Show Don't Tell - Write With Style

Show Don’t Tell

One way to make your work fascinating is to use the active rather than the passive voice.
Passive

Passive designates a form of the verb by which the verbal action is attributed to the person or thing to whom it is actually directed: i.e. the logical object is the grammatical subject. E.g. He was seen by us. Passive. The opposite of active. Active: We saw him.

In a grammatically active construction, the subject is performing the action.

eg Jack ate the chocolate. (Jack is the subject, he’s performing the action, the chocolate is the object.)


Exposition

At the beginning of a play the dramatist is often committed to giving a certain amount of essential information about the plot and events which are to come. He may also have to give information about what has ‘already happened’. All this comes under the heading of exposition. A skilful dramatist is able to introduce material without holding up the action of the play and with recourse to the obvious devices of narrative.

Exposition is also a subject which other fiction writers need to consider. A writer might do well to remember that in Writing Circles, was, were, had, feel, felt and feeling are often considered to be passive words which tell instead of showing. A writer should also remember that modern editors and publishers tend to shy away from exposition.

***
I could have begun my published novel, Tangled Hearts, like this:

Richelda Shaw was in her nursery when Elsie, her mother’s maid, told her that her father had summoned her. After she had delivered the message, Elsie had followed her to the great hall where her father was waiting.
This tells my reader what happened but is not interesting.

Instead, I began.

“Richelda Shaw stood silent in her nursery while thunder pealed outside the ancient manor house and an even fiercer storm raged deep within. She pressed her hands to her ears and, eyes closed, remained as motionless as the marble statues in the orangery.

‘Nine years old and you’ve not yet learned to be neat!’ Elsie, her mother’s personal maid, pulled Richelda’s hands from her ears. ‘Come, your father’s waiting for you.’

Richelda’s hands trembled. What was wrong? Until now Father’s short visits from France meant gifts and laughter. This one made Mother cry while the servants spoke in hushed tones.

Followed by Elsie, Richelda hurried down the broad oak stairs. For a moment, she paused to admire the lilies of the valley in a Delft bowl. Only yesterday, she picked the flowers to welcome Father home. After she had arranged them with tender care, she placed them on a chest, which stood beneath a pair of crossed broadswords on the wall above.

Elsie opened the massive door of the great hall where Father stood to one side of the enormous hearth.
This shows the heroine acting in a way consistent with her situation, instead of telling the reader about it.
However, as for ‘telling’ being wrong, it is not. Was, were, had, feel, felt and feeling are part of the English language and if I showed every single event in a novel it would be too long for publication.

It is how I use was, were, had, feel, felt and feeling which matters, not whether or not I use them.

I need the skill to decide when telling is too much and when I should stop telling and start showing.

Characterisation

In Tangled Hearts, I could have written the following to tell my reader that Chesney, the hero, is handsome:-

“Chesney had the classical features of Adonis. He was tall, had perfect proportions and was in good health.”

Instead I wrote:-

“…‘Who is that Adonis?’ A high-pitched female voice interrupted Chesney’s thoughts.

Chesney looked round and saw a powdered and patched lady with rouged cheeks staring at him.

‘I don’t know, I think he’s a newcomer to town,’ her companion, a younger lady said in an equally strident tone.


Unaffected by their comments he laughed. Since his youth women remarked on his height and his perfect proportions. He did not consider himself vain, but unlike some members of his gentlemen’s club, who took little exercise and overate, he fenced, hunted and rode to keep his body fit.

The older lady inclined her head, the younger one winked before they went about their business.”

Of course introspection is a form of telling but it is effective and reveals the character.

In Tangled Hearts it was not enough to tell my reader that Chesney is brave. I needed to show him in action.

“Chesney rushed to the cottage. ‘Keep back, Richelda,’ he shouted, ‘the thatch will ignite like tinder.’

Taking no heed of his instructions, she ran after him and followed him down the short corridor to the kitchen where smoke poured from beneath the door. ‘I think Elsie is in there,’ Richelda screamed above the roar of the fire.

