The Difference between SHOWING & TELLING

"Don't say 'the old lady screamed'.
Bring her on and let her scream!"
Mark Twain

From an exercise in writing Action Scenes...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Angel bent over, groaning in pain. "Damn Buffy, why in the Hell did you do that?"

The next thing she knew, he had his hands around her ankles and she was dangling over the edge of the railing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oopsie ~ we’re TELLING! I can see why you did it. You would have had to have added a few paragraphs just to describe what happened, but Action is Showing, not Telling. 

-----Original Message-----
I see that advice a lot, and the odd time I understand it, but not often enough, or how it’s actually done. How do you SHOW that scene above, not tell it? I get the two confused – to my addled brain sometimes showing seems to be telling…and vice versa. Not sure if you understand that, but you seem to get most of what I’ve thrown at you, so I leave that in your capable hands. Could you give us an idea of how it could look if shown, not told?

-- Thanks!!! Sue* 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The reason this was TELLING was the fact that she didn’t SHOW us step by step, HOW Buffy got into that position, she simply Told us that it happened.

When a writer is pressed for word-count and time, Telling happens. 

 

TELLING is perfectly okay in a repeated action, but its good manners to detail the action at least once so the reader has a nice clear picture in their mind of what that happening looks like.

SHOWING is about Mind Pictures...

 

When you write a story, you are making a Mental MOVIE for the reader. Telling is when you plant a CUE rather than fully illustrate the scene. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Angel bent over, groaning in pain. "Damn Buffy, why in the Hell did you do that?"

The next thing she knew, (This is a cue!) he had his hands around her ankles and she was dangling over the edge of the railing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You have to GUESS how Angel went from being bent over and groaning in pain to dangling Buffy over the railing.

If you have to GUESS how a Character did something
– you’ve been TOLD, not Shown.

Many writers don’t realize that they are writing CUES instead of illustrating Pictures, because that's what they see in a lot of published mainstream books: CUES. 

 

"Monkey See - Monkey Do".

"Well if they can do it - why is it Wrong?"

 

A LOT of published authors get away with TELLING through Cues, because they are making up for it in some other way: Drama, Dialogue, Atmosphere, Science, Magic...  

 

Unfortunately a lot of new authors miss this.

Case in point: Most Romances TELL – a lot. They don't bother with detailed Action of any kind. 

 

WHY? 

 

Romances are Not being read for their ACTION, 

 they’re being read for their EMOTION, their Drama. 

 

Romances as a rule, make up for their lack of Action with detailed Emotional Drama, and the  emotional drama in a Romance is Very Detailed.

On the flipside: 

 

Readers of Vampire Horror or Vampire Erotica won't touch a mainstream Vampire Romance with a ten-foot pole - because there's too much Drama and no real Action in it.

ACTION

is the Difference between

Romance and Erotic Romance

 

Unlike a typical Romance, you won't see pages and pages, and pages, of dramatic narrative in an Erotic Romance, because the Erotic Romance Reader won't put up with it.

ACTION rules Erotic Romance – NOT Drama.

 

Erotic Romances are being read for their Sexual ACTION more than anything else, but these Readers are also reading for the Action-packed Adventure story that sex is set in. The Emotions of love and angst have to be there or it’s not Romantic, but the Drama is not nearly as detailed as in a common ordinary Romance because:

 

Drama bogs down Action.

 

All that Sexual Action needs that Adventure Action to balance the story out, or the Reader will just skip everything in between "to get to the good parts." 

A lot of successful mainstream Romance authors flounder when they try to write Erotic Romance because they read: Erotic Romance and think Romantic Erotica. 

The truth is, Erotic Romance is Women's Adult Adventure Fiction. 

 

Adding hotter sex scenes to an ordinary Romance

 will NOT satisfy the Erotic Romance Reader. 

 

Erotic Romance Readers expect detailed Action-heavy Detailed sex scenes PLUS Action-heavy Detailed Adventure sequences with an actual PLOT. They expect SHOWING in their narrative, Not Telling. 

In Erotic Romance the real difference between Showing and Telling is: SALES or NO SALES.

If the above scene had been SHOWN instead of Told, 

it might have looked something like this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Angel bent over, groaning in pain. "Damn Buffy, why in the Hell did you do that?"

Buffy grinned and spoke in her sweetest voice. “Maybe because you deserved it?”

Angel looked up with his eyes narrowed. “I deserved it?” His lip curled. “Is that so?” His entire body tensed, straining the seams of his jacket.

