I’ll show you. Consider:

He gave her a kind smile OR He smiled at her kindly

He shot her a bemused look OR He looked at her bemusedly

He gave his thumb a pensive chew (LOL) OR He chewed his thumb pensively

And do they need the forbidden modifier? I think so. Can you infer the meaning of his grin with just “He smiled at her”? (I have two images in mind here: “He smiled at her. Mmm. Lunch.” and “He smiled at her. Oh, a friend.”) A thumb chewer may be a small child seeking comfort, an adult pondering a problem or a guy with a nervous habit.

Now, of course, there are lots of other ways to show the intent behind nods and smiles. But setting aside all of the myriad other possible constructions, what do you think: which of the above contrasts are better? Which is the lesser of two evils?

Photo credits—Mona Lisa: Songkran; Jack-o-lantern: Joanie Cahill

There’s a time and a place for everything, naturally, and while I love to talk about flouting stupid rules, most of the rules are actually good advice that’s just a bit . . . misapplied. As Mr Knightley says:

Better be without sense than misapply it as you do.

Right! So, let us understand the so-called rules so that we can apply them correctly, shall we?

Avoid passive voice
This is almost always good advice. Generally speaking, passive voice is awkward. Naturally, there are exceptions to that—sometimes rephrasing the passive into active voice is even more awkward, sometimes we have to conceal the actor, sometimes it’s just not important.

Avoid the past progressive
In general, the past progressive form (was [verb]ing) isn’t the strongest. (How’s that for diplomacy?) There are a few specific reasons to use it—mostly to show an ongoing or interrupted action in the past. Overusing it, though, results in flabby writing.

Avoid the verb “to be”
It’s true that sometimes the verb “to be” can be used to make such evils as the passive voice, the past progressive, and really boring, flat writing. Compare, too:

The stockings were hung by the chimney.
The stockings hung by the chimney.

The first one is passive voice (and The Night Before Christmas, yes?), longer and takes the oomph out a verb. (‘Hang’ isn’t very oomphy in the first place, so let’s try to help it out, eh?)

However, again, “to be” is an important verb that you don’t want to completely excise from your writing—or it’s gonna get really weird.

What other rules do we see that are pretty good advice?

Presented by Janette Rallison (blog)

There are six basic types of problems that will get you rejected: point-of-view problems, tag-line problems, motivation problems, story question problems, goal and conflict problems and sentence structure problems.

POV problems—avoid head hopping or authorial insertions. [The trend these days is deep POV in 3rd person—we're seeing the character's inmost thoughts, but using 3rd person pronouns. So use your character's thoughts and vocabulary for . . . well, everything! Never put in something that character can't know and add a scene break if you're changing POV characters. Janette probably said all of this, but I missed the beginning of her presentation because I had to run home to feed my baby!]

Tag lines—”90% of the time, tag line should be ‘said.’” Also acceptable, when situation calls for: ask, answer/reply. [But the trend these days is to not use dialogue tags most of the time, instead using action beats to identify speakers.]

Rarely use others—if the dialogue itself can’t show how the words are said, maybe it needs to be revised. Janette gave an example of when one of her characters said something that wasn’t true, but the reader wouldn’t know that, so the line went: “I can dance ballet,” I lied. [Personally, I think it's acceptable when you have to call attention to the manner in which it was said—specifically whispering, since there really isn't a way to choose your words to make it read like a whisper.]

Instead of using adverbs or specialized dialogue tags, let the dialogue speak for itself and translate it into actions [those action beats I was telling you about earlier!]. These show so much more powerfully! Janette’s example:

DON’T: “I never want to see your cheating face again,” he yelled angrily.

DO: He ripped the alimony check out of the checkbook with numb hands. He’d written checks a thousand times—for piano lessons, Girl Scout cookies, every elementary school fundraiser that came along. This time it felt as though the ink had come from his own veins. “I never want to see your cheating face again.”

Again, the exception is to use adverbs when the dialogue contradicts tone/facts (like when someone says something cutting in a sweet tone or vice versa).

Motivation problems—Put as little backstory in first chapter as you can. In chapter one, the main character should have a problem and there should be action.

Is your main character an idiot? [We have an acronym for this: TSTL—it means does your character do things that, say, if you saw them in a movie, you would be screaming at the television, "No! Don't go into that dark attic!"? (Exception: law enforcement officers, who willingly run into danger for us every day. But even they don't go looking for it if they don't have to!)]

Story question problems
Your story should have:

1. Character
2. Problem—start story on the day your character’s life changed.
3. Goal—the character has to be proactive, to have direction in life, instead of merely reacting
4. Obstacles—don’t use coincidence to get people past their obstacles—use it to get people into trouble, but not out!
5. Antagonist—someone or something that opposes main character’s goals: man v. man, man v. nature, man v. self. The stronger the antagonist, the more intense and exciting the story will be.
6. Consequences of failure—there has to be a reason why they can’t just give up (this can be the antagonist)

“Fiction is a very dangerous neighborhood to live in.”

You can put these all together into a story question from Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain:

When [MC] finds herself in [situation], she [goal]. But will [antagonist and obstacle] make her [consequences of failure]?

This story question should be answered at the climax.

Goal and conflict problems—Don’t let your characters wander through your books without goals. Somebody has to have a goal in every scene. [Even better—all major characters have goals in a scene and they conflict!]

No goals or conflict in a scene? Throw in obstacles, highlight the consequences of failure, hearken back to the antagonist [or give other characters in the scene conflicting goals].

Sentence structure problems—Watch for repeated backward sentences—too many get awkward. [Always vary your sentence structures. Reading aloud is the best way to find repetition like this!]

About the conference: LDStorymakers is a writing contest geared to LDS writers. The conference covers both the niche, regional publishers that cater to the LDS market as well as national publishers.