How-to and When-to Show

First off, for anyone in my neck of the woods (lower upstate New York), I’ll be signing at the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival from 10:00 to 4:00’ish (I sometimes leave a little early to catch my train) on September 24th, along with many other great kids’ book writers. Details are here on the website when you click on News and then on Appearances. If you can come, I’d love to see you, and, since I’ll be there all day, we’ll have time to chat.

On to the post. On May 26, 2016, Mary E. Norton wrote, My mother, who is my main beta reader, always tells me that when I write a story I always tell instead of show what is happening. The only thing is I don’t know how to show instead of tell. Can anyone help explain to me how I can achieve this?

Christie V Powell offered these ideas and examples: I think Gail described it as a camera that zooms in. If you’re telling, it’s zoomed out so you get a big panorama picture with few details. If you show, you’re zooming in so the details are prominent.

Tell: Tess climbed the tree and looked for danger.
Show: Tess’s fingers grasped the rough bark as she heaved herself upward, ears alert for any hint of danger.

First two lines of my WIP:
For Keita Sage, crossing the valley floor without detection was the easy part of the rescue. (tell)
She had darted across the brush, her feet sure despite the predawn darkness, but now they trembled inside their awkward, bulky shoes. (show)

For me, portraying emotion is where you really want to be showing.

Jasper was afraid.

Jasper didn’t speak, but a strange rattling sound came from his direction. It took her a moment to realize what it was. The wooden feet of Jasper’s sofa were shaking against the floor. At last he choked out, “Why are you telling me? I can’t go in there.”

And I wrote, A terrific example. Just naming the feeling usually falls flat. I love how the emotion gets transmitted to the sofa.

In showing all the senses may get into the act. My camera lens comparison that Christie V Powell mentioned highlights the visual, but we can also bring in the auditory, as she does with the clattering sofa legs. Smell and touch may be involved, too. Christie V Powell uses touch in her example of the rough bark. She didn’t include smell–which is fine because we don’t want to follow a checklist–but Tess might also have picked up the earthy scent of the forest.

In addition to the sensory, we can also think about the temporal element, which Christie V Powell demonstrated (showed) in her examples. Please notice that her telling examples are shorter than her showing ones. So we can make another analogy. On a tape recorder, telling means pressing the fast-forward button.

And we need that button, which moves a narrative along. If we were to show everything, our stories would be slower than real time and our readers would slip into a coma. We can’t avoid all telling. Telling is baked into language. We are telling creatures. We just need to shift back and forth from one mode to the other.

So how do we move from the more instinctive telling method to the acquired showing way? And how do we know when we should?

One of the effects of showing is to draw our reader inside our character, to make him see what she sees, hear what she hears, etc. Let’s imagine Tess in the forest on the run from Robin Hood and his not-so-merry band, who are convinced she’s going to turn them in to the Sheriff of Nottingham–because lately they’ve been stealing from everyone and giving to themselves.

Often, when I’m writing a scene and I’m not sure about the environment, I use google images. I might google “forest floor” and noodle around. I might also look at forest images, especially old-growth forest, which Sherwood Forest probably would be. I might google “English songbirds” to discover what she might hear. The point is, I want to be inside Tess in that forest.

From my Tess story, I probably know what season it is and what time of day. I probably also know if Tess is a woodlands girl or if she’s spent her life in a castle and a village, and whether or not she’s following a road or a path.

Once I’m prepared and maybe have jotted down a few notes I can start writing.

If Tess is inexperienced in the woods, that can up the ante. She takes a step. The dead leaves are deafening, sound like they’re shouting in dry voices, “Here I am!” She’s listening to her own noise and trying also to hear the sound of hooves or a wild boar crashing through the underbrush, homing in on the scent of her fear.

We’ve covered sound and smell. What does she see? It may be noon, but the forest canopy may be so dense that the light is murky. We may describe from our google images, or we may go into an actual forest if one is nearby. If it’s day she can probably see enough to make her way, but there may be no distance vision. She may imagine the worst lying straight ahead.

If we want to introduce touch as well, Christie V Powell mentioned the rough feel of the bark. She can knock against a tree. We can make her trip on a tree root and encounter the forest floor up close and personal.

