Using Specific Details in Writing

Using Specific Details in Writing The Elements of Craft “Show” your reader….don’t “tell”!

Details • We need details. We need to know thoughts, feelings; we need to smell the perfume, taste the fried chicken, feel the velvet. Anything less cheats the reader from experiencing our imaginary world. • “Mary was a pretty girl, with brown eyes and black hair.” That is telling. • “Mary's brown eyes glistened with joy, her black hair bouncing with each step. “ That is showing.

Showing Uses Specific Details “He looked at me in a way that wasn't exactly threatening, but still made me uncomfortable.” • What, exactly, did this guy do with his eyes, face, and body that made you uncomfortable? Describe his actions, and show your reader exactly what made you uncomfortable. Did he waggle his eyebrows at you in a vaguely sensual manner? Did he stare directly at you while taking a gigantic bite out of a chicken wing, so that bits of cartilage crunched in his mouth as he chewed? Did he keep glancing up at a point just above your head, as if something was about to drop on you, and then laugh when you looked up to see for yourself?

MUCH BETTER! Whenever puppies in the pet store window distracted me from the serious business of taking him for his walk, Fido growled, his little ears flattened against his scruffy head. Yet he always forgave me. Even after his hearing and sight faded, when he felt the leash click on his collar and smelled fresh air, he still tried to caper. He's been dead for three months now. This morning I filled his water bowl all the way to the top --just the way he likes it -- before I remembered. • NOT EFFECTIVE! “I'll never forget how I felt after Fido died. I was miserable.” Simply naming the feeling that you experienced (telling your reader what you felt) is not enough to create interest in the reader. You need to find a way to generate, in your reader, the same feelings that you experienced.

MAKING ASSERTIONS“Clearly, something must be done about this terrible crisis.” • A confident assertion (simply forcefully saying that it's so) is a way of telling. Instead of just announcing that a certain thing is "terrible" or "horrendous" or "the most hideous thing you can possibly imagine" and expecting your reader to believe you, a good writer should present evidence (vivid examples) that lead the reader to conclude, on his or her own, that this thing is terrible (or wonderful, etc.).

Let’s Practice • Working in pairs or triads, talk about an event or situation that is wonderful or horrible. • Write using specific, vivid details to lead the readers to conclude on their own this situation or act is terrible, wonderful, etc. Describe through details the wonderful or terrible situation ….no telling or announcing to the reader how horrible it was.

Showing a character with DETAILS • TELLING: “Cassandra is a wonderful person.” • SHOWING: “Cassandra is always there when anyone needs her. She's the first to arrive with a casserole when someone is sick, the first to send a note of encouragement to those who are troubled, the first to offer a hug to anyone -- man, woman or child -- at anytime.

“Telling” communicates facts; “showing” invites understanding • TELLING All the kids knew that Lucinda was the meanest kid in the third grade. • SHOWING When she saw me, she stopped; her ponytail bobbed threateningly, and her eyes tracked me across the cafeteria. When the recess bell rang, I clutched my chess set and dashed to freedom, eager to win the daily tournament of outcasts. Of course, I tripped in front of the whole class. Tennis shoes and sandals stepped around me and over me as I scrambled after pawns and bishops. And there was Lucinda, waiting for me to notice her; she smiled, lifted her shiny patent-leather shoe, and slowly, carefully ground my white queen into the pavement. • TALK WITH YOUR PARTNER ABOUT HOW THIS WRITER SHOWS THE READER LUCINDA.

“Showing is more than a long list of adjectives. • Sometimes students misinterpret “showing”. They put all kinds of adjectives in their writing, describing everything from the color of the wallpaper to the shape of their own legs, regardless of whether such details actually advance the story. • The point of "showing" is not to drown the reader in a sea of details. Instead, you should pick out only those details that matter. • Does the detail help establish or intensify the mood? Does it define a character? Clarify an action?

Tell: "In Sweden witches visit at Easter." • SHOW: The bonfires had been lit. Fireworks danced across the sky and all around the village excited children dressed as witches were collecting candy from their neighbors. They aren't trick or treating -- no, they're leaving their neighbors beautifully decorated letters in exchange for their candies. For this isn't Halloween, this is how they celebrate Easter in Sweden."

