No writing rules? - 'Show, Don't Tell'

My first novel is written and almost ready. In it I use a number of new and old literary techniques.

There are many rules which inhibit the freedom of storytellers. 'Show, Don't Tell' is just one of them.

A little while ago I read a pamphlet from the huge established publisher Hachette. On the cover of the pamphlet were the words: 'NO RULES - Just write'. It sounded great...

The next pages of the pamphlet contained many established rules which went way beyond the simple rules of sentence structure, grammar and spelling. For example, under the title: 'Describing your characters' it reads: 'It was once the convention to spend a long time describing characters...nowadays we try to show character through action rather than tell the reader about it.'

That's putting it mildly! Nowadays, 'Show, Don't Tell' is almost a commandment! If you ever hope to be published then make sure you obey the rules and norms - after all, that's how all new writing styles started isn't it? No, it's generic and it keeps within the rules. We are not clones.

But 'Show, Don't Tell' is one of the rules which almost all modern writers seem to agree on. We have had it pounded into us like being pummeled with a cushion. If the establishment say that telling a reader that a particular character is 'mean' or 'good' or 'unduly pedantic' is in fact insulting to a reader's intelligence then who are we to question that?

There is (they say) one way to reveal character traits - and that is to show a character doing (for example) 'mean'  things. So, introduce a character who eats children and who squashes frogs for fun and the reader will work out that they are mean. Yes, that works, but it also infringes on the freedom of the storyteller (who faces enough pressures already). It isn't intrusive and it is not a measure of a writer's respect towards his or her readers to use an old technique.

The Show Don't Tell commandment is taken to the nth degree by the establishment. All passages are scanned for any slight chance that a storyteller is being too intrusive. The author must step back from the work. There is no leeway.

I'd like to argue that this is infringing on the basic freedom of writers. I don't want to say that 'showing' is wrong - it isn't. Showing is highly effective. What I want to argue is that 'telling' isn't wrong either and that doing both can free up a writer a little.

So, because I am still a Christian (show don't tell) I'm going to use the Bible to prove this...

There is one final authority when it comes to everything and anything according to most Christians. That is the Bible. So I would like to 'show' from the Bible just how many times the storytellers who wrote the books within used 'telling' as a technique.

So, for research, I spent two long hours this morning going through the Bible page by page (the closest I've come to a Bible for any length of time for a while :-)).

You could argue that the Bible is not fiction (or that it is) or that it is not to be interpreted in a literary way - but the Bible contains stories and we approach it as readers listening to stories. It's a meta-narrative. The authors of these stories chose to present them in a certain way, whether they are history, parable or allegory. It is considered to be very well written by many people.

So, here are some examples of telling in the Bible...

• Genesis 6:9-10 (GNB) Noah - "Noah had no faults and was the only good man of his time."

• Genesis 25:27 Jacob and Esau - "...and Esau became a skilled hunter, a man who lead the outdoor life, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home. Isaac preferred Esau..."

• Genesis 38:7 Er - "Er's conduct was evil..."

• Judges 11:1 Jepththah - "Jepththah, a brave soldier from Gilead was the son of a prostitute."

• Ruth 2:1 Boaz - "Naomi had a relative named Boaz, a rich and influential man..."

• 1 Samuel 2:12 The sons of Eli - "The sons of Eli were scoundrels. They paid no attention to the LORD..."

• 1 Samuel 18:1 Jonathan - "...Saul's son Jonathan was deeply attracted to David and came to love him as much as he loved himself."

• 1 Samuel 25:2-3 Nabal and Abigail - "His wife Abigail was beautiful and intelligent, but he was a mean, bad tempered man."

• Job 1:1 Job - "There was a man named Job...he was a good man, careful not to do anything evil."

That was just from a quick scan of the Old Testament. What about the new testament?

• Matthew 1:19 Joseph - "Joseph was a man who always did what was right..."

And here are some of Christ's parables. I hear he was considered a storyteller of some talent...

• Matthew 25:2 Christ's parable of the 10 virgins - "Five of them were foolish, and the other five were wise."

• Luke 16:19 Christ's parable about The rich man and Lazarus - "There was once a rich man who dressed in the most expensive clothes and lived in great luxury every day."

• Luke 18:2 Christ's parable of the persistent widow - "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man."

And here is Luke talking...

• Luke 2:40 Christ - "The child grew and became strong: he was full of wisdom, and God's blessings were upon him."

And John...

• John 1:14 God - "The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us."

And these were just some of the passages which I found from a brief study (I've left others out). It's true that the Bible authors also 'show' - but they don't only show. Many of them tell as well.

Today Christ would be rejected by the establishment as an amateur.

Does that make him a rebel?

Trying to break through

I remember reading a regular newspaper columnist and wishing that the columnist would break through into something new. I would read her column and I would think, 'Yes, it's a pretty good column, but you could break through into something deeper - you can do so much better than this.' 
But she never did.

