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Clementine was a girl about the age of seven and was known to be the creepiest child you would ever have the misfortune of meeting. It was not her red hair that spun in circlets around her face, unsure of where to go. Nor was it her short and chubby stature that made her stick out from the rest of the kids in her class. Her freckles made a perfectly natural smattering on her face, and she had gotten past her lisp last year. Even the gap between her front teeth looked normal at first glance, as many children her age were missing baby teeth, which you would be forgiven for thinking was the case for her.
The first thing that you might notice about this girl that was unsettling, was the way she stared at you. You could be minding your own business at a grocery store, when you felt a presence prick the edge of your senses. Spinning around, no ominous figure would be breathing down your neck. Just a little girl, sitting in a shopping cart, a good many paces away. You might try to dismiss her out of hand, but she would keep staring, sucking her thumb, completely ignoring the little ipad next to her in the cart.
You might try to pretend you hadn’t noticed, or try to move away, putting a blockade between yourself and the child, but for some reason, the sense she was staring at you wouldn’t go away. This was because indeed, she had not stopped staring at you. No matter what object you placed between yourself and her, she somehow had the uncanny ability to still keep her eyes laser focused on the point of space where you were, and she would keep staring at you until either something important distracted her, such as one of her fathers catching her with her thumb in her mouth again, or if for some inexplicable reason, there was someone else she needed to focus on. This was the first reason you might find the little girl disturbing.
The second you would only find if you spoke with her for at least 5 minutes. It had to be at least 5 minutes, because that would be when she would bring it up. You could be a kid about her age on the playground, meeting her for the first time, going over the rules of a game you wanted to play. At exactly 5 minutes into the conversation, she would interrupt whoever was talking, including herself, to tell you something about your shadow. It would seem arbitrary, but also oddly specific.
“Your shadow is quite tall.” She told a little old woman on the train.
“Your shadow has pointy fingers.” She told her teacher.
“Your shadow is trying to run away.” She told a man standing in line at a coffee shop.
“Your shadow has big ears.” She told a woman scrolling through her phone.
“Your shadow is really big.” She told the mail carrier.
“Your shadow is in pain.” She told the other kid on the playground, who promptly looked at her confused, then scared, then angry, and pushed her to the ground before running away.
It was a very odd behavior that her parents did not understand. They took her to a child psychologist, a therapist, and just about every doctor they thought might help have answers. Each time, she would tell the doctors about their shadows. Each time, they would ask her what she was talking about. Each time she ignored the question and prattled on about learning to ice skate, or how the moon controlled the waves in the sea.
The only people she would talk about the shadows too were her parents, and only for a few minutes at a time. Being the only consistent people in her life, as their family had to move a lot for work, they got relatively frequent updates on the state of their shadows.
“Papa, your shadow is slouching a lot.”
“Daddy, your shadow seems angry again.”
“Papa, could you ask your shadow why it’s crying?”
“Daddy, your shadow is hugging you too tight.”
About once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, they would get these updates, and they would often take the opportunity to ask her questions about the shadows, what she saw, and what she thought they were.
If they insisted on continuing the conversation, she would burst into tears and would be inconsolable until they managed to distract her enough with treats, activities, or toys.
What could Elon Musk have done with the money instead of buying Twitter?
I'll go first. He could have bought and returned all the items that the British Museum holds hostage, that isn't even on display, just sitting in storage, to the people they rightfully belong to and hold cultural significance for.
Honestly, show don't tell is something I feel even I struggle with and I'm pretty sure anyone who writes faces it. Finding a balance is hard. When to show and when to tell can become an inherent feeling though. However, there are some things I've learnt and I hope they help you!
❥︎Emphasise Sensory Detailing: Not only does packing a scene with sensory details help readers imagine the setting, it also gives your characters a distinct physical world to interact with. Rather than simply saying that a character is in New York, describe the light reflecting off the Hudson River, or the towering colossus of the Statue of Liberty.
❥︎Describe body language and avoid emotional explanation when showing.
❥︎Like I said, focus on describing senses and lean more on the usage of imagery too, it'll help if you understand that literary device. I have a post on how to use imagery in writing which helps a lot when showing and not telling. Pick adjectives that you use to describe and replace them with sensory descriptions. Eg:
+ He was scared when he saw the lion at the exit.
+ His heart raced when he saw the lion looming at the end of his escape route.
See what I did here?
Did you feel the difference?
❥︎ learn from examples of 'Show, Don't tell' by reading. The most basic.
❥︎ Use of Dialogue: can also teach readers about characters through word choice, tone, and POV. For instance:
The tray flipped and drenched her in wine. She shrieked and jumped out of her seat, glaring at the waiter.
And
The tray flipped and drenched her in wine but all she did was sigh and smile in understanding.
The scene is the same but the character's approach was different in each case. The former seems kind while the latter seems to be a temperamental character.
❥︎Make your character do something out of ordinary, something that breaks the routine or would make a heavier impact. For eg:
If a character speaks in long-winded, erudite sentences, readers might gather that they are pompous and well-educated. If this same character suddenly begins speaking in terse, short bursts later in the novel, readers might note that something in that character has shifted.
If they're described as someone who never cooks say and then at some time they cook for the live interest, it'll pique the reader’s Interest because it was uncharacteristic of them to do.
❥︎Having a diverse vocabulary, imagination and the ability to use literary devices like metaphors will greatly aid in Show don't tell.
❥︎And lastly, It's fine if you don't get it right the first time because that's how writing works. The more you read, attempt and err, the more you learn. But having an idea of what to do will go a great way in guiding and saving time.
Hope it helps! Follow for more, like and share! <3