We can–should–include her thoughts as part of our showing. She may be nervously narrating everything she’s doing, as in, Now I step gingerly but sound like an elephant. Now I broadcast exactly where I am. Now my heart rises and catapults out of my mouth. Or she may be bargaining frantically. If I survive I will never say a mean word to anyone. I won’t complain. Or something more positive, like, Mother says I’m good in a pinch. Father tells me I’m all determination.

And we can show the physical side of emotions as Christie V Powell does with the couch legs.

In our first draft of a scene in showing, we may write more than we need, but that’s okay. We just snip here and there when we revise.

So that’s the how. Slow down, inhabit our characters, and write the 3-D version, plus sense- and smell-a-rama. And taste, if taste comes into it.

Now for when to show. Christie V Powell says at moments of heightened emotion, and I agree. Also, when important plot moments are happening. If our main characters are robbing a bank, we can’t skip much, which means showing.

Here are some other times:

To heighten tension. The scene in the forest is nerve-racking because of showing.

To reveal relationships. For example, dialogue is showing, although characters may tell each other things.

To reveal character. In our showing of Tess in the forest, we convey more about her. Does she plow ahead or inch along? Is her throat dry? Does she stop to drink from her canteen? Or does she fail to think about dehydration. Did she forget to fill her canteen?

Showing can make us aware of the gaps in our plotting. When we show, we can’t jump over the parts that don’t really work. It keeps us honest.

But telling is a part of creating a story, too. So, when do we tell?

It gets confusing, because telling is in everything. Let’s take three words in one of Christie V Powell’s examples of showing: Jasper didn’t speak. Well, I’d argue that that’s a moment of telling. I guess if we were going to show it we might say, No sound issued from Jasper’s throat, which seems unnecessarily long to me. So maybe it’s more accurate to compare predominantly showing versus predominantly telling.

So when should we mostly tell?

When we want to cover ground quickly. Maybe we want to summarize events that the reader needs to know, but that don’t hold a lot of drama. Or maybe we want to move time along. We have a stretch that has to be accounted for during which not much significant happens, so we may write something like, Tess was on the alert, but three weeks passed in the village of Sherwood without a single new theft.

When we want to provide background economically, because telling is economic. Maybe Tess’s childhood friend arrives in Sherwood village and we want the reader to know a little about their mutual history but we don’t want to go into a full, showing flashback. We might just write, It was Fiona who taught Tess to never underestimate an enemy.

When we want to comment on the action, as in this famous beginning of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. A bold statement like this is less common in contemporary novels, but we can still use telling to guide the reader. I do at the beginning of Ella Enchanted with That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not mean to lay a curse on me. By calling Lucinda a fool I influence the reader’s perspective. Notice that commentary can be delivered by a first-person voice as well as an omniscient narrator.

These are the uses I can think of, but there may be more, which I encourage you to post for everyone to add to the list.

Here are four prompts. When you show, remember to slow down and to include sensory details:

∙ Use mostly showing to write Tess’s scene in the woods, trying to evade Robin Hood.

∙ Use telling to inform the reader of Tess’s initial awareness of Robin Hood.

∙ Switch to mostly showing and rewrite that first awareness as a scene.

∙ Take Austen’s first sentence and make it into an entire scene written in mostly showing. Demonstrate to the reader what Austen merely (and elegantly) declares–that every mother with at least one daughter and every busybody starts matchmaking the moment a wealthy bachelor shows up.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Also, this came in to the last post from Bethany a few hours ago, and I’d hate for it to get lost:

ATTENTION!!! PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK!!! Thank you.
Anyone, but specifically Gail: I am writing my research paper on the purpose of fiction. Please tell me your opinions. What is the purpose of fiction? Is it to entertain? Is educating important? Do you think reading about fictional characters can change us and make us better people?
Thanks so much!

I wrote, ATTENTION BACK! When is your paper due?

And Christie V Powell wrote, How much time do you have? You might consider reading “The Seven Basic Plots” by Christopher Booker, which addresses these questions. However, it’s huge. It took me weeks to read, and I rarely take more than a day to read a book.

Short answers: Yes, it entertains. Education can be important, but can’t be too blatant. Novels ask questions, especially big moral/theme questions, but leave the reader to answer them on their own. Yes, I think there are scientific studies that say that reading makes people more empathetic because it helps us see the world through someone else’s eyes.

