Day 8
30 mins planning + 1 hr planned writing + 10 mins gratitude journal
Today Jacqui introduces 10 reflections on writing fiction, one of which we will take forward into the exercise later.
As always, I encourage you to try Jacqui’s course yourself. I won’t repeat all 10 points here, because you can get them from source. I also don’t have space to reflect on them all — which is the minor quibble I have with the presentation of today’s content (see My Response).
The point currently most relevant to me is 6: “Most scenes will only come alive if you slow down and let us enter into them”. This is Jacqui’s way of explaining the “show don’t tell” mantra, and she does it well. (I sometimes find that mantras get repeated without their proponents having a clear idea of what they mean in practice.)
So, in practice: instead of saying that a character is [adjective], describe their feelings and behaviour, so that we can i) empathise with them and ii) come to our own conclusions.
This is “showing” (i.e. involving) rather than telling (i.e. reporting).
Show Don’t Tell?
My personal reflection on this mantra:
I respect rules, but not for their own sake. I don’t mind going against a mantra if it doesn’t serve my story. Understanding what technique(s) your story needs to be told is, I think, the foundational work of a writer. There are plenty of good stories told by “telling” rather than showing; the “telling” may even be a key part of the construction — for example if you’re dealing with an unreliable narrator.
The key is the overall balance of showing and telling, and knowing when to deploy each.
Exercise
- choose one of the 10 points to reflect on during your work today
- 1,000 words: write a new scene from one of two prompts (I kept the additional 30 mins for planning)
- day 4 of gratitude journal
My response
- I wrote 1,000 words on the prompt “A woman is packing a suitcase in the middle of the night”
- I decided to focus on unfolding a scene in real time: providing enough detail from the character’s point of view to immerse the reader in the feelings of the moment, so that they come to their own conclusions about what is unfolding — rather than telling them what to feel.
- I liked all of the 10 points which Jacqui raised for discussion in this chapter, but similarly to Day 5, I felt that each point could have been its own chapter, with further explanation and exercises attached. Perhaps she will expand on some of the points raised here in later chapters.
all course content copyright Jacqui Lofthouse thewritingcoach.co.uk