Show, Don't Tell

Show, Don’t Tell: Tips from a Creative Writer

How you present something to people can make or break your concept or story. This applies to anything products, political ideals, non/fiction stories, even yourself. It's important to incorporate the senses into what your saying. When bring people's sense memories into your work it creates a connection with them and is more likely to move them. Below I've included some examples of taking a basic telling sentence and show the concept instead.

 He could not believe what he just saw.

From where David was sitting on his porch he could clearly make out the bouncy ball of white fluff that ran across the neighbor’s yard and straight for a tree. The dog’s owner staring off into the distance one arm clutching herself and the other holding a cigarette to her lips for a long drag. A car raced past the small grey home, whose siding was falling off from years of neglect. The dog’s owner having been startled by the car, whipped her head around and frantically looked around quickly for the dog. Seeing it sniffing around a tree dead center in the yard, she ran to it. The small poodle-like dog ran around the tree grinning and the owner fell over herself, dropping her cigarette to catch the fluff. The woman, angry about the inconvenience of her dropped cigarette, hit the dog angrily multiple times. Feeling that it had not yet learned its lesson she then picked the dog up by the neck and threw it. David heard someone scream “What the fuck” and then realized it was himself.

The boy was awe stricken to see his new bike.

The dusty-haired five-year-old froze, ice cream cake running down his cheek and dropping to the floor. Watching the shiny red bike with its tags still on the handles, be wheeled in the door by his mother. All at once he seemed to wake up from his stupor, a screech piercing the stillness as his eyes widened. He rushed to the bike, stealing it from his mother’s hands and riding it immediately down the sidewalk, admiring the glowing lacquer that coated the bike in a fiery blaze.