She took a half-step back. Uh oh…

Angel exploded from his crouch. In a rush of hard hot muscle, he barreled into her and bear-hugged her in an iron grip around the waist as though she’d been a football player on the opposing team. At full speed, he shoved her backwards toward the wall.

Buffy’s heels skidded unpleasantly on the stone flags until the back of her knees hit the wall. She tipped backwards. “Oh shit!” She grabbed onto his coat’s lapels and stared into his face from less than a kiss away.

Angel grinned, showing the curving length of his long fangs. “I deserved it huh?” He shoved.

Buffy tipped back into open space, and squealed in surprised. She knew the fall wouldn’t kill her. She’d survived far worse, but God, it was embarrassing.

With faster than human reflexes, Angel caught her around the ankles holding her dangling over the edge of the railing with her skirt slipping down toward her waist.

Buffy groaned. She just knew his eyes were on her pink cotton panties. She just knew it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See?

Morgan Hawke
www.darkerotica.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Posted with Permission

Reposted from older blog entry 'cuz blogspot crapped out on me. 

Where do you put Character Flaws?

-----Original Message -----

Characters have to have flaws, but sometimes it's a bit hard to add those flaws in.
 -- Concerned About Characters

First of all...
What is a character Flaw?

Well, a character's Flaw is a crack in their personality and/or talent. Something that both helps them AND harms them. Kind of the way true artists (and brilliant nerds) tend to also be serious flakes, and really socially awkward. 'K?

Now then...

Where do you Put a Character's Flaws?

A character's greatest strength should appear in the first scene that character occupies. The character's Flaw makes its first appearance at the end of that scene -- but only a hint of it.

Scene One: If the opening scene features the main character, I show that character In Action showing off their greatest strength. To close that scene I show a small portion of that same strength's crippling weakness, but without exposing that it's a weakness.

In The Hobbit:

 -- Bilbo Baggins's greatest Flaw is that's he's 'nice' and 'polite'. In other words, he has Good Character. Not something one would generally think of as being a weakness.

Scene Two: As the story progresses that strength (and their dependence on it,) devolves openly into a crippling weakness that nearly destroys what's most important to them. 

In The Hobbit:

 -- Bilbo Baggins's  Good Character is what allows Gandalf and the dwarves to take advantage of his home to get a free dinner -- for 14 people!-- and take advantage of his person. He is quite literally managed into signing a contract to go on an Adventure he doesn't want, and in fact something Hobbits do not do. 

Later in the story, Bilbo Baggins's Flaw of Good Character nearly gets him eaten by trolls because he's too polite to attack them.

Scene Three: At the center of the story The Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen occurs. The character becomes utterly helpless and sunk deep in depression. That weakness they'd originally depended on as their strength is what they must overcome to find a new source of strength to proceed.

In The Hobbit:
 -- At the center of the story, Bilbo falls into a deep, dark pit. Faced with Gollum, who tells Bilbo point-blank that he intends to Eat Bilbo, Bilbo once again is too polite. He refuses to see Gollum as a the deadly threat he is, and bargains with Gollum, fully expecting the creature to keep his word and let him go should Bilbo win their little contest.

Once Gollum reveals that he has no intention of honoring his word, what saves Bilbo isn't Bilbo's sword, but a single moment of Bad Character; Theft. Bilbo keeps a gold ring that he knows belongs to Gollum. This one act of Bad Character ends up being his salvation against Gollum because the ring is Magical.

Scene Four: Validation; when the Flaw proves to be an actual strength.

In The Hobbit:
-- The ring that Bilbo stole allows Bilbo to save the dwarves when they're attacked by Spiders, then again when the dwarves are captured by the wood elves, then Bilbo himself when he is faced with a fire-breathing dragon, and so on and so forth... 

By the end of the story, Bilbo has finally learned that Not being Polite has it's uses too, such as when demanding back all his belonging that had been stolen from his home during his long absence -- and actually getting them all back because everyone else is too polite to refuse him. 

How to use this in Writing.

Example: A Romance Story

The Main Character's (MC) greatest strength is he's The Perfect Gentleman; he knows exactly the right thing to do and say no matter the circumstances. He's honest, trustworthy, and kind.

The flaw that comes with this talent is that Everyone Knows exactly what kind of man he is. (It's not like he can hide it.)

Scene One: MC interacts with 3 females; an office lady, his childhood playmate, and the girl he actually likes. To each of them he is The Perfect Gentleman; he says and does exactly the right thing each time.