63 Responses on “How-to and When-to Show”

  1. Chicory says:

    Here is a thought for Bethany: One purpose of fiction is to try out different lives and situations. I decided I didn’t want a horse after reading how much work it is to take care of one in the Saddle Club books. (Even though the girls in those books loved their horses.) That was a lot easier and less expensive -and better for horses everywhere- than getting one and making the discovery! (Of course, I was twelve at the time and couldn’t have afforded my own horse -or driven myself to get one- but still….)

    Another purpose of fiction is to be a safe place for fears and other dark feelings. When you’re going through a really hard time reading about someone else in trouble can make you feel less alone.

    Fiction is a great way to connect to other people, too. If you know someone likes the same books as you do, talking about it can help overcome the shyness of meeting a new person.

    As for the post on showing and telling -I have a hard time remember to do the telling part! I’m prone to go on and on past the point that a scene is interesting because I can’t figure out how to make transitions -which is one place where showing is handy.

  3. Jenalyn Barton says:

    Another way to spot the difference between showing and telling is that telling usually uses abstract details (angry, shocked, difficult, boring, happy, etc,) while showing uses concrete, specific details (white knuckles to show anger, dilated pupils to show shock, a prolonged yawn to show boredom, etc). Also, telling very frequently employs “to be” and helping verbs (he was angry, she was in shock, it was boring), while showing is more likely to employ action verbs (he grasped the chair so hard his knuckles turned white; she yawned, holding it so long it seemed almost cat-like).

    As for Bethany’s question, I think one of the purposes of fiction is to answer questions about life. I think it also teaches us about human nature in ways that the social sciences never could. In fact, in a way, science and non-fiction and statistics are telling, while fiction is showing. 😉 That’s because fiction helps you step into the shoes of another person and experience life through their eyes and mind. Fiction has a reputation for changing worldviews, for raising awareness, and for influencing political movements in ways that no study or speech ever could.

  4. Poppie says:

    Hi…I have a question. How does one feel about nudity in books, particularly ones targeted towards teens or tweens?
    I’ve read several books where a character is naked, or implied to be naked (usually they’re bathing).
    Although I squirmed a tiny bit, I was able to “censor” the nakedness in my mind.
    I don’t mind reading it (as long as it’s not described in detail…then I can’t censor it) but I’m not sure about actually WRITING about it.
    Any thoughts?

    • Christie V Powell says:

      I’m with you. I’ll ‘censor’ it out if it’s in there. Personally I wouldn’t use it unless it’s got meaning and is important to the plot. A good example is “Book of a Thousand Days” by Shannon Hale, where the heroine is naked for most of the climax, as part of a very different culture where she’s trying to show the antagonist that she is innocent and unarmed and won’t hurt him. In a completely different book, “Things Not Seen” by Andrew Clements, a high school boy wakes up and finds himself invisible. He has to go naked so that people don’t realize what happened to him. I appreciated the descriptions of how he felt (cold and vulnerable) without having to deal with the cultural impact or inappropriate images, because…well, he’s invisible.
      There have been a couple of books where I appreciated that the author was willing to talk about awkward things in a straightforward manner, but I don’t feel like I could do that (menstruation in the first Lioness Quartet book and Bloody Jack, though the sequels get dirty fast in both; also urination in “Girl of Fire and Thorns”). Of course, I’m already squirming at the thought that my MCs are going to have to kiss at some point…

    • Erica Eliza says:

      Nudity doesn’t bother me in books the way it does movies. With swearing or crude written language, I can’t help but ‘hear’ it. But nudity is a visual thing and books are a non-visual medium.
      I also thought of Book of A Thousand Days. If it were a movie, that climax scene alone could kick the film into a higher rating. But I read it as an elementary schooler and wasn’t the least bit scandalized.

    • Daughter Of Merlin says:

      In my opinion, it depends on the context. Example; Jenna mulled over the probability of magic in the shower. Could it be real? Being the practical and analytical person she was, she found herself skeptical. She thought some more as she lathered on her bubblegum shampoo. We never say she’s naked, but the reader assumes so and doesn’t think to much about it. Hope I helped!

    • Emma G. C. says:

      I agree that as long as it’s censored by you, as the writer, it can work out fine. “Book of a Thousand Days” by Shannon Hale came to mind for me as well. Though I wasn’t particularly fond of that aspect of the story, I accepted it and read on because it was a key element of the story. If the heroine wasn’t naked in the climax, things could’ve gone very differently. I think that if it is necessary to the plot, and as long as you don’t go into physical descriptions but instead focus on how the character feels, then it can turn out alright. If it’s not extremely important to the plot that a character should be naked, however, then I see no reason to include it. If it is important and if the story wouldn’t be the same without it, as a reader, I’m completely ok with it. As long as there are no squirm/blush-worthy descriptions.

    • Bethany says:

      I think when they’re bathing, if it’s ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY make them bathe, just not telling in detail is good enough. Lots of people bathe in books without making it totally awkward, so I’m sure there’s a good way to do it. It’s public nakedness and sex that I really hate, though. It’s never actually necessary to show such things, and it really makes the book lose of the attraction for me. Hope that was clear!

    • Bethany says:

      Bathing isn’t really a problem. Bathing happens all the time in books, and as long as no details are mentioned, I don’t really mind. But public nudity and sex are what I hate. They’re never really necessary and for me, when I find that in a book, the book loses some of its appeal. Hope that was clear.

      • Bethany says:

        Sorry I said that twice. There was a problem the first time and it didn’t look like it went through, so I wrote it again. And of course, THEN it showed up. I can’t get rid of it now, so, sorry.

    • Enchanted says:

      I love Book of a Thousand Days! One of my favorites. And I didn’t really picture the girl standing naked there; there was so much action going on.

    • Florid Sword says:

      Ender’s Game has a lot of nudity. I don’t know if you’ve read that, but it is rather unnecessary (i.e., just randomly lying on a bed, playing video games, with no clothes on.) They’re all boys between the ages of 6 and 12, and they’re at training school to be soldiers, so I don’t know. But I normally try to avoid graphic nudity. And I agree with everything else that has been said here.

  5. Daughter Of Merlin says:

    To anyone, but Christie V Powel in particular; Where do you get all those unique and interesting names? I am constantly searching baby books, baby websites and name generators, but I mostly get normal, and a little unique names, but nothing special. Any help?

    • Christie V Powell says:

      I keep a collection of interesting names. In my world I have the six clans, each with different abilities (and a central color, but that’s not stated explicitly). So whenever I come across a name with a meaning related to one of those abilities or colors, I put it in my excel sheet with Name, Gender, Nickname, Meaning, Clan(s), and User if I’ve used it for a character. I’ve been doing it for years now so it would be pretty hard to track down the original sources, but they’re mostly baby name books or websites (playing with baby names is a hobby of mine so I tend to read a lot of both). Looking at other countries of origin helps too.
      I found the name Keita for a fanfiction years and years ago. According to the babyname website at the time, it was a Sanskrit name meaning forest, but it isn’t there now. If you look it up now, you get a male African name meaning blessing. Go figure.
      I’d be willing to send you my excel sheet if you want to give me a place to send it. It’s several hundred names long so I don’t think I can just post it here…

    • Emma G. C. says:

      I keep a running list of interesting names as well. I love name collecting. It has come helped me tremendously to have a list of interesting names on hand many times, so I suggest that you start your own list. If you hear a new name out in public that you like, write it down. If you see a name on a memorial that sounds intriguing, write it down. Maybe you could ask some older members of your family about the names of their moms and dads and aunts and uncles. My grandmother’s siblings all had names that were so old-fashioned and uncommon they could make you laugh! Also, try going to http://www.nameberry.com. I constantly find new and awesome names there. There is a section that has lists of different kinds of names, including lists of classical names, bird names, cool unusual names, mythological names, rock star names, and so many more. I love to just browse around through names on this site. Another thing I’ve done before is use Google translate to come up with names in different languages. I’ll type in ‘ocean’ and translate it in Hungarian, or ‘mountain’ in Finnish. If I like the sound and the meaning, I write it down, along with what language it’s in. One more thing you could do is try putting a spin on names you already like. In “The Goose Girl” by Shannon Hale, the heroine’s love interest is named Geric, which sounds similar to the common name Eric.

