  For Authors
This week: Is it Show or Tell ~ or Show and Tell ? Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Greetings, I am honored today to be your guest host for the WDC For Authors Newsletter.
Tell the readers a story! Because without a story,
you are merely using words to prove you can
string them together in logical sentences.
Anne McCaffrey
I want story, wit, music, wryness, color,
and a sense of reality in what I read,
and I try to get it in what I write.
John D. MacDonald
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Greetings, fellow Authors,
I remember, as a kid in school, way-back-when, we were given a day to bring in something special and tell its story. Yes, 'show and tell' day. Several of us might have a like object, a doll, fire engine, skates, but no two were the same, as each has its own story, which we shared with our friends and classmate. The stories we told about these simple items were vivid and filled with details, both factoid and creative  .
As we got older, we were taught to narrow our focus. We learned to respond to questions with succinct answers; to show what we knew, without telling how or why we knew it. Many of us, over time, perhaps forgot altogether to notice or seek the ‘why’ of things.
I submit that we, as writers, have an arrested development. We’ve not given up, or have recalled, the joy of searching, of questioning, and of sharing the journey behind the quest. We observe and explore, we imagine and postulate, then regale ourselves and our readers with the details of our journey. We "tell" a story.
Numerous “How To” writing books and articles instruct us to ‘show, don’t tell’ in order to keep our readers in the moment and grab their attention. When writing a chase scene, an alien to mortal brain transplant, or a haiku snapshot of a moment in time then, yes, one needs to show the event unfold in real time to draw the reader viscerally into the story or poem. But then, to hold your reader’s attention, to make him/her want to stay for a time in the ‘otherworld’ you’ve created, I think we have to tell him the why of the chase. To turn a scene into a story, a chapter, a novel, an epic poem or ballad, we need to make the reader care about the ‘why’ of it. We've shown our reader the cherished item, now we tell him/her why it’s important or interesting.
As writers, we use ‘backstory’ to do this. We know the details behind our characters’ actions; we know how the ‘snapshots’ of poetic stanzas evolve to reach their full-screen resolution; we know what each of our characters does, looks like, thinks like, fears and hopes. We share with our readers only enough of this information to draw them into the story and make them understand why events are unfolding as they are, why characters act as they do, and make them want to know more. We don’t want to give them everything, they don't need an information dump to distract them from the world we’re creating for them with our story or poem. Our reader doesn’t care, and doesn’t need to know, what each character had for breakfast (unless perhaps poison is involved). .
When the details are important; when they draw the reader further into the story; when they show the ‘why’ of things, then a writer has several ways to ‘tell’ readers.
There are several ways we, as writers, can 'tell' our reader things about our characters, idea, our 'otherworld'; things that make him/her understand the why of things, and to make the reader empathize with a character, want to turn the page, read the next stanza, join in for a time the world of words we've created in prose or verse .
 Prologue - establishes something that our readers then want to see answered. It provides the premise for what is to follow. To make our readers want to learn more, engage their emotions, remember to give just enough information to to actively engage them with characters or ideas; jump them into our 'otherworld.' By otherworld, I mean taking our readers on a journey for a time away from their immediate surroundings by engaging them with the images created by our words poetic or prosaic. By revealing some dynamic event or interplay between characters, we can make our reader want to learn more. By telling them a little bit up front, we can make them want to know more, and they will turn the page to find out.
 Flashback - on the other hand, answers a question we've posed for our readers; tells them something in response to action that's taken place. It's an effective way of weaving history into the ongoing story. For example, Mike will not consider living in a house without a basement, one without a foundation. He becomes again the five year old running for the door his grandpa held open against the storm. His grandpa stopped smiling as the oak hit the trailer, mashing it, and his grandpa, into the unyielding ground.
 Dialogue - is a dynamic way of engaging our readers in backstory, and give depth to the characters themselves. Conversation among characters is an effective way of telling why they are taking one action over another, foreshadowing events to come by alluding to events in the characters' past. It can be overt or subtle, proclaim deeds done or allude to the motive for what may occur.
 Narrative - is another way that we can 'tell' our readers something, either using your character's voice or our own author's omniscient voice. Our character can provide background, internal and external, for action taking place or perhaps yet to occur. Or, as the omniscient author, we can offer third-person narrative to explain the present by relating it to the past.
So, don't be afraid to show - and tell - readers the story, in prose or verse. Each of the above techniques can be effective, used judiciously, to add that flavor to a story or poem that will make readers want to know more, make them want to enter more deeply into our world built of words.
Try it! Show them a bit of your 'otherworld', and tell your readers just enough to make them want to stay awhile.
Write On 
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Check out a few of the selections prosaic and poetic which show And tell. While you're at it, why not tell them what you think with a review ~ then tell us one of your own
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As a guest host, I have but the present to share with you in thanks for this welcome to your virtual homes and warm hearths.
Until we next meet, may all the stories you tell be fun to read and to write ^_^
Write On
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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For Authors: November 04, 2015 Issue [#7303]
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