As writers we are often told to “Show, don’t tell.” What does this mean?

To tell it—easy, show it—page turner. David was impressed with that sentence (telling using narrative summary). David’s eyes devoured the typed words—a smile filled his face. Wow. I didn’t believe I had that in me (showing using both action and interior monologue).

Randy Ingermanson has written an excellent description of the tools used in showing and telling. I added the descriptions for each word(s). His full article can be read here.

When we say “showing,” we mean that the author is using the following tools:

• Action. Doing something toward your goal, achieving a purpose, important events in your novel.
• Dialogue. Characters words, formal discussion, spoken words between two or more people in your book.
• Interior Monologue. Expressions of a character’s thoughts and feelings.
• Interior Emotion. A strong feeling or agitation about something or somebody.
• Sensory Description. Heightened sensory (taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing) awareness.

When we say “telling,” we mean that the author is using the following tools:

• Narrative Summary. The story or account of a sequence of events in their proper order.
• Exposition. Act of describing or discussing something in your story. Back-story in your novel.
• Description. The process of giving an account or explanation of something in your story.

An excellent (with examples) definition of Showing and Telling is found at Inspiration for Writers .

“Are you an idiot?” Sam yelled. The glass shattered, causing deep cuts in David’s hand. “What—did you call me?”  If you can show it you can paint a picture in your readers mind, record or film it. In the above example you can sense David’s hand gripping tighter around his glass until it breaks bringing pain (can’t you picture the blood dripping on the floor and hear the anger in David’s voice?).

Here are two examples from my current WIP. You tell me if they are showing or telling. In the first example, Jen (protagonist) meets Perseus (a disguised Greek Prince) for the first time. The second paragraph, from my first novel, describes Jen’s impression when meeting her Supreme Commander of her Army for the first time.  What examples of Showing and telling do you have from your WIP?  

• Jen waved the line closer and for the next two hours, she greeted each person and held their hands as they told their story. One young man approached with a bloodstained patch over his right shoulder—his arm hung useless by his side. Jen liked what she saw. He is not rich, by the cut of his clothing and he is Greek, not Egyptian, she thought. His long brown hair, tied in the back, hung down past his broad shoulders. In addition, his dark brown eyes sparkled of pride and courage. Bowing in front of Jen, he thanked her for saving his best friends life with her magic.

• Jen liked what she saw. Narmer was a middle-aged man who had a no-nonsense demeanor. Taller than most of his contemporaries, his hardened face expressed assurance and at the same time wisdom. Jen guessed his weight to be around 180 pounds and almost six feet tall.

WOULD YOU TURN DOWN $500,000 TO EPUBLISH YOUR BOOK?

“A smile is the shortest distance between people.”

                                                                 Victor Borge

I want to welcome my new followers. I will be linking my blog with yours and hope that my articles spark something creative in your writing/publishing experience.

Last night I watched the PBS special on my favorite side-splitting pianist, Victor Borge. One of his routines that he performed dealt with punctuation. As new writers we often struggle with the correct usage of punctuation. His world famous, “Phonetic Pronunciation,” makes it all clear. If you have never heard this before please take four minutes and listen…you will laugh.






The eBook revolution is gaining momentum and many published authors are turning to this means of mass communication. New authors are also jumping on the bandwagon. Only a small percent of their books make a large splash in the reader community. Some are poorly written with little or no editing, bad plot, weak characters and redundant story and a few are brilliant.

I read an article on a published author who turned down a $500,000 advance on his most recent book. Randy Ingermanson has a discussion with James Scott Bell and discuses the pros and cons of the author’s decision. Click the link to read the full interview, http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog (Scroll down halfway to find this article).

A year ago I would not have thought of self publishing my own manuscript much less only doing it through the eBook medium. What are your thoughts on only self publishing as an eBook?

To E-publish or not to E-publish

This is a great 1948 movie on the process of putting a book together. It makes you appreciate the word overhead as viewed through the eyes of a publisher. The number of people it takes to set up, print, collate and finally tie it up into a book is impressive. Add to this the cost of the machines, paper, ink, utilities and you wonder how anyone in the publishing industry earned a profit back then.



Question of the day.

I saw a man today who mimicked the opposite of what I did.

“Who are you trying to kid?" I asked, "how is that possible—how can this be? If I move to the right do you wriggle a knee?”

“Nothing as difficult as that,” he assured with glee. “I’d simply move to the left—now do you see?”

