Flash Fiction / Blogging

Show don't tell. How many times have you heard this writing advice? But why is it better to show than tell? Here's the skinny.

While I was a teaching assistant at the University of Pittsburgh I taught freshman composition. I was allowed to pick a text for the class to use. On the suggestions of more senior teaching assistants I picked Imaginative Writing (The Elements of Craft) by Janet Burroway. This is what she wrote about sense impressions:

"But it is sense impressions that make writing vivid, and there is a physiological reason for this. Information taken in through the five senses is processed in the limbic system of the brain, which generates sensuous responses in the body...Emotional response consists of these physiological reactions, and so in order to have an effect on your reader's emotions, you must literally get into the limbic system, which you can only do through the senses."

This is why a writer should use as many concrete sense details as possible as opposed to abstractions, generalizations and judgments. Concrete sense details are "things" you can see, smell, hear, taste or touch. But concrete sense details must be intentional. Snow is not just snow. Water is no just water and a cathedral is not just a cathedral. They must all inform the story with meaning greater than their physical selves.

So, stock your short stories and flash fiction with intentional things and watch the stories come alive. Show don't tell.