#steph help

“R- Thirteen what’y-- OW, ASSHOLE!” Steph hissed, Remy cackling as she ran, the older teen chasing after her.

He eyed the scissors.

arguments with the boyf are getting worse

i am trying to help but he is so apathetic and it makes me feel like shit

You’re a new writer. Or you’re not new, but you’re not exactly very learned in storytelling yet. This is all still something of a strange world to be explored, make your mark in, and hopefully, become a storyteller. You’ve a few friends who have been doing this writing thing for a while now, and they insistently tell you, “Show, don’t tell!” You nod enthusiastically, head to your typewriter or… Word. Yes Word, that’s what kids use these days, right? And sit down, ready to show, not tell!

And then you realize this phrase means absolutely nothing to you.

You sit there, wondering, “… How do I show, not tell?” And you sit and think, and think, and think, and think, think, think. And… you get nothin’. So eventually, you decide to have your main character tell all the backstories that are needed, and boom! You’re showing what’s happening because your character is talking, right?

You realize you are horribly wrong as your friend says, “That’s not showing, that’s not showing!” And you sadly return to your dark, cramped room, and try again.

Things don’t always work out this way, but for a lot of new writers, this is common. They neither know how to show, or what telling is! How to do one and not do the other, when you don’t know what either is?

So let’s go over “telling” first, because this one is really more important. If you can avoid this, you’re usually pretty set.

“Telling” is essentially talking to your audience. It’s conversing with them, and telling them things about the story or character rather than letting the audience discover this themselves. It’s telling your audience that your character is a loner badass who smokes but actually has a soft squishy side and works at a puppy orphanage. Some authors try to be subtle and use another character to do this, and this area becomes admittedly greyer, as character dialogue usually throws things out the window, but your audience can generally tell when you’re cheating like this.

This is, in the world of askblogs, a very common offender, and typically goes like this:

“This is my character _____________! She’s smart and funny and likes walking through the Everfree forest and is never scared because she has a magic connection to monsters and—“

This is more okay on an RP forum or chat, where you have a limited amount of space to introduce a character so as to be accepted and let into the RP! But I repeat, STORYTELLING. IS. DIFFERENT. FROM. ROLEPLAYING. Similar, but different.

Telling is similar to exposition, but unneeded. I don’t need an author to tell me what a character is like or why they’re doing something because the story should already be doing this. If you, as the author, need to explain something in the story, or why something is happening, you’re doing something wrong.

One of the few exceptions to this is in rhetorical discourse, which includes exposition, along with argumentation, description, and narration. This is often in the form of world-building or discourses on characters themselves. Author-to-author discussions. Recent examples might me recent discussions I’ve had between Merrimod and myself, concerning hypotheticals and situations between characters. However, I try to take care to keep these away from my main story blog, so as not to potentially spoil anything, or clutter up my blog with lengthy discussions.

So, we have an idea of what is telling; how do we avoid this then? How do we show?

Well… what are you showing? I suppose is the best question.

If you’re showing a character and what they’re like, then obviously you need to know what they’re like, first. Take your character and assemble a list of character traits for them; I’m not going to go into how to create characters or select traits for them because I’ve already done this. But once you’ve assembled those traits, in maybe a list, take a look at each. Determine what each mean to you.

If your character is grumpy, what does grumpy mean to you? What is a grumpy person to you? Some who does _______ and _______ and whatever. If your character is nice, what is nice to you? Nice is ___________. If your character is compassionate, what does this mean to you. What do compassionate people look like to you?

If your friend A tells you their friend B is compassionate, what seals the deal for you? What does friend B do that confirms they are indeed compassionate?

This is where a lot of individualization and creativity come into play. We all see things a little differently! Which will influence your characters.

Friend A can tell you all they want about friend B, but it isn’t until you see friend B being those things that you know friend A is telling the truth! The same relationship applies with an audience, the author, and their characters/world. (You = the audience, friend A = the author, friend B = the characters/world!)

This all being said, I’ll give you an example of telling:

vs. showing: