Writers Tricks of the Trade VOLUME 7, ISSUE 3 | Page 10

D EALING W ITH “T ELL ”
Fred Rayworth
I get a lot of grief from tell, even though I’m very aware of it. In my own
work, where I thought I was clean of most, if not all tell, guess what? When I got
into that deep edit recently of Treasure Of The Umbrunna, the editor found
plenty.
Ahem…
As an editor myself, tell was one of the largest hurdles I had to overcome
in my own writing. When I see it in other writing, I often cringe.
TO TELL OR NOT TO TELL – ACTIVE VOICE
Fred Rayworth
A man of many tal-
Everybody’s heard the old mantra, “What are you talking about? What
ents
about telling a story? Haven’t you ever heard your mother or father tell you a
VISIT FRED’S OWN
bedtime story?”
BLOG
Well— by telling you a story, they’re narrating a story to you, reading it
http://fredrayworth.com
either from text, reciting it from memory— or making it up. They’re relating
something to you, telling you something.
That’s what telling really means.
––
When it comes to reading a story yourself, when the author tells it to
you in text, they’re relating the story ideas to you in a non-active and passive
way. In other words, a disembodied voice other than the character is telling you
about what is happening rather than the character showing it to you through
their actions.
Example: Mary felt giddy when she met John.
Why is that tell? Why is that not active?
Mary felt: The author is telling you Mary felt giddy. The author shouldn’t
tell you that.
Mary should show you that through her actions or thoughts.
Also, when is passive because it’s vague and she could’ve met him a year
or a few seconds ago. Who knows? The next few or previous sentences will or
have explained that, but t–hen that addition to the sentence becomes moot.
How about this: Mary shook John’s hand. An electric shiver ran up her
arm. Wow! This guy is hot!
Okay, now it’s active. We know when it took place. Mary made clear and
showed you what she felt, not the author.
It’s easy to get lazy and just write it down in the simplest terms we
know. I do it all the time and have to clean up the mess afterward. I try to look
for key tell words like felt, wondered, seemed, etc, but don’t always see them
because my mind fills in blanks of what I’m thinking rather than what I’m read-
ing.
, a RITERS
great
be the boost you need to rock sales. If you get a terri- S UMMER 2017
W
’ T review
RICKS OF could
THE T RADE
P AGE 3
ble review, it could just as easily kill your sales. It could also boost your sales
from people who either like what the reviewer doesn’t like, want to read it just