Evoking Sensation In Your Reader

 Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader--not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling it is being rained on.

The quote above could be reduced to three words--Don't tell. Show. If you tell your readers that it is raining, they are not going to have any sensation of rain. Show it and their memory bank will be pricked and the thoughts of rainy days they've experienced will slip through.

If we've ever gotten caught in the rain without raincoat or umbrella, we know the feeling of raindrops on skin, the wind making us cold and wet and goosebumps rising on our arms and neck. We know the way our wet hair droops and falls over our forehead letting rain run in rivulets down our cheeks and nose. We remember how our wet clothes clung to our bodies and dripped down our legs onto our feet. We think about the way we splashed hurriedly through puddles to get home where it was warm and dry. 

Write that It was raining when Jill left the park. and all you think about is that it is raining, none of the above. 

Show me that a man named Jim has the flu and my own memories of times when I suffered through it are going to rise to the surface. Tell me that Jim had flu and felt awful and I will slide right by and not think about his feverish body, his runny nose, his throat that hurt so bad he kept rubbing his neck to make it better, that his eyes burned and watered and on and on. We all know how really crummy we feel when we have an illness like this. 

Yes, good writing should evoke sensation in the reader and good writing will almost always choose show over tell. Once in awhile, we can get away with telling but keep it minimal.

Why don't we forgo telling and choose showing in nearly every instance? That's not hard to figure out. It's ever so much easier to tell than to show. It's one more symptom of lazy writing. Your mind has to work harder to show but, create a habit to do so, and you'll soon find that you don't have to think about it, that you show as your way to write. It becomes automatic. 

Writing With Emotion

 

Two posters today that bring some insight to writing with emotion while bringing some emotion to the reader, as well. Both are helpful in creating a good piece of writing. 

The first poster quote by E.L. Doctorow tells us that we need to make our readers identify someting. Not that it's raining but that they feel that rain as they read. The way to do that is to show what you're writing about, not merely tell or report. 'The rain came harder, and Jean began to shiver as her clothes felt heavier and her hair plastered itself to her head. Her shoes squished as she plodded down the muddy road.' Doesn't that give you more of a picture, even make you shiver a bit, than if you said 'It rained as Jean walked home.'?

Look at the quote by Robert Frost. Sometimes, memoir writers hold back their real feelings as they write. It might be too painful to experience those emotions that assailed them during a traumatic event all over again. But, isn't the reason for writing the memoir to visit that part of life again and try to figure it out? If you hold those emotions inside, your reader is not going to feel what you're writing about either. You'll be reporting what happened but that's all. 

One of the reasons we write memoir is to help us heal after a difficult time in our lives. No, it isn't a cure-all, but one step in healing. As you write, relive the experience and let the emotions rumble and roil, bring them to the surface. You might write with tears wetting your cheeks, or you could feel a lot of anger or frustration. Isn't that one of the reasons you're writing a memoir about a troubling time in your life? To let it out? There is no shame in being emotional while writing. I think it's when you'll end up with some of your best writing.

All memoirs aren't sad tales. If you're writing a memoir about growing up in a special family, show the joy that you lived with, the special qualities your parents and siblings had. Show the laughter and the love. Don't only tell it. Feel it and your reader will, as well.

What if you're writing a humorous story or personal essay? If you write with a sour face, that humor is not going to come through as well as it might if you write with a smile on your face and an occasional chuckle. 

Emotion and sensation are both parts of writing a writer needs to perfect. Keep in mind that showing rather than telling will be a great help in both of these aspects. 

That Old Show, Don't Tell Once Again

Several years ago, I read an article urging writers to show, not tell. It's advice that has been given so many times in articles, books, and writers' workshops that you'd think no one would ever do otherwise. But maybe that's why the advice continues to be spread far and wide--precisely because too many writers want to tell a story rather than show it to the reader as it happened.

When you use more show than tell, a story comes alive. It's almost always more interesting when written this way. But what can you do to write your story this way? Let's look at a few examples:

Which of these sentences is more interesting? A tells us how Jennifer felt, but B shows us. Passage B not only shows emotion, it creates emotion in the reader, as well.

A. Jennifer felt angry.


B. Jennifer stormed into the kitchen, picked up a bowl of gravy and threw it against the wall. Body shaking, she clenched her hands into fists and searched wildly for another missile to hurl.

Now, look at this passage from Lois Newberry's award winning book Number The Stars which tells the story of a young girl living in Nazi-occupied Denmark. On her way home from school, Annemarie runs into two German soldiers. The author could have written 'Annemarie was frightened by the soldiers.' Instead, she showed us how Annemarie felt with this passage which shows us precisely why she is fearful:

Annemarie stared up. There were two of them. That meant two helmets, two sets of cold eyes glaring at her, and four tall shiny boots planted firmly on the sidewalk, blocking her path to home. And it meant two rifles, gripped in the hands of the soldiers.

It's a lot easier to simply tell a story, but if you take the more difficult path and show your story, it will almost always be the better way to a reader's heart.