Paint a Picture with Your Words The food smelled good. (TELL) The aroma of grandmother’s chicken and dumplings flowed from the kitchen, tickled my nose, and teased my churning stomach. The room was messy. (TELL) A Mount Everest of sweaty gym clothes camped out in the middle of Stacy’s room. On her dresser rested several short, fat, tall, thin, and cloudy glasses of water--her answer to midnight thirsts. Stacy’s bed. Stacy’s bed. How would a neat freak describe the total anguish of Stacy’s bed? For that person, with its crumpled sheets, wound-up comforter, and exposed mattress, Stacy’s bed would be a daylight nightmare, worse than any slithering snake or creepy spider could ever hope to be.

General vs. Specific Details • Clear writing includes specific, concrete details rather than general details.

Practice…. • In your writing folder find and highlight phrases lacking specificity. • Insert specific details to clarify your writing. Remember to add the details that really matter. • We are skipping lines in our drafts to have the space for making changes later. No rewriting….just inserting!

Tell: The ground floor, rented room was tiny, damp and obviously uncared for. Show: "As he entered the room from the hallway the first thing he noticed was the musty smell: a combination of mold, damp and stale cigarette smoke. There were snail trails across the worn, brown, cord carpet that covered what little floor space there was. Opposite the doorway, pushed up against the wall, was a single bed, covered with a tattered bedspread and a flat, tobacco-stained pillow. Squeezed into the corner of the room at the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers. On top of the drawers was a single electric hotplate. Opposite this was a sink piled high with dirty pots with a toothbrush just visible, peeking out through the handle of a mug. Facing the bed was a small table with a fold up-chair. On top of the table was an overflowing ashtray and yesterday's newspaper. Behind the door stood a moldy wicker waste basket full of ash and cigarette ends."

“Sam is a talented musician.” • Instead, let us hear the crowds cheer, let us feel his passion. Take us into his head as he strokes the piano keys: • “Consummation of the soul. That's what Sam called the gratification he received from music. When his passion became so intense it begged to be satisfied, pleaded to be released, and he was helpless to resist its urges. When his fingers assumed a life of their own, titillating the ivory keys with the complex music of Bach and Mozart and Beethoven, and he became one with the cadence, breathing with the crescendos, his fingers caressing the melody, until everything else faded, everything else disappeared, and only the music existed.”

An example… • 1. The boy was nervous. • 2. With sweaty palms and wrinkles of worry, Juan stood in line paralyzed, waiting for his turn to recite his lines for the packed audience. • REMEMBER….good writers help their readers visualize text. Can you SEE Juan?

Practice… Try revising these telling sentences using show not tell: • The room was scary. • Jerome opened his locker. • Mom was mad.

There is always an exception to every rule!!!! The following examples illustrate when “telling” is the best type of communication.

When to tell, not show! If you show don’t tell all the time, you will bore your readers. No one wants to see every part of every building. So you TELL the things that are of no real importance to your piece, but are necessary to move things along. “The doorbell rang.” Unless you are telling “A Christmas Carol” the type of doorbell is totally irrelevant and can be told not shown. "Mary picked up the remote control and turned the television back on." Again, we don't need to know anything more about these things so telling will suffice. Basically, show, don't tell is not a golden rule but a useful mantra to remember. When you are writing, think carefully to see if what you are writing could be shown instead of told. If you've told something, go back and see if you can't show it instead. Don't over-use the show, but learn how to use it with tell to make your writing smoother and clearer.

Sometimes “telling” can be a good thing…. • "Our coach is a former champion wrestler, but now he is overpaid, overweight, and over forty.“ --Dena Taylor • "These are the times that try men's souls." --Thomas Paine • "I am your father." -- Darth Vader by Dennis G. Jerz

Let’s Practice! • Look in your writing folder for pieces with character description. Highlight three sentences that “tell” the character rather than “show” the character. • EXAMPLE: The boy was nervous.

Application • Apply your practice for show not tell by highlighting three “telling” sentences in your writing folder, and revise these three sentences by adding more concrete language. (show not tell) • Include the three changes when you write your final draft.

Using Specific Details in Writing