Just before the Iraq war I remember thinking that Tony Blair could have prevented the war. He could have acted like Hugh Grant in 'Love Actually', he could have said to Bush, 'No, this isn't right, we shouldn't go to war'.
But he never did.

Sometimes I look at the Queen and I think - 'How can you just let so many of the bad things which happen in this country go on? You could be so much better than this - you could really make a difference, you could easily speak out and make things better.'
But she hasn't so far.

And I look around and I just think - you can't really change people. You can't really change people in powerful positions.

I'm often told, 'The only person you can change is yourself'.

But even that is so hard. I'm left wanting others to change first.

I'm not a leader. It means that my responsibility to change isn't as great as that of those in power. But if I can change, if I can make things better - if I can somehow break through into something new, at least I will have achieved something.

So it remains my conviction that I can't change others, that I can only change myself. That I can only attempt to accept others for who they are.

But I still want to break through into something new.

Hey!! Perhaps I could become really evil!!? :-D
It can't be that hard! :-D

The Owl Flies at Night - free ebook

My short story experiment 'The Owl Flies at Night' is free tonight and tomorrow for anyone who has a Kindle or the free Kindle for PC app. I wanted to offer it free on Amazon but can't so I've put it at the lowest possible price. The Amazon system allows me to give five days free promotion every three months so please take a look as it is available now.

The Owl Flies at Night

Think happy thoughts

Probably the most useful advice I have heard when it comes to the whole sphere of cognitive discipline is from the musical 'Passion' by Sondheim.

There is a scene in which the sick Fosca is walking in a garden with her future lover, Giorgio. Fosca is obsessed with death and can think only about morbid things. She is terrified by her imagination. Giorgio listens to her describe her fears of death and then gives his solution. Here is the dialogue:

Giorgio: These thoughts are bad for you. You must concentrate 
on everything around you that suggests life. These 
trees, these flowers, the warm smell of the air - 

Fosca: You make it sound so simple Captain. As if a flower 
or a tree could somehow make one happy.


Despite Fosca's complaint, Giorgio does have a point. I don't think it is entirely superficial to agree with him in his prescription for depression.

So the only question is - how do you think happy thoughts when almost everywhere we are presented with sadness?

And my answer: I have absolutely no idea.

Think happy thoughts.

Chagrined at the BBC

People who get frustrated with the BBC news and end up ranting at their television screens will know how I feel today. TV news has the capacity to cause exasperation, anger, sympathy, solidarity - a whole spectrum of human emotions.

So, when the BBC announced that they were holding a public consultation about their news and current affairs output I thought this would be a great opportunity to rant directly at the BBC and (naive as I am), that someone would actually listen.

I was one of over 9000 respondents to the survey and one of probably very few who waded through the resulting reports. Yes, that's right dear reader, I read this stuff so that you don't have to waste your life on it!

Firstly, I can report, that I felt chagrined after reading the published reports. I felt chagrined partly because I like the word chagrined and you should always have favourite words. But partly it was because none of my carefully thought out and valid concerns (rants) were acknowledged.

For example, I complained that the BBC is far too linked with Government and that other countries effectively saw it as a kind of propaganda. Nothing in the report about that. Before you write me off as an eccentric, I have to say that I did have other, perhaps more valid, complaints.

For example I thought it may make a difference to state that much of the news output I saw was too negative. There is a happy history of people complaining that news output is obsessed with negativity. So I thought I would join the bandwagon (a bandwagon which may or may not have fallen off a cliff edge some time ago). And guess what? The BBC chose this one moment to look for the positive when writing up their report! They said there really is no consensus among viewers on the things they are doing wrong and that in general people felt very positive and trusting of the BBC news output. Way to go BBC - now you see the positive! Does the BBC's fabled objectivity have a blind spot?

To quote the recurring theme of the reports: "The BBC is seen as a very high-quality news provider 

The audience’s overall impression of BBC News is high."

Chagrined I tell you!

Anyway, as everyone keeps telling me, 'it's not about you'. There were special consultations to the following organisations:

• Campaign Against Arms Trade
• International Broadcasting Trust
• Jews for Justice for Palestinians
• Keep our NHS public
• Newsnight Cymru/Newsnight Wales Campaign
• RadioCentre
• Stonewall
• UK Changing Union
• UK Metric Association
• UTV Media
• Voice of the Listener and Viewer

These organisations seemed to want to complain too. But the report didn't seem to contain much about their own 'rants'. Campaign Against the Arms Trade seemed similarly chagrined that much of the reporting on the arms trade was superficial and uncritical. Jews for Justice for Palestinians were chagrined that the coverage of the situation within Israel was inaccurate and misleading of all sides

Basically everyone was chagrined for one reason or another. But our diverse rants didn't seem to make the BBC want to change significantly.