    • Christie V Powell says:

      You can also look at different forms or nicknames of common names. For instance, I wanted to use Peter because it means rock, but it seemed like too common a name. I ended up with a woman named Petra and a young boy named Perkin–both derivatives of Peter. Tess, in the example I threw out in the post, is a nickname for Teresa (meaning harvest).

  7. Chrissa says:

    Hi all,
    I’ve missed reading everyone’s comments and Gail’s posts of late. My mom died most unexpectedly and I’ve had a hard time staying in touch with the Bl0gosphere. My mother was a writer and like Mary, my mom was one of my beta readers. I’ll miss her, but am thankful that I have friends here on the blog that I can turn to with questions and share comments. Bethany, I hope you got your paper finished. And Gail I’m going to write down your comment: “predominantly showing versus predominantly telling” on a post-it note next to my desk.

  11. Poppie says:

    Wishing you a very happy birthday Mrs Levine! : )
    And Chrissa, my heart goes out to your family about your loss. May you have peace and comfort during this time!

  12. Enchanted says:

    Hey, I replied to Daughter of Merlin’s post on character descriptions on the other blog post before I realized that there was a new post here. If you’re curious about what I said (which I’m sure you’re not), here it is:
    In my story, there’s a girl who’s totally drop-dead gorgeous. Her brother-in-law can’t stand her because she’s got a wicked sharp tongue. The boy who has a crush on her describes her as “the finest thing his eyes ever did see”, while the brother-in-law says she’s a “dangerous-looking girl, not to be trusted, the kind who would trap your heart with a snake and suffocate you with her dark eyes.” Very different descriptions of a character.

  13. Kitty says:

    For show don’t tell, here’s a nice cheat sheet/infographic about it: https://twitter.com/AngelaAckerman/status/772450186899718145

    For Bethany’s question, I think there are two answers: the deep, philosophical one, and the more practical, everyday one.

    For the first one, I would say that fiction allows us to see the world as how it is, how it was, and how it could be all at the same time. That’s really powerful, as it provides us with hope, with warning, and with insight. I think all of those things can help us find our way in this world.

    As for the second one, I would say it’s entertaining. And that’s enough, no matter what some genre-fiction bashers might say. It’s fun and I enjoy it, and even if it doesn’t necessarily cause some deep, philosophical revelations, if it makes me happy and amused for a few hours, I consider that a win. I don’t think a book *really* has to accomplish more than simply entertaining people, although many do.

  14. Kitty says:

    I have a dilemma. In my MS, a dark YA retelling/continuation of Snow White, Nea (Snow White) is raised from the dead by her prince, and must steal back her heart from her stepmother who is using it to control her. Does the using someone’s heart to control them thing sound too much like the TV show Once Upon the Time?

    It’s not something I can change since it’s pretty much the basis of the plot. (Nea, under her stepmother’s control, kills a bunch of people, then goes on the run and tries to get her heart back so it doesn’t happen again.) And it’s a pretty big element too, since I’m sick and tired of the apple motifs of most Snow White retellings, and I’m dying to change it up a bit.
    There are some differences though. The heart isn’t some G-rated glowing red rock, but an actual bloody, rotting organ cut out of someone’s body. You can’t kill somebody by crushing their heart. You can only control dead people. And doing so requires complicated spells/procedures, not just holding the heart and thinking about it. And you can absorb somebody’s power by magicking their heart and then eating it. But are these differences enough?

    Also, are there any other books/tv shows/movies that feature the “use somebody’s heart to magically control them” thing? If enough people have done it to make it a trope, I might be able to get away with using it without seeming like I’m copying.
    Thanks!

  16. Deborah O'Carroll says:

    Couldn’t get to the internet ’til now, but just want to say a very happy (belated?) birthday to you, Ms. Levine! 🙂 I hope it was a fantastic one! <3

    (@Daughter of Merlin: I actually have it on my calendar as well! 😀 All my favorite authors' birthdays go on there. ^_^)

  18. Poppie says:

    Hello! First of all, thanks to everyone who has answered my questions about nudity in books.
    Now I have another question: In the book I’m currently writing (the sequel to my Jack and Elsa fanfiction) my MC’s are on a quest to collect three objects: a blue rose, a diamond wand, and the tears of a phoenix. They have nine months to find these things (Elsa is pregnant).
    Only problem is, how can I make the search exciting without it feeling repetitive?
    Thanks in advance for any comments! : )

    • Christie V Powell says:

      Well, if you have the three items in different sections of your world, then the settings might help you come up with ideas. In my quest story, The Spectra United, I had my MCs looking for different people who had spread out into different regions. For instance, one lives alone on an island inhabited by dangerous wild pigs, while another lives in a large, busy city (my MC grew up in the mountains and hates large, busy cities). You can also have different challenges that need to be overcome before they can be reached. Some of my people were hard to find, while some were unpleasant and had to be convinced before they’d help.

