Episode 186 - Showing--not telling--what a character is thinking.

Hi writers! Welcome to our new edition on Writing Fiction. This is Jim Fair. Enough idle, small talk, let's cut to the chase. I'd like to talk today about showing, as opposed to telling, what a person is thinking. As you know, we writers should show when we can, as opposed to telling, showing is usually more vivid and engaging than telling, because it offers evidence, and the reader can draw his or her own conclusions. He had a cold, his telling, he coughed, then blew his nose, his showing. But aren't mental processes hard to show? So thinking goes on inside the brain. It's invisible to the thinking character and the onlooker. Many things a character is thinking can be shown to the reader. Some thinking is easy to show, rather than telling. Jenny thought it was funny, is telling. Jenny laughed, is showing, it offers evidence to the reader, what Jenny's thinking. But some things that go on in a character's mind are harder to show, aren't they? They might be more complicated or maybe more sophisticated, or maybe they take longer to develop. I want to mention two of them, falling in love and being very smart. First, how do we show someone is falling in love? If our novel doesn't have a romance in it, we should consider adding one, and I'm not talking about the romance genre. All genres can benefit from our romance. Why? The biggest reason is that readers like romance. And that includes thriller and horror readers, and police procedural readers and caper novel readers. These novels have lots of thrills and tension, but there's also room for romance. Plus, a romance is a handy tool for plotting. A romantic scene can contrast with an action scene, sharpening both. And a romance is good for developing our characters, with the reader seeing how the character handles the romance. A romance is a strong element to show a character's change and growth during the story. So, like some more is at a campfire, romance is good. So how do we show rather than tell romantic feelings to show falling in love and being in love? Instead of saying Robbie was falling in love, which is telling, we can show he's falling in love. Teresa entered the room, and Robbie's eyes followed her as she took her chair at the desk. Given the context, the reader knows what is happening. One of the classic symptoms of falling in love is looking at someone longer than necessary, and here Robbie is gazing at Teresa. The reader will get it. Here's another. When Teresa walked into the room, Robbie's breath caught. Here's another. When Teresa came into the library, Robbie lowered his book and smiled at her. Lowering his book means he's going to give her his complete attention, and that can be a hallmark of someone falling in love. The reader will understand this. Or how about this? This might even be a more dramatic demonstration of his feelings. When Teresa came into the library, Robbie shoved his cell phone into his pocket. Robbie's going to give her his entire attention. How about this one? Robbie caught himself and stood upright. He had been leaning toward Teresa without knowing it. This is a fun one. He unconsciously has tilted himself toward her. The people falling in love do that. Ever thought of this one? Sometimes a person who is falling in love unknowingly mimics the other person. Robbie's our point of view character. When Teresa put her hand on her hip, Robbie did the same, his hand on his hip, without realizing it. And this one. When Teresa walked toward him, Robbie brushed his shirt sleeves and plucked at his collar. Here, Robbie's making sure he's presentable to her. Or maybe something involuntary. When Teresa smiled at him, Robbie's cheeks reddened. Robbie must be embarrassed at his own emotions. His unfilled filled love. So his cheeks burned. Here's another showing with dialogue. Teresa called, "Hi, Robbie. Got your homework done?" Well, I thought maybe I don't know. Robbie's tongue tied, often an indication of deep feelings. And this one's peculiar, but I think it works. When Teresa came into the room, Robbie stopped speaking with John and sat still in his chair. Here, Robbie is afraid he might chase her away if he says something or does something stupid. He's silent and still. So there are strong, but subtle ways to show love. Is that an oxymoron? Strong, but subtle, I don't know. But I hope you take my meaning. Romance in our story is good, and we can show rather than tell how a character feels. Well, how about high intelligence? We can tell Christy was highly intelligent. Or we can leave clues for the reader. That is, showing the reader. She's highly intelligent. Things like this. Christy walked into her trigonometry classroom. The blackboard was filled with equations. She stared at it, erased a chalk six with her hand, and replaced it with a four. Or how about this? Christy's eyes followed her finger down the page, taking three seconds. She flipped to the book's next page. Her finger sped down the page. She turned to the next page. Or try this one. Immediately after Dustin laid down four scrabble tiles, spelling the word "food." Christy set down five of her tiles, adding them to the food's "D." Dustin said, "Dunite, there's no such word as "Dunite." Christy replied, "Dunite is an igneous rock." Look it up. Or how about this? We're trying to show Christy's really smart. Dustin looked up at the diving board. "You'll never jump off at Christy. It's ten feet high." Christy put her foot on the ladder's first wrong and said, "Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once." Dustin said, "You just made that up." It's Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Go read a book, Dustin. She climbed the diving board ladder. She can quote Shakespeare the mark of someone intelligent. Maybe this. We're trying to show that Christy's really smart. Olivia turned in her chair to look back at Christy, who sat behind her in class. Christy put her pen to a piece of paper. She penned, "Can you come over after school? We've got a new Xbox." Christy wrote these words quickly and upside down so Olivia could read them. How's that for smart? She can write fast upside down. Yeah, it could be a parlor trick, but it can also show smarts. Or the writer is showing rather than telling that a character is highly intelligent. The clerk said, "1242 $6.86. That's $19.28. And your coupon gives you a 20% discount. I'll punch it in." Christy blinked. "The discount is $385. I owe you $15.42." Or how about this dialogue? Dustin said, "I'm never playing chess with you again. You just destroyed me." Christy smiled, "Tell you what? Let's play another game and this time I'll spot you both of my rooks and one night. I'll remove them from my side before we begin the game." Or how about this? The teacher asked, "Class, has anyone here heard of the English mathematician from 200 years ago Augusta Loveless?" Christy raised her hand. She went by Ada, Ada Loveless. There's lots of ways to show our characters highly intelligent and they're fun to think about and place into our story. We don't need to tell the reader. We can show the reader. She's smart. We writers should show as often as we can. We should present evidence to the reader. Why? Because readers like it. Here's a strong technique. When you're describing a character, consider describing how he or she walks. The character's gait. I read somewhere that police detectives will tell you that a gait is as distinctive as a face. Folks are identifiable by how they walk, how they move across the landscape. I had a weird moment some years ago regarding a fellow's gait is stride. I was at the Denver Airport and as I left the restroom, the fellow leaving the room in front of me caught my attention, something about him. It was his walk. He was ahead of me and only his back was visible to me and I thought, "That's Greg." I hadn't seen my high school friend Greg in 20 years and I instantly identified him from the rear and I think it was how he walked. Now you might think that I must have seen his face in the restroom mirror and didn't realize it at the moment, maybe, but maybe not. My belief is that I recognized him from his walk. I said hello to him a few seconds later and he was nicely surprised and we spent a few minutes catching up. A gait can be distinctive in our character and it can show much about the character too and it can be fun to come up with phrases showing how a character walks. Here's an example from Jack London's novel Martin Eden. He walked at the others heels with a swing to his shoulders and his legs spread unwittingly as if the level floors were tilting up and sinking down to the heave and lunge of us of the sea. And here's PD Jameson, children of men. He walked with his chin jutting forward as if confronting a strong gale, shoulders hunched, his faded gown billowing. And here's Charles Dickens in a Christmas Carol. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. Scrooge's gait is stiffened. We writers usually remember to describe a character's face, we should also remember to describe his gait. There are lots of phrases we can use. A heavy rolling step. He slunk away, walked haltingly. He hobbled along, grimacing with each step. A hitch and roll to his gait. She walked with her legs wide apart as if not trusting her balance. She shuffled rather than walked. She leaned forward as she walked as if into a gale. Her steps were tiny, like a crab's. His steps were small and unsteady, and his hand was out as if trying to find a banister. As he walked, he looked down at his feet as if not trusting them. He limped in an exaggerated way as if playing for sympathy. She came across the ballroom, her ankles unsteady on her high heels. He put one step slowly in front of the other, as if he had to think about it. Her gait was smooth and airy and light, as it's suspended in the air, as if she were skating rather than walking. These descriptions of a character's… If you listen to my podcasts and still feel you need a boost, I've made something different. I've created a 20 episode masterclass on fiction writing, a start to finish course covering plot, characters, scenes and sentence level craft. Each episode is focused and about 30 minutes. The full class, all 20 