Every trace of an indolent nobleman vanished. Chesney snatched off his periwig, wrenched off his coat and swathed it round his head.

‘Go outside! Your clothes will burn like kindling.’ He disappeared into the kitchen.”
***
I believe that I must strive to grab my reader’s attention from the first line to the last, and that passive writing – or telling – weakens the prose.
When I revise my work I use the search and find facility on the computer to highlight the words which tell and decide whether or not I can improve the text.

To be a writer not only do I need to be an artist, I also need to craft my work. Words are the tools which I use to write a page turner for my readers.


Flashbacks


Chesney lived in France with his father etc., is exposition in conversation. “Do you know I lived in France at the court of James II in St Germaine etc.,” is description.

A flashback reveals something that occurred in the past as though it occurs in the present.

Even if the reader needs to know about my character’s past I am cautious as to how I reveal it.

Frequently, flashbacks are often badly written and they jerk the reader from the present to the past.

The knack is to slip in essential facts without disrupting the story - memory of something that happened in the past, the reply to a question, a letter or an entry in a diary

Tangled Hearts is set in England in 1702 at the beginning of Queen Anne’s reign. In order to avoid flashbacks full of historical detail to I began with Author’s Notes.

“When the outwardly Protestant Charles II died in 1685, he left a country torn by religious controversy but no legitimate children. The throne passed to his Catholic brother James.

It was an anxious time for the people, whose fears increased when James II, became so unpopular that he was forced into exile. In 1688, James’s Protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, became the new king and queen of England.

Some English Protestants, who had sworn allegiance to James II, refused to take a new oath of allegiance to William and Mary and joined him in France.

When James’s younger daughter, Anne, inherited the throne in 1702, many Protestant exiles returned to England. Others declared themselves Jacobites and supporters of James II son, James III, by his second wife, Mary of Modena, and stayed abroad. They believed James III should be king.”

In my rough draft of Tangled Hearts the scene in the manor house when my heroine, Richelda, is a child, (quoted above) was a flashback. When I revised the novel I realised it was too long so I scrapped it and began with a prologue that contained the essential information.

Conclusion

Words are a writer’s tools. Avoid dull narrative, boring flashbacks and unnecessary exposition. Write stylishly. Words should sparkle and grip the reader.

Queen Anne - part Three

Queen Anne Part Three

Princess Anne’s relationship with Sarah Jennings, the future Duchess of Marlborough would last into her middle age.

Sarah, a year younger than Anne’s fifteen year old stepmother, was the daughter of a landed gentleman and the young sister of Frances Jennings, a maid of honour, appointed to serve Anne’s mother.

At the age of twelve, Sarah, who would play such a crucial role in the Cinderella princess’s life, was appointed as one of her attendants. Years later Sara wrote: We had used to play together when she was a child and she even ten expressed a particular fondness for me. This inclination increased with our years. I was often at Court and the Princess always distinguished me by the pleasure she took to honour me, preferably to others, with her conversation and confidence. In all her parties for amusement, I was sure by her choice to be one.

Kneller’s portrait of the teenage Sarah reveals a pretty girl with an oval face, broad forehead, fair hairs and confident blue eyes. Yet no portrait could reveal her vivacity and charm.

It is not surprising that the motherless, Cinderella princess living in the shadow of her older, cleverer sister, Mary, and the daughters of her governess, Lady Frances Villiers, became deeply attached to Sarah.

Anne was pretty with plump features, re-brown hair and her mother’s elegant hands of which she was very proud. However, she was shy, easily ignored and all too aware of her short-comings – her poor education did nothing to boost her confidence. As Sarah said years later: Your Majesty has had the misfortune to be misinformed in general things even from twelve years old.

Undoubtedly, there was no reason to provide Anne and her sister with a better education because it was not unlikely that the Queen would provide an heir to the throne. In her day few women could read and write – perhaps as few as one in a hundred. For Anne it is likely that little more than dancing, drawing, French and music were required to prepare her for life at court. Her general education was neglected but not her religious education which was rigorous and founded her life long belief in the teachings of the Anglican faith.