      In “The Seven Basic Plots”, Christopher Booker states that finishing the quest ends up being only half of the story. Even after they reach their goal, they have to pass ordeals (usually three) before they can get their goal. So in the Odyssey, even after the hero reaches his goal of arriving home, he still has to defeat the suitors bothering his wife. In “Watership Down”, the rabbits get to their new home but then have to find some lady rabbits to join them. In my book I had the MCs defeat three villains after they had found the heirs they were looking for.

    • Veralidaine Sarrasri says:

      Sorry, guys! I accidentally typed in the wrong comment. I meant to say; I have a question. My mother keeps going on and on about how I should do something in college besides creative writing as my major, and keep writing as a hobby. I feel like I really want to become an author and not much else, so I want to take creative writing as my major. What do you think? I could really use your opinions.

      PS. My acknowledgment and a virtual cookie to anyone who can tell me where I got my name.

      (Formerly WriterGirl4Life)

      • Christie V Powell says:

        The Immortals series by Tamora Pierce! I’ve actually referenced ‘Wild Magic’ a few times before: I consider it the quintessential fantasy because it’s got everything I like!

        I can’t tell you what to do, but I can give you a few case examples from my siblings who are grown up now and what they’re doing:

        I actually had a similar argument with my mom. She had an idea of “acceptable” majors that would get me a good job, but I was more interested in learning interesting things. I took Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation because I wanted to know more about it. I’m now a mother, author, and hobby farmer, while my husband works as a school teacher. So I’m doing the kind of things I’ve always wanted to do, but there is a cost. We struggle with money quite a bit. If my husband couldn’t work and I had to, I would have a lot of trouble earning enough money to pay for daycare. It wouldn’t be too hard to find a decent job in my area with my degree though.
        My little sister got a degree in English (another degree my mother disapproved of). She got a divorce a few months ago. Now she lives at home where my mom and other siblings can watch her little daughter while she works. She has an entry-level job at a movie theater. I know she likes to write and participates in NaNoWriMo, but I don’t know if she has any plans to use her degree.
        My closest brother didn’t finish college. He has a job in pest management (spraying for bugs and such), which he seems to enjoy. He struggled over the summer when they laid him off for the off season, but he can afford his apartment and an engagement ring. Another sister chose a degree in Family Counselling, but she’s currently on a mission for our church. Maybe some of the younger ones will take a more traditional path.

      • Kitty says:

        I’m in the exact same boat as you right now. Everybody is different, but here’s my plan if you want a reference point:

        -I’m applying to college right now. I’m probably going to major in Economics/Business since I really like it, with maybe one writing class. I plan to write the whole time though, and hopefully will have a few novels self-published and and more ready-to-go by the time I graduate.

        -when I graduate, I’m going find a job (fingers crossed!) in some economics-related field that pays decently but is relatively light on the workload. (A standard 9-5 job, no need to work overtime or on weekends, etc) I like to think that I’ll go work in a company’s marketing department, an economics research facility (I love science, but lean towards the social sciences), but realistically, I’ll probably end up an accountant or financial anyalyst. Or something boring but stable along those lines which I’m not wild about, but it’ll only be temporary.

        – Hopefully by now, I’ll have a nice backlist of books that are making decent returns. An economics/marketing/business degree will *definetly* give me an advantage with the marketing. If I’m doing well enough after a few years of saving up, I might quit and become a full time indie author/entrepreneur like Johanna Penn. If not, that’s fine too, I’ll just work a day job and write at night, just like when I’m in school.

