This week is a good and beautiful week, but also a sad week; a week that enters with the last note of a bugle fading on the evening air. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why? Because it is week four of our\u00a0Write with Jericho<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0course, and therefore the final week of the course. Premium Members will be sad because WWJ is drawing to a close, but they will also be\u00a0happy\u00a0<\/em>because there are\u00a0a host of other courses<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0they can relish – and because new courses will be popping up all through this year like mushrooms in a damp October.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yes, non-members will have an extra sadness because they’ve missed so much excitement of late… Except that they know doing\u00a0this one small thing<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0will give them abiding and highly cost-effective joy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Also: if you’re a non-member and want to enjoy week one of Write With Jericho for FREE, then go on.\u00a0Enjoy it<\/a><\/strong>. It’s open to all.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this week’s final lesson, my colleague Sophie Flynn is teaching about showing & telling, which is a topic that kinda drives us mad at JW Towers, because so many people get it wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rule is \u201cshow, don\u2019t tell,\u201d and it\u2019s a good rule. I like it. It\u2019s always helpful to have at the back of your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s also a terrible rule, because it\u2019s so often false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sophie gives an example of this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Telling<\/strong>: \u201cIt was now midday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Showing<\/strong>: \u201cThe short hand was already more or less pointing at the twelve and Josie saw with panic rising in her throat that the long hand was now all but upright too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That second version is terrible in so many ways it\u2019s hard to count. For one thing, it\u2019s mystifying. It\u2019s so obvious what \u201cit was now midday means\u201d, whereas the second sentence needs a kind of anxious decoding\u2026 And even once decoded, it leaves the reader with a slight well, that was weird<\/em> feeling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, the second version is also far baggier and less efficient than the first. What’s more, it still <\/em>uses telling, because it tells the reader that poor old Josie \u2013 trapped as she is in a terrible novel \u2013 has panic rising up her throat. On a strict show-don\u2019t-tell model, you\u2019d have to somehow show that panic rising. How you\u2019d go about doing that, I just don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, the Idiot Version of the rule is just plain false. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a way, I\u2019d prefer it if we replaced that formulation with a simple command to dramatise. Suppose Jane Austen had written the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Telling<\/strong>: \u201cMr Darcy proposed to Elizabeth Bennet, but she refused him with some asperity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a perfectly accurate account of one of the most famous scenes in English literature \u2013 but also quite clearly a terrible replacement for the scene that Jane Austen actually wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dramatic action needs to unfold in what feels like real time to the reader. Everything else can just be neatly stitched in with brief but accurate snippets of telling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I won\u2019t talk about this more \u2013 Sophie does all that\u00a0in her course video<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 but I\u2019ll do again what I\u2019ve done throughout these Write With Jericho emails and just take a look at what one of my own scenes does. I\u2019ll use the same scene as I used last week which, if you remember, I just picked at random.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here we go again. The scene itself is in bold. My comments are in italics. Where possible, I\u2019ve shortened the text for brevity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dad is talking about the security issues that his clubs have faced recently. Nothing out of the ordinary. The occasional idiot with a knife. The odd binge-drinker who gets violent.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is telling: Fiona\u2019s swift summary of something that isn\u2019t that interesting and doesn\u2019t need to detain the reader for long.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t premeditate the thought, just blurt out, \u2018I know. I sometimes think I should get myself a gun. You never know what might happen.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s all I say. A stupid thought that wouldn\u2019t have lasted out the minute. But Dad\u2019s on to it straight away.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018What do you mean, love? You want to become an armed officer, is that it? Are detectives even allowed to carry guns?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is showing \u2013 dialogue always is. Even here, though, Fiona doesn\u2019t try to show<\/u> that her statement was a a stupid thought that wouldn\u2019t have lasted out the minute. That\u2019s not something that can be easily shown. It\u2019s not dramatic. So she just tells it in a perfectly straightforward manner.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I backtrack straight away. No, I don\u2019t want to join some armed response unit. No, I can\u2019t see the South Wales force thinking that DC Griffiths would be the right person to wave the heavy weaponry. No, it\u2019s probably a stupid idea.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is still probably showing. We\u2019ve dropped the direct speech, but Fiona is summarising reasonably accurately what she actually said.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018You mean have a gun at home? A licensed thing? But you know, these days, you can get a shotgun or whatever for going out hunting. Air rifles, that sort of thing. But they won\u2019t let people carry handguns. Not off a shooting range. And quite right too. The number of crazy people there are. If I could ban the whole damn lot of them, I would.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Yes, me too. I\u2019m not really saying anything. Just, like you say, there are some idiots out there.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018You worried about something, Fi girl? If you are, you need to say. Maybe the police isn\u2019t the right job for you. I mean, don\u2019t get me wrong, you\u2019re fabulous. CID bloody lucky to have you, never mind what I might have said. But you mustn\u2019t take risks you shouldn\u2019t, you know.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Dialogue = showing. This is the dramatic heart of this (tiny) scene. But just feel how flat the scene would be without this dialogue at its heart. The heart of ANY scene should be showing, That\u2019s where the drama is.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He pauses, the shadows of our old arguments crossing our lamplit present.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n His suspicion of anything to do with the police. His fear. My determination to pursue the career of my choice. Two obstinate people, digging in.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And to be fair to Dad \u2013 and I didn\u2019t perhaps understand this as well as I should have done \u2013 he was worried about me too. He\u2019s always been protective of me, doubly or trebly so during my illness and afterwards\u2026 even when my life was all put back together again, he felt that a career in the police force was absolutely the wrong one for me. Too much danger. Too much stress. Risks physical and mental\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway. The present pause compresses that whole debate into a few seconds of silence. It\u2019s Dad\u2019s way of saying that I can always quit the police, come home, take a job with him. My silence is my way of saying, \u2018Thanks, Pa, but no way.\u2019 Our argument unfolds in a few beats of nothing at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n All telling.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But there\u2019s absolutely no way to show<\/u> this past history without diving into entire chapters of pointless backstory. Those chapters would have murdered any forward momentum in the plot, whereas three or four paragraphs of reflection work perfectly fine \u2013 especially because the reader will by this point be very curious about that past of Fiona\u2019s. (They\u2019ll still be curious, because Fiona still hasn\u2019t talked about The Big Thing that makes her the way she is.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Then it finishes. Finishes with a truce.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018You look after yourself, love. If you need anything, you just say.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I will, Dad. Thanks.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Back to showing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s bedtime. I feel oceanically tired. Tonight, I know it already, I\u2019m going to sleep well. I\u2019m home.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Back to telling.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n REFLECTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In a way, there’s not much to reflect on this week. For me, two things stand out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Really, the choice between showing and telling is a choice between Efficiency <\/strong>(telling) and Drama <\/strong>(showing.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Altering the reader to the fact that it\u2019s midday? Probably better told. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennet? I\u2019d show that if I were you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *** <\/p>\n\n\n\n FEEDBACK FRIDAY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once again, Feedback Friday comes straight from the\u00a0Write With Jericho<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0course this week. Sophie has asked you to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n