Show don't tell. |
If I said to you, “She was mad,” that doesn’t say too much--it is lifeless, without color, without an oomph of spark or elan. But if I say to you, “She stomped her foot, grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes and flung them in my face, and turned red as a beet all the while eyeing me with daggers sprayed with mace,” then that would provide you with a much clearer picture--Rush would be proud. Yeah, Show Don‘t Tell; a good song, a sage bit of writing advice. “She was mad;” Uh huh, that doesn’t do much to pique the reader’s curiosity, it doesn’t grab one by the throat with lumberjack mitts and compel one to find any interest that would keep a yawn at bay or prevent sand from filling both eyes. Communication breakdown, of a sort. I am speaking, all right, but saying little. With only three words I am wearing threadbare rags of gray blending into a cold November sky. But with the longer version, the more descriptive effort, I am dressed in tweed blazer with a purple tie and alligator shoes. To say, “She was mad,” I might as well kiss my sister. If I had a sister, I wouldn’t want to, other than as an obligation to do so out of sympathy, or something like that. But if desire be my intent, if, (and I can hear Rush singing), I was loin tingling, hot to merge, driven to tongue feminine orifice both north and south, if I was hard in throbbing bulging within tight zippered Levis with a seven inch member bulbous at the end conspicuous with prominent blue vein curved in synchronous harmony with the thick of it, if entry was my want and thrust my amorous longing becoming because of hormones dancing like miniature satyrs with tongues dangling and scrotum bouncing to primitive rhythms conducive to the savage horizontal--if that was, indeed, my lust, I would not want to kiss sis. I wouldn’t be up to it. 37 Lines Writer’s Cramp 12-3-15 |