Anne and Mary lived apart from the court at White hall and their indulgent Roman Catholic father and step-father. Expected to be virtuous, the sisters could not have been totally unaware of the licentiousness of their uncle’s court and that both their uncle, the king, and her father had acknowledged illegitimate children. Indeed, their governess, Lady Frances Villiers, wife of Colonel Villiers, the nephew of the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham, a favourite of James I and his son, Charles I, was the daughter of the king’s notorious mistress, Barbara Castlemaine.

Lax though King Charles II’s moral were he took some interest in Anne who would be one of the best guitar players at court. She also had a pleasing voice and he ordered the actress, Mrs Barry, to give Anne and Mary elocution lessons. These stood Anne in good stead when, as Queen, she addressed Parliament and no doubt when she and Mary took part in some of the masques and plays popular at Court.

However, ‘Cinderella’ and Mary grew up in the company of clerics and women, secluded from Whitehall with little to entertain them. One can imagine the boring conversations, stifling closets (small rooms) and endless card games. Sarah declared: I wished myself out of Court as much as I had desired to come into it before I knew what it was.

In spite of the boredom and whatever storms lay ahead, Anne dearly loved her sister. So much so that when Mary married her Dutch cousin, William of Orange, in 1677 and Anne lay sick of smallpox, her father, who visited her every day, ordered that she should not be told her sister had departed for the Continent. The charade went as far as messages purported to be from Mary asking about her health being delivered to Anne.

While Anne’s tutor fretted in case her fanatical Roman Catholic nurse influenced her while Anne was ill, as soon as she recovered, Anne had to cope with the death of her governess. Fortunately, she still had Sarah’s companionship and enjoyed the vast grounds of Richmond Palace, leased by the king for his nieces. However, this tranquillity would soon be disturbed by the so called ‘Popish Plot’. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that her mind would be occupied with thoughts of who she would marry.

Queen Anne - Part One

My novel, Tangled Hearts, is set in the reign of Queen Anne a ‘Cinderella’ princess of little importance during her childhood.

At her birth, neither her uncle, Charles II, nor her father, James, Duke of York, imagined she would become the last of the Stuart monarchs. After all, Charles’ seven bastards proved his virility and there was every reason to believe he and his queen of three years would have legitimate heirs to the throne. And in the unlikely event of their not producing one, his brother and sister-in-law, James and Anne, had produced an elder brother and sister for the latest addition to their nursery, Baby Anne.

In those days infant mortality was high. The son ‘Cinderella’s’ mother carried when she married only lived for six months. But Anne and her older sister, Mary, survived the Great Plague which broke out in the year of her birth. The little princesses grew up in their nursery but their brother James, another brother and two little sisters died. One can imagine the effects of these deaths on ‘Cinderella’, a small girl with poor health whose weak eyes watered constantly.

Doubtless, it was with the best of intentions that with the consent of ‘Cinderella’s’ uncle, the king, her parents sent the four year old to her grandmother, widow of the executed Charles I, who now lived in France.

As I write, I have before me a portrait of Anne as a small girl painted by an unknown artist at the French Court. She is plump and adorable, dressed in brocade and playing with a King Charles spaniel. Her eyes are wary set in an oval face with a mouth shaped in a perfect cupid’s bow.

In 1699, after Anne’s grandmother died, the little girl passed into the care of her father’s sister, Henrietta Maria, Duchess of Orleans, whom Anne’s uncle, the King of England doted on. In 1670 five year old Anne had to cope with yet another death, this time that of her aunt, whose husband, younger brother of the French king, was suspected of poisoning her.

Anne returned to England, her eyes only slightly improved, to be reunited with her parents. By then her mother was unpopular because she had converted to the Church of Rome and her father, who in 1699, gave serious consideration to his salvation took Holy Communion from a papist priest. Her parents’ decisions would have a long term effect on the young princess Anne’s future.

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

Tangled Hearts set in Queen Anne’s England received five star reviews and is available now.