With my eyes fixed firmly on his face, I accepted his challenge and quickened my pace—for it was the middle of the night. I walked to the left—he disappeared from sight.

Who did I meet?

Two excellent articles by Randy Ingermanson* on self publishing.

Why James Scott Bell Chose to E-Publish

Is There A Price For Self-Publishing?

*Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the
Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing
Ezine, with more than 24,000 readers, every month. If
you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction,
AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND
have FUN doing it, visit http://http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing
and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

Creating: Writing Cliffhangers by Randy Ingermanson and a free gift!

The secret to writing novels that readers can't put

down is simple -- in theory. All you have to do is making the ending of each chapterso exciting that your reader can't help but turn the page.

That's a nice theory. How do you do it in practice? The answer depends on the kind of novel you're writing. The purpose of a novel is to give your reader a Powerful Emotional Experience. Each category of fiction creates its own mix of emotional experiences. Each category makes a promise to deliver a certain kind of emotion at the end of thenovel. A romance promises to deliver love. A suspense novel promises to deliver safety. A mystery promises to deliver justice.

As your story progresses, your reader tracks how close you are to delivering the final emotional payoff for your story. If the payoff looks like it's getting closer, your reader's tension eases. If it looks like the payoff is getting further away, your reader's tension tightens.

When something happens at the very end of a chapter to make the payoff suddenly look dramatically less likely, that's a cliffhanger. Lee Child is a master of writing cliffhangers. Child is the author of a series of thrillers starring Jack Reacher, a drifter who left the Army after 13 years as a military cop. Now Reacher hitchhikes around the country, running into one set of bad guys after another and reluctantly puttings right.

Reacher is a skilled street fighter who knows every dirty fighting trick in the book and uses them to get out of trouble. That's a great skill to have when you get in fights with thugs three at a time, or you're threatened by guys with guns.

In one scene in KILLING FLOOR, the first novel in the series, Reacher and a businessman named Hubble are put in prison on a trumped up charge late one night. There's been a murder in town, and both Reacher and Hubble are incidentally connected, even though they're not suspects. They're supposed to be put on the holding floor for nonviolent prisoners. By mistake, they've been put on the floor with the hard guys -- lifers.

By the time Reacher realizes the mistake next morning, the guards aren't around and he's got a pack of toughs in his cell, and they've got rape on their minds. Hubble is cowering in the corner and is clearly not going to be any help. Reacher is on his own.

A lot of authors would end the chapter right there. It would be a nice cliffhanger. Lee Child doesn't do that, because that's not good enough. Instead, he continues the scene. Reacher takes on the first guy, smashes his face with one good head-butt, and then shoos the other thugs out of his cell.

A lot of authors would bring on more hard guys to make some sort of threat against Reacher and end the chapter
there. That would make an even nicer cliffhanger, because it would increase the number of Reacher's enemies -- and now they're forewarned that he's a good fighter.

Lee Child doesn't do that either, because it's still not good enough. Instead, Reacher talks to his cellmate Hubble about the reason they've been arrested. He learns that Hubble's been involved in something crooked that he can't talk about and he's been threatened by somebody he won't even name. If he tells who, Hubble says, they'll nail his limbs to the wall. They'll cut off certain parts of his body and feed them to his wife. They'll cut his throat. They'll cut his wife's throat. They'll make his children watch. Then they'll do unspeakable things to the kiddies. That's where the chapter ends. That's a cliffhanger with some bite to it.

The reason this works better than ending the scene with a physical threat to Reacher is because Jack Reacher can take care of himself, and the reader knows it. A threat against Reacher is just an invitation for a great fight scene. A treat against Hubble, though, creates conflict. Reacher is a drifter who just walked into town, and he barely knows Hubble. Reacher would just as soon walk right on out of town. But now he has to make a choice -- will he get involved or will he leave Hubble in trouble?

The reader doesn't know the answer to that. The reader wants Reacher to get involved, but Reacher hasn't really got a reason yet. He knows he can't be responsible for fixing all the problems of the world, of which there an unlimited number. So he'd just as soon walk away. Will he or won't he?

In the next chapter, Reacher and Hubble go down to the bathroom. They're trapped inside by five huge guys -- Aryan Brotherhood types. Two of them hustle Hubble out of the way, and the other three single out Reacher. It's clear these guys have come to kill. Again, Lee Child doesn't choose this as the cliffhanger ending to his chapter. Instead, he lets the fight run its course. There's a guy choking Reacher from behind and a guy in front about to punch his lights into next
year. Reacher kicks the guy in front of him where it counts the most, breaks the little fingers of the guy choking him, and gouges out the eye of the third wannabe killer. All in a day's work for Jack Reacher.

