In almost a year on ABC I have learned two things:
1. Show, don't tell
2. Never use adverbs
I've often wondered why the Americans substitute adjectives for adverbs (she's done good), and rule 2 explains it. Previously I thought they were talking about Mother Theresa - she did some good - but most of us have to be satisfied with doing well or, if we are to be literary heroes, just doing.
Are these rules sufficient to make me a writer of great literature, or is there anything else I should know?
Ewan | July 21, 2009 - 16:33
Almost.
Do not spell korrekt. (note not adverb).
Do not, punctuate krekt.
Do NOtbE consistent.
bukharinwasmyfa... | July 22, 2009 - 14:20
Well, I'm not sure if those rules are even correct in a general sense. Breaking them is a common symptom of bad writing but it's not usually the cause of it.
There's definitely a place for telling over showing in poetry - particularly if you're making a point or statement to the reader. There's plenty of telling in 'If' and it does what it does very effectively. Adrian Mitchell's 'Tell Me Lies' is a similarly tell heavy effort from a different point on the political spectrum.
The problem is stuff that just tells and leaves the reader with nothing to do with their imagination and/or just tells stuff that is unlikely to provoke any reaction.
And you really need to use adverbs very often if you're writing in the first person. It's not that adverbs are bad, it's that they don't work as a replacement for description or ideas.
Writing that 'the room was very dirty, in fact it was astonishingly dirty' is a rubbish piece of writing if the character then walks out of the room and the reader finds out nothing else. But it's a perfectly reasonably way to start a section in the voice of a character going into the astonishingly dirty room if they then going on to explain the extreme dirtiness.
FTSE100 | July 22, 2009 - 14:34
Paul Raymond's bedroom?