3T Writing Tidbit - Show, Don't Tell - Without Losing Your Style

I've reached the end of a long day -- working 45 hour weeks and this is my one day off half of which I used to take the cats to the vet. In the other half, I've scheduled two years of 2T Repeat Performances and written four 3T Writing Tidbits, but I need to finish off 2026 for writing tidbits and I'm out of cards and ideas.

So I turned to Chat GPT. Bless you, AI, for giving a tired brain ideas and outlines.

Writers get told things like "show, don't tell." A good idea, but commands from on high, told so often they begin to sound like laws, become so set in stone that if you break them you're going to writerly jail and will be forced to use a 1986 word processor for the rest of your life.

Fortunately, not only is "show don't tell" not a law, sometimes telling is the shortcut your story needs. 

First, what are show and tell? 

• Show. The character experiences it, so the reader experiences it. The reader experiences it, she gets pulled into the story.
• Tell. The character or narrator relates it, so the reader hears about it instead of experiencing it.

Now, when do you use each?

• Show. This is the musical equivalent of an aria or solo. It's for the big emotional scenes. In stories it's also for action scenes where the stakes are high, or where the action resolves inner or outer goals or plot points.
• Tell. This is the dialog in a musical. Transitions, routines. You can also tell when the style of telling helps build character, for example punk rocker Nixie's inner monologue scoping sexy but uptight lawyer Julian "Hawt suit, lotsa skrilla, but daggy." (Hot establishment-guy, rich but unfashionable.)

So how do you show, don't tell, without losing your writing style?

Trick question! It's not showing or telling that's the point, it's using the best tool for keeping your reader immersed in your story. 

Also, while AI is great and getting better every day, you notice how the premise "without losing your style" (Chat GPT used "voice") isn't fulfilled except in the tell portion? 

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.   

2T Repeat Performance - The Ancient One (Not Tilda Swinton)

 

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published February 25, 2014 for My Odd Little World

Thank you to Nancy and My Odd Little World for having me here again!

The Ancient One

Biting Love vampires are powerful, dark creatures. They only get more so as they age. My heroes range from hundreds of years old to thousands, each with their own challenges and strengths. Ric Holiday is turned as a boy of ten in Beauty Bites. He bursts from the soil only to flop in the moonlight like a newborn bird—thank goodness savvy twelve-year-old Aiden is there to help and guide him. Logan Steel, blond hair brushing his broad shoulders, has acquired the insouciant grace of his four hundred years by the time Biting Me Softly takes place. Black-haired black-eyed maestro Dragan Zajicek from new release Downbeat and lawyer Julian Emerson from Biting Nixie are both well over a thousand, and have mastered the advanced vampire fighting technique of shapeshifting. Spartan warrior Nikos wears his several millenniums like sharp-studded armor.

Then there’s the Ancient One.

His voice is deep, dark and cool as a cave. He seems damned near omniscient.

And that’s all we know about him to start.

Gradually through the series we learn more about him. His name is Mr. Elias. He loves to bargain. He has a ward. His first name is Kai. He has a personal history with Nosferatu, the leader of the Coterie. He’s the most dangerous being on the planet.

He’s one of the oldest vampires walking the earth. He’s head of the Iowa Alliance, vampires who live in harmony with humans, treating them as equals (as opposed to the Coterie vamps who would treat humans as blood cattle). Assassin Aiden Blackthorne will say about the Ancient One in Assassins Bite: Strange, when he thought about it. The oldest among them behaved most like he’d kept his humanity.

After six books and three short stories, in Downbeat, we get to meet the Ancient One in the flesh. Acres of hard-muscled flesh. I can’t say much without spoilers, except that this is a scene I’ve been waiting and wanting to write since 2008.

But Elias has been waiting a lot longer :)

Is he a good guy or bad? An anti-hero like Zajicek? Will the Ancient One have his own story or be forever dark and alone?

I’m waiting to tell.

He’s waiting too. Not patiently, but like a volcano, apparently placid, but powerful and seething underneath.