Next thing you know, the guards rush in, break up the fight, and take Reacher and Hubble up to the holding floor where they should have been to begin with. Reacher does a little thinking and it's clear to him what's going on. The whole thing was a setup. The guards must have put the Aryan boys up to killing Reacher. Not just any guards. The head guy. Somebody important, wants Jack Reacher dead. Somebody who controls the people who run the prison. Somebody big
and nameless. That's where the chapter ends. Again, it's a good solid cliffhanger. Jack Reacher is in danger from somebody he can't see, can't name, and therefore can't fight. The reader doesn't know if Reacher is up to this kind of danger. Neither does Reacher. But this puts tremendous pressure on Reacher to get out of town as soon as he gets bailed out of jail. If he
doesn't, he'll be in over his head against somebody he's unqualified to fight. Leaving Hubble still in massive danger.

The next two chapters have Reacher getting bailed out of jail with Hubble and talking with the cops. He's planning to leave town, but some of the cops are good guys, and they're trying to get any information they can from him before he goes. Then the fingerprint information comes in on the murder victim. The cops have a positive ID on the corpse. They
show it to Reacher, and suddenly he's got all kinds of reasons for staying in town and getting to the bottom of this mystery. Because, by some awful coincidence, the dead man is Reacher's brother. That's a cliffhanger.

Reacher doesn't owe Hubble anything, and he could leave him to his faceless foes. But not when Hubble's enemies are the ones who killed Reacher's brother. Now it's personal. Now Reacher is committed to battling Big Faceless Evil, whether he wants to or not. He's in the crucible now. How in the world is he going to get out? And the story is launched -- with a cliffhanger.

What makes these cliffhangers work? We can extract several principles from the scenes we've seen:

* A good cliffhanger attacks the weak character, not the strong one. It was better to end a chapter with a threat to Hubble than a threat to Reacher.

* A good cliffhanger attacks a strong character at his weakest point. It was better to threaten Reacher with a politically powerful and invisible enemy than to threaten him with a thug.

* Moral obligations are strongest when they involve people close to your character. Reacher might not stay in town to rescue the stranger Hubble, but he has to stay to find justice for his brother.

You're probably in the middle of reading a novel this week. Keep an eye out for any chapter endings that qualify as cliffhangers. Ask yourself these questions:

* Why did the author end the chapter where he did?

* Would the cliffhanger have been stronger if it came earlier or later?

* What emotional forces is the author using to make you turn the page?

* How can you use what you learned about this cliffhanger in your own novel?

If it's 3 AM and your reader hasn't finished your book yet, she really has no business going to bed yet. If you can keep her up all night, she'll hate you in the morning. But she'll buy your next book for sure.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 23,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel. Amazon US is offering an outrageously great deal this week on the Kindle version of my book WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES.
From November 15 to 19, 2010, Amazon US is offering WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES Kindle edition as a FREE
download. Here's a quick link to the page: http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/blinks/wffd_kindle.php


If you do not have a Kindle, no problem. Go to http://www.amazon.com/ and query PC for Kindle (it's free. You need an account and this takes a few minutes). After the download is finished download the free eBook and enjoy.

Marketing: A Killer First Chapter

Today I am ‘stealing a newsletter post’ (the author told me I could) and making it available for my readers. I will also link to the original post and you can sign up for Randy' eZine.

Some of my author friends loathe and despise the word "marketing." It's common for them to say, "The best marketing is good writing."

I agree with them, sort of. I'm not certain that good writing is the VERY BEST marketing a writer can do, but I'm confident that good writing is PRETTY GOOD marketing.

In the weird world of marketing, "pretty good" can be good enough, because nobody knows what the heck they're doing in marketing anyway. Many of the "great"
marketers seem to be people who were successful once on one project for reasons they don't understand, and keep doing that ever after on other projects.

This month I'd like to talk about one aspect of good writing that certainly is good marketing -- writing a killer first chapter.

Some readers will reject a book by its cover, and there's not a thing you can do about that. The cover is your publisher's job. If they create a bad cover, you're at a major disadvantage.

But not all readers are like that. If they like the title, or if they hear good things about your book, many readers will ignore even a dreadful cover and take a look at the first chapter.