To be fair (do I have to?), the reports also stated some areas of improvement based on the consultation. Attempting to find any consensus in their confused, fragmented viewers, the BBC eventually decided that people had complained that the BBC news tends to feel 'distant' from some viewers. This sense of alienation from the news output will be solved by employing a more diverse workforce. Which is fair enough and is a continuation of the BBC's existing policy.

And, in an attempt to be objective myself, it seemed that the other respondents really didn't feel as negative towards the BBC as I did. I have given up asking questions. So they will increase diversity, continue to expand to new digital arenas (while maintaining TV news as their core output). They may or may not play around with the license fee. Depends how they feel on the day I suppose.

I just feel that sometimes institutions don't listen at all. And it isn't just me. It's simply that there are agendas and economic considerations which prevent huge organisations (including the BBC) from making radical, conscientious changes. 

So, that's basically the general gist of the reports. No major change for us viewers. A million and one occasionally chagrined people expressing various emotions towards their TV screens (much of it valid, yet unheard). And the result?

To quote from another of the long, tedious, reports:

"Sustaining citizenship and civil society - 

The BBC generally delivers its commitments in this area well."

Think happy thoughts citizen!

An Easter parable for David Cameron

The palace of the king

Once upon a time there was a powerful king who ruled a land filled with all kinds of people. Some of the people were concerned about the land and they had asked the previous king if things would get better for them all. They had also asked this old king what he had thought about God (because it was an important question for many of the people).

"We don't do God," said the old king, but he assured the people that he was one of 'them'.

Some of the other people then began to blame 'them' when the old king went off to march to war (or at least sent his people off to war (because his legs ached when he marched)). Some of 'them' were horrified that he had said he was one of 'them' and had then gone to war (because 'them there people' didn't like war on the whole).

The new king was only a little different (as kings often are). The new king presided over a court who believed that the people in his land would be a lot happier if they learned to stand on their own two feet and stop complaining about their lot. He believed that these people needed to quit complaining and get on with his Big Plan. Some of the people in the country were unhappy because they didn't have their basic needs, but the king was adamant that they had made the decision to be unhappy themselves and they needed to learn to take responsibility (because responsibility never belongs to kings) and to pull themselves up by their bootstrings and count their blessings (because he liked to point out people who were worse off. 'Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London...' he may have said (except he liked to keep himself to himself and not mix with the hoi polloi)). If only the people would support him and carry out his Big Plan then things could go on as usual and he could stay king, he thought.

When some of the people asked this new king what he thought about God, the king said, "We do do God and I am one of 'them' too." He went on to talk about how God was on his side in his Big Plan and that he was just carrying out God's own plan from way, way back, many centuries ago.

Again, some of the people were horrified that this new king had told all the people that he was one of 'them' because the other people always took this as a bad sign (that was partly because of the previous king and because it was simply not cool to be 'one of them'). Cool was always as cool looked, not as cool did. Kings were not cool and 'they' were not cool.

So the king waited for a huge festival that 'they' liked (just a little while before the people would decide if he could remain king). And then he said that the poor people in the land would have to work ever so much harder because they were not carrying out the Big Plan. And besides that, he said, God was with him so anyone who disagreed was really disagreeing against God. Well, he left that conclusion to their imaginations. He said that he hadn't said these words so that the people would keep him as their king... no, not at all, nosiree (after all there are those who say all kings are the same).

So the people, all kinds of people, waited and looked for some kind of hope for the future. But they feared that all kings really were the same. And when kings said they were one of 'them', it was the 'them' who got the blame (even though 'they' were not the enemy).

So all that could be hoped was that things would get better and the kings would have a change of heart. And if they really did do God and really did have a Big Plan for a 'broken land' (which may or may not have been misdiagnosed (but who can argue with God?)), then one day things would change for the better and they would not march off to war or make things worse in the land again.

But kings are kings.

Latest project - Leah and the Football Dragons

I've been collaborating on a new project to get this children's story published as an ebook. I designed the cover, formatted to book and wrote the blurb. Paul Mullins did the hard work and wrote the book! It is a fun story written from the heart:

Here is the blurb:

There are all kinds of dragons. There are successful dragons who always win and sit on their piles of gold. And then there are the Deadtail Dragons, a boys football team who know only of defeat. 

There is only one talented footballer who can change the fortunes of the Deadtail Dragons. And there is just one problem. That footballer is a girl. 

How can Leah win when her local football teams only accept boys? How can she succeed when they tell her that ‘Girls can’t play football’? 

Taking her own destiny in her hands Leah comes up with a bold plan to both fulfil her sporting dreams and help the Deadtail Dragons to fly. 

Written by football reporter Paul Mullins, Leah and the Football Dragons is a story for children aged 8 upwards.

A lot of the ebook was effectively crowdsourced - we let other people decide on the best cover and title.

So well done Paul on your first published tale.

If you get the time, check out the book on Amazon: Leah and the Football Dragons.