episodes, is available now for a one-time price of $49. If you want structured, concise guidance, click the "buy the masterclass" link in the show notes to get started. Gaits are fun to come up with. Most often they reveal that is to show something about the character. My thought here is for us writers. Is this? Remember to describe how our character walks. When I finish a novel, a weight lifts off me toward the end of the writing, I focus and work and try to keep my head down and into the project because I'm desperate to finish and then suddenly it's done. It's disorienting to have had this big project and then to have a day filled with nothing. Have you experienced that maybe after finishing a novel or maybe even after finishing a chapter? It's a mix of mental exhaustion and doubt, relief, some satisfaction, maybe even some sadness as if mourning. It's a mix of emotions. But the main one is happiness for most of us. Finally done. It can make us giddy. It's wonderful. I hope you have experienced this or we'll soon experience it and we'll savor it. You've heard me in earlier episodes give some thoughts on how to describe what our characters look like. An important technique is to describe our character right away in the story. Characters who aren't described have difficulty engaging the reader. The reader wants an image. Another technique we've talked about is to use details to create a sharpened a memorable image. I want to talk now about some character description techniques we may not so readily think about as we create our character on the screen or our piece of paper. I suppose these can be considered more subtle techniques but they are good strategies to keep in mind. First, it's often more vivid if we describe our character as she's doing something, as she's moving. The reader gets an image over our character as she's moving. It's doubly interesting description of her and the movement. I've mentioned before that action is usually the most interesting part of a novel so we can double our interest in the paragraphs. Here's an example. First, a description with no action. The corners of Smith's mouth were permanently turned down so he always appeared to be scowling. One of his front teeth was chipped. His eyes were tight against his nose. He had huge hands. His trousers were made of canvas. Here is the same character described as he moves. Smith brought up the binoculars which seemed like miniatures in his big hands. He narrowed the space between the eyepieces as his eyes were tight against his nose. He stepped part way from behind the cactus that had been hiding him, then lifted the binoculars to his eyes. The armored car was in the mini-marts parking lot. He studied the vehicle. His mouth was always turned down, but became even more so when his leg brushed against the cactus. He winced, exposing a chipped front tooth. He pulled three cactus spines from his canvas pants. Here we have a character description interspersed with action. The reader pays extra attention. Here is another technique and it is related. Consider not clumping the character description in one big block of prose. Details about our character can be rationed. A sentence or two here. Another sentence of description, a paragraph or a page later. I mentioned we can do that with action. We can also do it with dialogue. We can disperse the phrases of character description within a conversation. Here is an example. She lifted her cell phone out of her pocket. Her nails were bright red. "What do you want, Alan?" she asked into the phone. "Can you pick me up?" "Not a chance," she said in her low, raspy voice. "I'm on the other side of town." In this bit of conversation, we've learned her fingernails are red and that she has a low and raspy voice. It's stuck in the dialogue. It's a good way to avoid what might become a big paragraph block of description. Most of the time our descriptions will be those we see that are visual for the reader. We shouldn't forget the other senses when describing a character smell, hearing, touch and taste. She smelled aroses. His clothes smelled like low tide. She reached for his hand which had rough calluses on his palm and fingers. His voice was rumbly and echoey as if he were speaking into a bucket. We're talking about describing our characters and I'm trying to mention techniques we might not think about but which could add to the image and make it memorable. Here's another idea, a good one I think. Emphasize one notable physical trait, something big or funny or odd about the character that readers will remember and this works particularly well for secondary characters. Something like this. Her earlobes were so large and dangly they swayed when she moved her head. The left earlobe was pierced with four studs, three with amber settings and a fourth, a tiny ceramic skull. Her other earlobe had only two piercings, one a small plastic taco and the other a raisin replica canine tooth. I had fun writing this and the reader will have fun reading this, though perhaps also a tad queasy and our character will be remembered for sure. So pick a significant trait and emphasize