Everyday Canvas

On Writing--once more

Prompt: In writing, there are different categories of tells: motivational, emotional, mental, stage direction, descriptive and passive. Do you understand what each is? How important is telling at the sentence level? Keep in mind, that tell is subjective.

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I don’t know what you mean by each of those things in the prompt, as I was never taught or came across the exact words of “different categories of tells” (possibly my teachers used different words as it was such a long time ago), but this is what I understand from them.

Motivational writing (voice and tone)-- focuses on the relationship between the writing itself and the writing’s outcome in the sense that the writing makes the reader’s mind bend toward the essence of the subject. This may have something to do with ethos, or in other words, ethical appeal.

Emotional writing (voice and tone)—a writing’s persuasion that's designed to create an emotional response in the reader. This may have something to do with pathos, or in other words, emotional appeal to a reader’s needs, values, and emotional sensibilities.

Mental writing (voice and tone)—This may be argumentative writing emphasizing reason or supporting a claim.

Stage direction—This might be a constructional direction of organizing the text as to writing what and when and how the characters enter, move, speak, or feel. This is usually the term used in stage or film scripts.

Descriptive writing—may be writing with the primary purpose of describing the elements of a story in such a way that a picture is formed in the reader’s minds.

Passive writing—I can’t say whether this refers to passive voice or not, but it may be the kind of writing where the meaning is clouded on purpose or it may be the kind of writing where the words I and we--and even the other subjects in a sentence—are avoided to write an idea in a generalized form.

As to telling, sometimes—depending on the story--it is important enough to use it, but showing anything through character action is better.

Each of these things is important and all of these can be used as needed, as long as the text does not become boring or full of contradictions. This is only my opinion.