P.S. For some reason I'm reminded of that scene in "When a man loves a woman" and the husband goes to an Al-Anon meeting, where a woman says "Not only have I gotten in touch with my feelings, now I have feelings about my feelings."
[This message has been edited by franc li (edited March 08, 2005).]
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
What I learned in boot camp that sparked this thread is the following:
You want to get the reader to feel the emotions, right? When your main character is sad you want the reader to know she's sad on a gut level. So, you have two choices:
"Maria was sad that her father died."
or
"Maria refused to believe it. Her father could not be dead. He just couldn't be."
Before boot camp, I was far more likely to write it something like the first way. It goes, partly to showing vs. telling, but this is a specific case of the old advice that I think deserves a bit of attention.
Basically, it comes down to don't feel the emotions for your readers. Make them do the work, but show them what to feel. Using attitude rather than emotion is a great means of doing this. Your reader has been living the tale with the protagonist for some time and if you've woven the tale correctly, you don't need to say that your character is hapy, sad, frightened, or jealous. A few well-chosen character attitudes and you can probably even make the reader think you said that when in reality they're just feeling it.
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
Hmmm. That's interesting. I try not to use an attitude where I could use an action or dialogue. But I guess I may be going too far in the show don't tell direction.
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
You might even be misunderstanding show don't tell, because giving character thoughts and attitudes is in the showing category, as far as I knew. Saying who they are in a way that's not coming out of their head is telling. Such as: John was a doctor. That's telling (although, in tome cases I'd rather you say these four words than go on and on in ways that hint he's a doctor without coming out and asying it.)
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
Yet another patient came in, an old man. John put on a smile. "What seems to be the problem today?"
John's some kind of health worker. When he gets out the stethoscope, we'll be pretty sure. When he tells a nurse what to do, we'll know.
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
That's great if it takes place in a doctor's office and has anything to do with his practice. The times tos how and tell have a lot to do with the story. I'd rather tell minorly important information and not waste people's time.
