Open Door Critiques [CLOSED]

🚪 Show, Don't Tell

REASON #1

Because reading is, strangely enough, a highly visual medium.

Whatever we read, we 'see' in our minds. If you read a description of a purple hippo wearing a blue wig, then that is what you will suddenly see in your imagination. The written word is understood by 'seeing' it, not 'hearing' it.

Going from there, if your readers cannot visualize what it is they are reading about, it'll be hard for that thing to feel like it exists. And when something doesn't feel like it exists, well, readers will find it hard pressed to care about it.

REASON #2

Quite simply, because this way is far more engaging. Writing rules and guidelines aside, stories are about two things at its core, one of which is: keep my attention.

Which is more engaging to you?

___

Kirk is my best friend, and we care about each other very much. He never fails to comfort me when I'm depressed, like when my mother passed away.

vs.

Kirk climbed in through my window once, even though it was the dead of winter, and the dead of night, even though my bedroom window is on the third floor. He tumbled inside like some oversized raccoon and tracked slush over everything: the carpet, my clothes, my bed.

When he reached underneath the blanket where I was huddled and hiding, his hands were cold, stiff. The tips were red and scuffed. But his touch warmed me better than the blankets did. His smile was softer than sanctuary.

"Who told you," he said, "that you could cry alone?"

___

I sincerely hope you think the second example is more engaging! If not, let's put this another way.

Which Kirk seems more real to you? More alive? 

Again, I hope you say the second example! THIS is what writing is all about! Your story lives and breathes. Your characters live and breathe! And while showing instead of telling takes much longer, Lord, is it so much more fun to write.

Take the time and care to paint us a clear picture of everything: the setting, the characters, the situation. Of course, there's always that fine line between not enough and too much, but never shy back from details because you're afraid that you'll bore the readers or lose their attentions. 

If anything, fogging over your descriptions is what will signal to them that they shouldn't care, because why would they? The author obviously doesn't.

REASON #3

The kid you're babysitting sits you down on the couch beside him, and plays for the both of you his favourite movie: Attack of the Impolite Ducks. It's a true classic.

On the screen, a duck wearing a fedora appears. He's quite the fashion sensitive duck, but is as impolite as the rest of them. In one scene, he waddles into a kitchen with his gaggle of friends and steals a large apple pie, which they gobble up between themselves right on the kitchen floor. 

The kid tugs on your sleeve then, and says, "You should laugh at this part."

And you look down and ask, "Why?" because you only feel a little cross at the ducks, and a little sorry for the baker, and possibly a little hungry. 

The kid sticks up his chin and says, "Because this is a funny part. I said so."

"I see," you say, and you laugh a little, because you're far too mature to be arguing with a kid.

The movie continues. The duck with the fedora doesn't do anything particularly extraordinary throughout the movie, but that's to be expected, as he's not the main hero duck. He does get a nice new fedora by the finale, though.

When the movie ends, the kid taps your arm and says, "The fedora duck is the smartest duck of them all."

You quirk a brow and say, "Is that so? And why is that?"

The kid sticks out his tongue and says, "Because he is. Because I said so."

___

Nobody likes being told what to feel. Nobody likes being told what to think. So why do you think it's okay for you to do it to your readers?

You have to earn those feelings and thoughts. Prove to your readers that a character is smart by showing them solving a puzzle with ease. Prove that a scene is scary by showing us the cobwebs, the shadows, the cold breeze from nowhere as it blows through that curtain of skulls. 

Don't be like the little kid on the couch, chin in the air, tongue out. You're better than that.