Show, Don’t Tell you’ve heard it from me, perhaps other writing teachers, in books and on blogs across the internet. But what does it really mean? In today’s Storylines, we look at the difference between showing and telling, along with where to use it in your stories. We’ll also tell you all about the upcoming Show & Tell Summit and how it is going to answer all your questions.
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Like a good pot of soup on a cold’s winter’s day, every family history scene requires some essential ingredients to make them successful. Without a tasty broth, some colourful veggies, and a fat noodle the soup will just not satisfy. The same can be said for a scene, if it’s missing an essential ingredient it will likely fall flat and you may lose the interest of your reader. Today, we look at the ingredients that make a satisfying scene. Let’s identify the key ingredients in a family history scene each one closer so that you can create powerful and fulfilling scenes for your reader.
The majority of your scenes should be built around your protagonist ancestor. Your protagonist ancestor is the main character of your story and through whose point of view, the story will be told. In each scene, your protag ancestor will be involved in action or dialogue. Make sure that you’ve chosen a single ancestor from which point of view that story will be told.
Every scene shows some dramatic movement, large or small. It creates a sense of movement through time and space. It could be actual action or even dialogue which gives the essence of movement within a scene. Without action, you have no scene.
We want to demonstrate our ancestor’s movements, feelings, actions, and reactions. Don’t tell us about them, show them offer up the proof in the form of a scene.
Every scene has a goal. We know that our story also has a goal, however, this is different from the scene goal. The scene goal begins and ends in the scene, but contributes to the overall advancement of the story.
Your protagonist ancestor needs someone to interact with, these will come in the form of an antagonist who opposes your ancestor’s goals or allies who will help your ancestor to achieve her goal.
Each scene builds on the previous scene providing new information that keeps moving the story forward. If it doesn’t move the story forward then perhaps it doesn’t belong in the story.
Setting and time period is essential to grounding your scene through sensory details and description.
The overall meaning of your story is conveyed within scenes using images and sensory details.
Not only organizing your scenes within the story but by creating a feeling of conflict and uncertainty within a scene will keep the reader guessing as what is next and will keep them turning the pages.
Scenes can end in any number of ways. Some may end on a high-note, with a small victory for your ancestor, or in defeat. It can end with a cliff-hanger or some uncertainty. It’s important that each scene ends in such a way that it eludes to future obstacles for your ancestor and a yearning in your reader to know what happens next.
Make sure your story scenes have all the right ingredients.
Aside from struggling with re-creating dialogue, many family historians find formatting dialogue a little intimidating. It’s important to understand the techniques of writing your ancestor’s conversations and how to format them on the page so they serve your reader best and follow some basic elements of style.
Here are seven quick tips to formatting your dialogue that will help you overcome your hesitation.
1. Each time a new conversation or speech begins, you start a new paragraph. Additionally, every time there is a new speaker in a conversation, there is a new line. You do not include multiple speakers in one paragraph, so if one person asks a questions and another person responds, the question and the answer must be on two different lines. The use of this technique allows your reader to keep straight who is speaking.
For example:
Victoria asked, “When is Adam leaving for America?”
“On Thursday,” Grandpa replied.
2. Learn to use single and double quotation marks. Double quotation marks are used to indicate dialogue unless it is a quote within a quote, in which case single quotation marks are employed.
3. Understand the placement of quotation marks. Tradition dictates that punctuation falls inside the quotation marks. You may find some editors and professionals who are changing this practice but I would encourage you to stick with tradition.
4. Use commas before dialogue tags, for instance:
“I don’t want to go to Grandma’s house,” Helen said.
5. Dialogue Tags are the he said/she said of quotations. Don’t use these as forms of descriptions.
For example:
“I don’t want to leave,” Adam whimpered.
Instead of telling the reader he whimpered, spend your time describing the scene so we can see the image of Adam whimpering. It is perfectly acceptable to use he said/she said multiple times or not at all. The idea is your tags should be invisible and the focus should be on the dialogue.
6. With that being said use dialogue tags sparingly. You don’t want a string of he said, she said, he said, she said cluttering your story. If you know your characters and have given them a distinct voice, your reader will know from the dialogue who is saying what.
7. Capitalize only the first word of a dialogue sentence. If your dialogue is interrupted by a dialogue tag or description, you do not need to capitalize the second part of the sentence.
For example:
“I don’t want to go to Grandma’s house,” Victoria said while fidgeting in her chair, “because it brings back bad memories.”
Employ the above tips and your well on your way to writing great dialogue for your family history story.
As I was listening to you talk about Show/Tell it helped me to see why I am having trouble with my heirloom stories. I am only telling and I see the potential to make it so much better with showing. Didn’t we do this in school? Show and tell. It was always interesting to see what someone would bring to class to ‘show’ and tell about. I would love to do this class.