That's YOUR responsibility. You can blame the publisher for the cover, but it's lame to blame them for your first chapter.

A good first chapter does four things well:

* It makes a contract with the reader
* It sets a hook in the first sentence
* It sets a second hook near the end of the first page
* It sets a third hook at the end of the chapterLet's talk about each of those in turn, because they're all critical.

First of all, what's a "contract with the reader?"

That's simple. Your book is going to have a certain tone, pacing, style, and genre. Your first chapter should make clear to your reader what that tone, pacing, style, and genre is going to be. Your first chapter is a promise: The rest of the book will be like this one.

Imagine you read the first chapter of a book that has one long, adrenaline-laced car chase that ends with the bad guys driving off a cliff, falling 300 feet, and exploding in flames while the good guy drives off in his Maserati with his arm around a beautiful woman.

If you buy the book hoping for more fast cars and faster women, wouldn't you be outraged to find that the rest of the book is a slow small-town romance set in Milford?

Yes, you would, because Milford and Maseratis don't mix.

Your first chapter is a contract with your reader that says, "If you like this chapter, you'll like the rest of the book, because it's going to be similar."

Once you write the contract and your reader signs it, don't violate it.

Of course your first chapter should NOT telegraph the rest of the story. Your reader doesn't want you to give away the ending in chapter one. Your reader wants a promise of a certain tone, pacing, style, and genre.
Period.

On to the next thing. What's a hook, and why do you need three of them?A hook is something that makes your reader say, "What's going on? What happens next? I've got to read a bit more." That's all a hook has to do.

The reason you need hooks is because your reader always has the option to close the book RIGHT NOW. Early in your book, your reader hasn't yet committed to your story. Early in your book, you need to make the reader commit -- at least to read a bit more.

The reason you need three hooks is because readers have three increasing levels of commitment:

* If your reader likes the first sentence, she'll commit to reading the first page.

* If your reader likes the first page, she'll commit to reading the first chapter.

* If your reader likes the first chapter, she'll commit to the rest of the book. If she's in a bookstore, that's the point at which she buys the book. If she's in the library, it's the point where she puts the book on her checkout list. If she's at a friend's house, it's the point where she asks to borrow the book (or steals it if the friend turns uncooperative).

A hook is generally a sentence or two that DEMANDS the next level of commitment.

Now let's look at two examples of books with strong first chapters and see how well they spell out the contract with the reader and set those three hooks.
Note that hooks are tactical, while the contract with the reader is strategic, so I'll discuss the hooks first and then the contract.


Example: THE HUNGER GAMES, by Suzanne Collins.

THE HUNGER GAMES is a young-adult futuristic adventure novel with overtones of romance told in first-person point of view by a teen female protagonist. It's one of the best books I've read in a very long time and I'll definitely read it again.


Hook #1: The first sentence reads like this:
"When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold."

Analysis: That's a good, solid hook. Obviously, our protagonist is sharing her bed with someone. But who?
And why?

The answers come fairly quickly on the first page. Our heroine shares a bed with her little sister Primrose, a fresh-faced innocent kid whom everybody loves. Prim owns the world's ugliest cat, Buttercup, which our heroine once tried to drown.


Hook #2: At the end of the last paragraph on the first page, we find these two sentences:
"Sometimes when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me."

Analysis: Yikes, our heroine cleans kills? Why? It sounds like our protagonist is not nearly as sweet and lovable as Prim, but she definitely sounds interesting.
What is she killing?

Again, some answers come quickly as the chapter progresses. Our heroine lives in a poor coal-mining town in a poor district of what used to be the USA. Her father is dead, but he left her a bow and she's quite a skilled hunter. It's illegal to hunt outside the town, but she does anyway in order to feed her family. One of her few friends is a boy named Gale whom she often hunts with, splitting the proceeds.

We eventually learn that our heroine has a name, Katniss Everdeen. We learn that Kat isn't romantically interested in Gale, but it's not hard to guess that this might change. Kat is 16 and Gale is 18 and they're friends.

As the chapter progresses, Kat and Gale fish and hunt, then return home for the main event of the day -- the Reaping. One boy and one girl are to be drawn at random from the inhabitants of District 12 to play in the Hunger Games -- a battle to the death between 12 boys and 12 girls from across the nation. The Hunger Games end when only one survivor remains.

Participation in the Reaping is mandatory. Kat shows up, along with Gale and all the other teens in their town. There's a ceremony before the drawing. Speeches.
Stupid talk about "honor." Then the drawing . . .