it. Also consider refreshing the reader's image of the character once in a while in the story. The French novelist Gustave La Baix, who wrote Madame Bovery, says that an object in a story has to be mentioned three times for the reader to be convinced it exists. Same can be said for physical descriptions. If you mention your hero has walnut-colored hair, a nice phrase, mention that she has brown hair later too. Don't use a phrase walnut-colored hair again. It's too noticeable. Brown hair is fine. In past episodes I've mentioned character description techniques. These today have been some additional considerations for us as we describe our characters. I received a message from our listener Griffin. He wrote, "My question is about dealing with dissatisfaction with a finished chapter." After writing this chapter, I don't like it. I feel it explains too much. I'm dissatisfied with how the chapter was executed. What would be the best writing practice when it comes to writing chapters we're not happy with? Should I just leave it as is and return to it in the editing later? Or would it be better if I started the chapter from scratch before moving on to the later parts of the book? Griffin's question is a good one and there's no one-size-fits-all answer, but let me suggest a tactic. The most important thing is to get words in the bank, to go forward with the writing, to produce the words. With words on the screen, we have something solid. Now that a chapter is done, perhaps make a note to ourselves what might be wrong and with the chapter and how it might be improved, just two or three sentences, and file the note somewhere, maybe on our to-do list, and address these things later. Then start the next chapter. The most important thing I think is to keep going, to keep adding words to the project. Words completed our money in our pockets. Instead of a fuzzy project and hard work ahead of us, we'll have something solid, more words and more chapters. And as we write ahead, it will give us more time to think about that finished chapter we worried about. Who knows? We might change our minds about the finished chapter again later. And a related thought. No writing project is ever entirely perfect. We likely want to avoid thinking and thinking about our finished chapter and editing and editing it like whittling and whittling a piece of wood. It can lead to a big waste of time. My thought is that we should edit our finished chapter once, taking a couple hours, and then put that finished chapter aside for now, even if it remains imperfect, even if we want to think about it some more. And we should plow ahead with the next chapter and the chapters after that. A lot of the writing process is amorphous. It's it's tenuous, but once we have a chapter done and then another chapter, we have something solid. It's intensely rewarding and it shows we're moving ahead. It's like having words in the bank. My take isn't for everyone I know, writers approach the task differently. But consider my idea here. And it's in this in two words, move forward. Where do our stories come from, our ideas? JK Rowling said, I haven't got the fadest idea where my ideas come from or how my imagination works. She added, ideas come from all over the place. Sometimes I get a sudden inspiration in the middle of doing something completely unrelated. And Margaret Atwood said, where do you get your ideas? The short answer is everywhere. The long answer is, I don't know. Albert Einstein may have had it right when talking about where ideas come from. He may have been talking about new physics ideas, but his thought applies to us writers. He said, a new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. But intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience. That's Albert Einstein. Is that true for us writers? I'll bet it is. A new and wonderful plot idea seems to jump into our heads. But it's less new than we think. Maybe unknown to ourselves. We've been putting ourselves, putting together the idea earlier from our experiences and our observations, our other thoughts. And then they abruptly coalesce in our heads as a new and great plot idea. That's how it works for most of us, Albert. Ideas are like volcanoes. They bubble under the surface and then they erupt. And this might be the best part of this idea about where plot ideas come from. Maybe not all of our time away from our laptop and desk is unproductive. At the county fair, we're subliminally getting ideas at the doctor's office too. At our daughter's piano recital on the golf course, at the grocery store. Ideas are entering our minds below the threshold of sensation and awareness. Well, that's a good theory. It might even be true. It's my theory and Albert Einstein's theory and I'm sticking to it. Here's something most everyone knows, but I'll mention it anyway. The baseball catchers, mask, was invented by Fred Thayer. The team manager of the Harvard University baseball team in 1876. I'm probably related to Fred so reflected glory shines on me. No? As you can tell, I'm out of things for today's episode. This is Jim Thayer. Please keep tapping those keys.