Lion's Tooth Editing

Algorhithmic sites tend to suppress words they don’t like. Discourse became one of the words that seemed to always get less attention than others, and, like people always do, we found ways around it.

Discourse. It should be a neutral word, even positive. People are talking. Exchanging ideas. It should evoke feelings of a classic salon.

Instead, people begin with such unassailable conviction that their position is correct that discourse becomes not an exchange of ideas but a series of lectures that often devolves into antagonistic camps lobbying vague and indirect verbal assaults at each other (when they aren’t launching direct and devastating attacks).

In the writing sphere, this takes the form of ‘advice’ going around like the plague. General guidance becomes prescriptive order.

If you are fortunate, you may find one or two writers to follow who will lead you to a blessed corner of the internet where the worst of the discourse reaches you through their replies, through their wise correction, assuring whoever they can that it is just fine to disagree, to find another way.

Well, it’s my turn. In creative writing, lean into that first word: creative. Take the advice that works for you and gently set aside advice that does not. Consider the rules as presented and seek to understand the purpose. Most are widely over-applied, but many are born out of a reasonable address of observed problems.

Take the perennial “show, don’t tell.” I have seen many good explanations of why it is important to immerse the reader in a sensory and emotive ‘experience’ rather than a dispassionate and disconnected summary. For the most part, this is very good advice, particularly for modern readers with modern expectations from a novel. (All it takes is picking up a single ‘classic’ from another era to discover that this has certainly not always been the case, and this is the primary reason many readers feel older books are ‘dull.’)

There are certain reasons why this advice should be set aside. There are particular literary devices that require a more formal tone. There are certain styles that take a different shape. I would advise that these be used mindfully and with a healthy balance of character ‘interiority’ and sensory based description so as not to alienate modern audiences.

In any narrative, there are moments when natural and comfortable pacing requires a passage of exposition. ‘Real time’ films and television shows are intriguing experiments in storytelling. Perhaps there is a place for a ‘real time’ story, or even novel, but make no mistake, that would absolutely be a gimmick, a defining characteristic that shapes everything about the narrative and reading experience. It would be incredibly tricky to execute, because, face it, ‘showing’ micro-expressions and body language takes much longer in writing than it does in acting and observing. Literally ‘showing’ everything will exhaust the reader.

‘Show, don’t tell’ is good advice, if you understand that it is to be reserved for the most significant aspect of your narrative. You can tell the reader a character is angry if something else in the scene is far more important.

“He was angry, but he didn’t have time. Brushing aside his own feelings, he rushed to the door and…”

I am telling you what he feels, and in doing so I am showing you his haste.

This may seem obvious, and if it does, I’m glad, but to others it may not be so obvious. The way you have been taught and advised may have been prescriptive, sharp, and under explained. You may have encountered instruction aimed at writers with far more experience and with much about the audience taken for granted. You may not be able to parse the intent of the advice or the purpose of the purported rule, and an internet search may be overwhelming. I’ve been there.

Find someone you trust or seems kind and ask. There are so many of us who genuinely want to help. If you just can’t, give the nugget that troubles you time. Sit with it. Play with it in your own way. It will unravel, or lose its urgency. There is nothing about language or creative writing that is set in stone except this: you cannot improve without practice.

Do not let the anxiety or superiority of others hold you back.