        My dream is also to become a full-time author, but personally, I don’t think it’s worth it to get a Creative Writing/English degree. For starters, if the author thing doesn’t pan out (and you have to be prepared for the possibility that it might not, self-pubbed or traditionally), you don’t really have anything job-wise to to fall back on, unless you like teaching, which I don’t.

        Second, a business degree will help you a *lot*, more so if you want to self-publish, but even traditionally-published authors are expected to do more and more marketing nowadays. And if you self-publish and essentially run your own business, you will pretty much *need* to know how to do accounting, bookkeeping, and other stuff. (I did DECA, which is an international business/finance competition, in the Business Finance Category last year, and trust me, anything involving numbers and math (as to, say, more creative pursiots like marketing) is *not* something you can BS without actually having learned how to do it. Sure, you can learn on your own like I did, but having a class would make things *much* easier.) Writing is becoming more and more of a business, so a degree will serve you will.

        Third (and this is *very* much my own opinion, so take it with a heavy grain of salt), I don’t think a Creative Writing/English degree will teach you much. I’ve taken three years of high school English, and apart from things like literary devices and parts of a sentence, I haven’t really *learned* that much. Of course, I’ve only taken expository writing/literary analysis courses, so Creative Writing or college classes might be different. Maybe Gail or somebody else who has taken them can weigh in on that. Once you have the basics, the “tools” of the English language out of the way, everything else is very much the honing of the craft. And I don’t think that’s something you have to–or even *can*–learn in a classroom. For me, I learn by “osmosis” and practice. I read *a lot*, and sort of just subconciously absorb how sentences are formed, how stories are formed, that kind of stuff. Sometimes I’ll conciously analyze books and what makes them good or bad, or seek out blog posts or articles online that teach the craft of writing. But all of it is free and unstructured, not something you necessarily need a class for. And practice. Just keep writing, the more the better, and sooner or later you’ll get better. You might need some help along the way, but that’s what critique groups are for. And from I’ve heard about Creative Writing classes, most of the course is just enforced writing and critiquing. I can go grab a CP from the NaNoWriMo or PitchWars community and do the same thing on my own, for free. Since I learned writing this way, and it works fine for me. I just don’t think it’s worth shelling out several tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars for. But others who have taken a college writing course might be better informed on that topic.

        I hope this helps!

        • Gail Carson Levine says:

          I’ve added your question to my list, but I won’t be able to answer it definitively. I can just chip in with some thoughts and my road to becoming a writer.

        • Christie V Powell says:

          Kitty has a good point. I can see how a business degree would be really useful.
          I just wanted to point out that there are other ways to take creative writing classes, even when you’re not at college. Brandon Sanderson, a Sci-fi fantasy writer, teaches a college course on writing and posts his lectures on youtube for free. Here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ZDBOc2tX8 You can also attend writing conferences and groups near you. Some are very pricey, some aren’t. The Festival of Books in Tuscon Arizona, for instance, has free writing courses one weekend in March. I also attend a writing group that has a very class-like structure, with lectures and lessons and everything.

          • Melissa Mead says:

            For what it’s worth, I only found one of my college English classes helpful for fiction writing. I majored in Psychology instead, which I actually think comes in handy more often, because it helps me get into my characters’ heads.

            I actually LIKE keeping my writing as a hobby. It takes the pressure off having to write to survive, so it’s still fun.

            Besides, if I had to write for a living I’d have starved by now. I made my first professional-level story sale in 2004, and published one e-book, and there have only been 2 years since then that I’ve earned enough to pay the mortgage. For a month. Not a year, a month. Plus writers don’t generally get health insurance. So I’ll stick with writing for fun for now. Maybe I’ll get famous after I retire. 🙂

          • Veralidaine Sarrasri says:

            Thanks, to all of you for answering my question! It helped too much, but as I still have a long ways to go before college, I’ll keep stewing over the topic. Nad an extra special acknowledgement to Christie V. Powell, for guessing where I got my name.

            Thanks again!!!!!

  20. Grace (The Girl Upstairs) says:

    Thanks for sharing, Gail! I struggle sometimes with showing vs. telling and your tips are always helpful. 🙂

    How do you develop your writing ideas? When you first get an idea, what do you do first? I really struggle with what to do when I first get an idea. With NaNoWriMo approaching, I’m feeling a little pressured to “figure things out” so I can get started.

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