Scene Two: He becomes the guy to go to when their heart is broken because he always knows what to say to make a someone feel better. The guys envy him, and the girls adore him.

During this time, he begins to court the girl he likes: flowers, gifts, dates... At the end of the scene, he finally gets up the courage to confess his love. She smiles and Refuses to take him seriously. Why? Because he ALWAYS says and does the right thing, no matter who they are; he treats Every girl the same way. She doesn't feel special; she doesn't feel loved.

Scene Three: He continues to pursue her, and confess his feelings, but the more he talks, the less she believes him. Even worse, none of the girls believe that he's even capable of having feelings for only one girl -- after all, he's the Perfect Gentleman to everyone he meets.

Scene Four: Deep in despair, he sees her one more time only this time he's unprepared and a total mess; his appearance has gone to crap from depression, he hasn't eaten, he hasn't slept. He weeps angry tears while shouting in anger that no one believes him. In short: He's not a gentleman at all. This time she believes him because for the first time she can see the man hiding under the mask of 'Perfect Gentleman'.

The End

Enjoy!

Making Ideas into Stories

Moonfish by SnowSkadi

----- Original Message -----
How do you develop an idea? How do you come up with the details behind stories? Do you get them from reading books? Do you get them from modern concepts? Or do they just come to you (if so, lucky you XD)? How do you develop the world in which it takes place? People or settings first? Do you include cults/religions/mass groups? How do you come up with these groups?
 -- Thoughtful Game-maker

In other words, what you want to know is:

How do you build a Story

from an Idea? 

Let's begin by breaking this huge pile of questions down to smaller, bite-sized pieces...

"How do you develop an Idea?"

I start with a Climactic Event.

My ideas may originate from anything at all; from a piece of music to a picture I saw on the 'net, but to make a Story from those ideas I start with What I want to Happen at the very heart of my story -- a central Climactic/Crisis Event. I then create a Plot Concept around it to make that event happen, and tie up loose ends after the event. 

Plot concept:

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Act 1: What caused the Event.
Act 2: Climactic/Crises Event.
Act 3: What happened after.

Example: What I want to Happen.

• I want the central climactic/crisis event to be an epic space battle between a Galactic Empire and a tribe of Space Privateers, and I want the characters to carry Swords. 

"How do you come up with

the Details behind stories?"

"Do you get them from reading books? Do you get them from modern concepts? Or do they just come to you (if so, lucky you XD)?"

RESEARCH. 

The Details I come up with are mainly generated by reading stories similar to what I want to write, and researching what I need to know to make such an event plausible. This tends to reveal unexpected facts which often give me MORE ideas to add to the story.

How do you make something in a story Plausible? 

You use Facts to give its existence a Good Excuse.

Examples: Facts

• Did you know that privateers had Written Permission from their home country to attack the ships of the countries their country didn't like --especially if there was a war going on-- as long as they turned over a certain percentage of 'booty' to their home country? (Ah ha! I now have a 'good excuse' to make the privateers the Good Guys!)

• Did you know that Empires (the British Empire in particular,) routinely hired Merchants to be Privateers when they didn't have enough ships in their fleets BECAUSE Merchant ships were extremely well-armed specifically to fight off Pirates (other Privateers)? (Ah-HA! Now I have a good excuse to have a Privateers vs. Pirates battle!)

• Did you know that those same empires that hired Privateers would also systematically destroy their Privateers once a treaty was signed with the country they had gone to war with, mainly because this was often a condition for a treaty to be signed? (Ah-HA! Now I have a 'good excuse' for Privateers to become pissed off at an empire!)

• Did you know that using a projectile weapon of any sort on a spaceship spelled Instant Death should that projectile shoot through the outer hull? (Ah-AH! I know have a 'good excuse' to have all my characters carry Swords!) 

"How do you develop

The World in which it takes place?"

"People or Settings first? Do you include cults/religions/mass groups? How do you come up with these groups?"

.

I begin with the World.

I always start with the SETTING, the World my characters will inhabit. I research everything to look for clues about what kind of cultures, politics, employment, social positions, religions, etc. would come into play in such a story because a character's culture and civilization will be what makes each character who they are -- the same way that your culture and civilization made you who you are.

Examples: Space, Empires, and Privateers.

• How do Empires happen, and how are they governed?
• Why would Privateers would be hired?
• Under what conditions would Privateers be attacked by an Empire?
• What are the conditions for living in space?
• What kinds of space travel would I need, (Faster-than-light? Folding space? Jump-gates...?) and can they be adapted to what I want to do?
• What kind of weapons would a spaceship have?
• How would a space battle be conducted?

