Getting into the View (Not the talk show)

More About Show Don't Tell

Photo by Olivllr Wang on Unsplash

We’re continuing that deeper dive into showing in your writing (the good way) rather than telling in your writing (the no-no way usually, but it has its good moments!) today.

Ready?

“Getting into the viewpoint of your central story character—and staying there—helps enormously in showing instead of telling,” Jack Bickham wrote. “If you’re solidly in viewpoint, you won’t be tempted to lecture readers because you will be revealing that character’s experiences rather than reviewing some abstract, objectively written data.”

So, that’s all lovely and good, but the question becomes how do you actually get into this fictional character’s point of view so that you show rather than tell.

We talked a bit about that in the last post, but let’s dive in a bit more, okay?

For some of this being inside the character is natural, for some of us writers? Not so much. That’s totally okay. There is no one right way to write and that means there’s no one right way to develop characters.

When you get stuck, the Script Lab has some lovely suggestions here, but I’ve screenshot one of them because I like it. It’s about asking why.

Via the Script Lab.

Pretty cool, right? Below the paywall, I’m going to talk about finding the dominant impression in your scenes and how that helps with showing rather than telling in your writing.