Hook #3: The final sentence of the chapter tells the name of the girl drawn to represent District 12 in the Hunger Games:
"It's Primrose Everdeen."

Analysis: We're prepared for Kat to be chosen. We even expect it. But she isn't. Her innocent, defenseless, weak little sister is chosen instead.

That's the end of the chapter. That's a brilliant hook.
If you've read that far and you can close the book, then you have no soul. It's that simple. You HAVE to read on to find out what happens next, even though you know from reading the back cover copy that Kat is somehow going to take her sister's place in a brutal set of modern gladiatorial games that will be televised to the nation.

Contract with the reader: The first chapter is written in first person from the point of view of a fairly cynical but hopeful young woman who is clearly a fighter. Katniss is trapped in a bleak, unfair, dangerous world, but she'll do everything she possibly can to survive and to make sure her family survives.
The pacing is quick and every sentence is well-crafted.
The genre is clearly young-adult adventure.

If you are the sort of person who wants either a very slow pace or an adrenaline rocket, then this book isn't for you. If you want all romance and no violence, then skip this book. If you want all fluff and no grit, then you'll be disappointed. The first chapter sets the stage for what's to follow, and if you like the first chapter, you'll love the book.

All of which reminds me that I really want to read this book again.


Example: THE KITE RUNNER, by Khaled Hosseini.

THE KITE RUNNER is a literary novel set in the years between 1975 and the present, told in first-person by a young man who was born in Afghanistan and later came to the US.


Hook #1: The first sentence reads like this, in a chapter datelined December 2001:
"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975."

Analysis: This is clearly going to be a retrospective novel, working through some coming-of-age issues. The immediate questions any reader would ask are these:
What are you today? What happened in 1975? Why don't you sound happy about it?

It's a good solid hook. As the page progresses, we quickly learn that the answers aren't going to come quickly. There's a mystery to be unraveled here. But we also learn that the protagonist is going to face his past, because it's coming back at him now, 26 years later.

In the final paragraph of the first page, the protagonist gets a phone call from Rahim Khan, an old friend in Pakistan, asking him to come visit. Our hero doesn't say yes and he doesn't say no. He goes for a walk in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. There he sees some kites, and that reminds him of an old, jagged
memory:


Hook #2: The paragraph ends with the rather cryptic
sentences:
"And suddenly Hassan's voice whispered in my head: For you, a thousand times over. Hassan the harelipped kite runner."

Analysis: This raises a LOT of questions. Who's Hassan?
What would he do a thousand times over? What's a kite runner? And what's this got to do with 1975?

The rest of the chapter is just one more paragraph. We get another snippet of the phone conversation earlier, Rahim Khan's final comment before he hung up: There is a way to be good again.

That's intriguing. The chapter is short and it ends with the final hook:


Hook #3: The chapter ends with two sentences that set the stage for the rest of the book:
"I thought of the life I had lived until the winter of
1975 came along and changed everything. And made me what I am today."

Analysis: This raises again the questions that were first raised in the first hook. What is our hero today?
What changed in 1975? Why isn't he happy? Will he find a way to be good again?

Contract with the reader: The first chapter is extremely short, just three long paragraphs told in narrative summary. Clearly this is a literary novel about redemption (or lack of it). The pace is going to be measured, the language will be thought-provoking, and the style elegant.

You learn several things in the first chapter: If your idea of a good book is measured in body count, decibels, or steamy scenes, then the first chapter tells you to look elsewhere, because this is not the droid you're looking for. If you insist on getting a happy ending, you know in advance that none is guaranteed here, although one is possible. If you want authentic Afghanistan, then you can tell right away that you'll get it here.

Now what about the first chapter of your novel? What's the hook in the first sentence? What's the hook at the bottom of the first page? What's the hook at the end of the first chapter? What contract do you offer to your reader?

Can you improve your hooks? Can you clarify your contract?

Don't get hung up on perfection here. The question is whether you can improve what you've got right now. If you can, then do so.

If you can't, set these questions aside for another day. You'll be a better writer next month and next year. Like Scarlett O'Hara, you can think about it later.

Credits for the author: I have learned many valuable tips on writing from this site. Check out his other article titled: Creating---The Path of Least Resistance. It is about his theory that every good model of fiction writing has to pass the "Star Wars test.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 19,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

I am now going to check out the hooks, in my first chapter, and see where I placed them. How are the ‘three hooks of your first chapter?