Then Characters.
Once I have a good grasp of the cultures my characters would inhabit, then I decide what kind of characteristics and backgrounds the Characters would need to make my Event happen -- or Not happen.

Examples: Characters.

• Why would people (or a whole family) become privateers?
• Why would someone hate the empire?
• Why would someone hate privateers?
• What kind of training would be needed to fight in space?
• If I make the main character a neutral party, where would such a character come from, and why would they have such a mindset?

And that's how I build a Story from an Idea.

 

Enjoy! 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

BDSM Chat on GoodReads!

The BDSM Chat
on GoodReads!

April 23rd 2014

 Read the
Question and Answer Session
HERE!

Books I recommend for writing BDSM:

Screw the Roses, Send me the Thorns

Miller & Devon

SM101

  Jay Wiseman 

The Topping Book 

The Bottoming Book

Easton & Liszt

The Sexually Dominant Woman, a workbook for nervous beginners

Lady Green

The Fine Art of Erotic Talk

Bonnie Gabriel

 Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

John Grey, PHD.

For writing BDSM, I can't recommend these books highly enough.

A Note on Internal Monologues

Art by Kaori Yuki

A Note on

Internal Monologues

“I was just wondering what you think about interior monologues, long passages of reflection?” -- Curious Kitty

Whether you are considering adding a lengthy monologue to a story, or intend the monologue to be the story itself; where the focus of the entire story is on one character’s thoughts and feelings with very little action, from my observations and experimentation, the readers either love them or hate them. There's no in-between.

However, it is notable that the internal monologue stories that are sought out most frequently usually focus on a profound emotion of some kind: grief, loneliness, heartache, loss... Usually by those seeking to deal with such an emotion as a kind of therapy, or by those that have never felt such emotions. (Strong emotional stories are extremely popular in the Young Adult genre.)

In both cases, not only does the reader seek to submerge themselves in these profound emotions, they are also looking for a solution, a way back out from under these feelings.

In short...

Don’t write about Emotional Trauma 
without a Solution already in mind. 

Don't leave your readers hanging. You don’t want the hate mail that will come. Really.

I'm an escapist by nature, so I fall into the other category -- those that can only handle internal monologues in extremely tiny doses. I've actually had to deal with these sorts of emotions; death, grief, heartache, loss... on a far too personal basis, so dwelling on them (reading long emotional passages,) isn't something I'm comfortable with. I prefer my emotional deep thoughts mixed in with the character doing something; an action scene flavored by internal narration, rather than a monologue.

In Conclusion…

When deciding whether or not your monologue is appropriate for what you are writing, consider your target reading audience.

If you’re writing a story steeped in emotional upswings such as a romance, a monologue or two will probably fit right in.

However, if you’re writing something with lots of action such as an adventure, you just might want to consider sprinkling bits of light action among your passages of deep thought to keep it from dragging down the pace you’ve already set for your story.

How Much Smut for Your story?

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Dealing with Creative DOUBT

Dealing with Creative DOUBT

 ----- Original Message -----
...I'm at the point where nothing seems right. Everything I write down is cliche, badly written, and has bad pacing. Yet when I was younger I would turn out stories one right after the other like a non-stop machine. But now...thanks to all those instructors and classes, the creative edge is now limping along like a dog with only one leg.

...I don't have an agent or anything published in the first place. So that does paint an extra layer of doubt upon the situation. 

...when I discuss this, usually I'm berated with people saying, "Stop being so emo." As if depression were something that one can simply switch on and off.

...I guess what I'm doing here is ... trying to find some kind of sign, revelation or clue that I'm not a bad writer or that I'm just another writing loser.

You're not a bad writer or a loser of any kind.
-- You're NORMAL.

The truth is all artists of every kind have to deal with Doubt, from the rank beginner to the professional. All of us, without exception.

The dividing line between an artist and a loser is actually simple; sheer, mule-headed, Stubbornness. Losers give up. Artists won't.

Those of us writers (and artists) that actually make it to publication are monumentally stubborn. We write / create in spite of being less than perfect, in spite of being depressed, or angry, or tired, or blind, or crippled...

The best of us, like Niel Gaimen, Stephen King, and Nora Roberts USE that doubt and stubbornness to improve our skills by refusing to settle for 'good enough'. We dig up every trick we can find and scribble our discoveries into notebooks, on notepads, (or into writing tips,) and Practice them in little stories (or fan-fiction,) until we can actually make use of them.

NO ONE is perfect, but that doesn't mean we can't tell a good story -- that we're not Artists.

Be stubborn. Seriously. It will carry you far further than anything else will -- even skill.

Think I'm kidding? Well then, how about hearing it from one of the pros?

A Pep Talk from Neil Gaiman  

from: NaNoWriMo.Org

Dear Author,

By now you're probably ready to give up. You're past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You're not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You're in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing, your family, friends and random email acquaintances have gone from being encouraging or at least accepting to now complaining that they never see you any more--and that even when they do you're preoccupied and no fun.

You don't know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you're pretty sure that even if you finish it it won't have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began---a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read---it falls so painfully short that you're pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.

Welcome to the club.

That's how novels get written.

You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

A dry-stone wall is a lovely thing when you see it bordering a field in the middle of nowhere but becomes more impressive when you realise that it was built without mortar, that the builder needed to choose each interlocking stone and fit it in. Writing is like building a wall. It's a continual search for the word that will fit in the text, in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style, all these become secondary to the words. The wall-builder erects her wall one rock at a time until she reaches the far end of the field. If she doesn't build it it won't be there. So she looks down at her pile of rocks, picks the one that looks like it will best suit her purpose, and puts it in.

The search for the word gets no easier, but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.

The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering,) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent. I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist.

And instead of sympathizing or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm--or even arguing with me--she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh, you're at that part of the book, are you?"

I was shocked. "You mean I've done this before?"

"You don't remember?"

"Not really."

"Oh yes," she said. "You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients."

I didn't even get to feel unique in my despair.

So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.

One word after another.

That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's the only way to do it.

So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.

Pretty soon you'll be on the downward slide, and it's not impossible that soon you'll be at the end. Good luck...

Neil Gaiman
www.neilgaiman.com

Feel better now? I know I do.

SMUT Does Not = POPULARITY

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Stuck on a SHORT Story?

10 Second Tip:
Stuck on a SHORT Story?

Stuck on what to put in your story?
-- This is the list of things I check off when I create a story:

Do you have a Setting in mind?

• - Sci-fi
• - Historical
• - Modern day

Do you have ONE big Main Event for the story to focus on?

• - A battle
• - An escape
• - A love scene
• - An act of revenge
• - A sacrifice
• - A treasure to claim

Do you know what you want to SAY with your story?

• - Love sucks.
• - Friendship is forever.
• - No good deed goes unpunished.
• - A snake can only ever be a snake.
• - Sometimes you have to take chances.

Do you know where you want to END your story?

• - A wedding?
• - A funeral?
• - A bloody battlefield?
• - An empty street?
• - The bottom of an ocean?

Do you have your three central Characters ready?

Just to make things interesting, any one of these three could be the Hero, the Villain, or the Ally.

• - A main character that personifies what your story is trying to say?
• - A main character that personifies an opposing opinion of the same topic?
• - A buddy / friend/ love interest of one or both to personify Joe Normal stuck in the Middle?

Why did I mention Characters Last?

Instead of making a story for my characters, I do the opposite. I make characters for my story.

Some people can come up with a cool character and then build a story around them. Sadly, I am not one of those. I can build a back-story just fine, but my back-stories are never good enough to be the Main Story. A back-story is how a character GOT his Issues. The main story is how they FIXED those Issues. See the difference?

Anyway...
-- When I'm stuck on a story, I try thinking on these questions and often, they'll jog something loose.

Enjoy! 

Choosing a Story's Title

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Plot Device: Foreshadowing...!

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What KIND of story are you telling?

10 Second Tip:

What KIND of story are you telling?

 

EVERY story is in fact a tale about the relationship of an individual (your main character) to society -- symbolized by their workplace, school, their immediate or extended family, the gang they belong to, a best friend, a lover...

• A comic story (one with a happy ending,) describes an isolated individual achieving social integration either by being accepted into an existing society or by forming his own. This integration is often symbolized by a wedding or party. 

• A tragic story (one with a sad ending) describes an integrated individual who becomes isolated. Death is simply a symbol of this isolation.

Keep in mind...! 

 -- The plot should keep us in suspense about what kind of story we're reading. 

• Even if we already know it's a comedy, the precise nature of the comic climax (the punchline that carries us to the happy ending) should come as a surprise.

• If we already know the hero is doomed, his downfall should be caused by a factor we've been told, but didn't realize was significant.

Don't give everything away by the fourth chapter! A story we can guess the ending to before we're done is NOT a story worth finishing.

Enjoy! 

Morgan Hawke

www.DarkErotica.Net