Description and Setting
My name is Author Sylvia Stein and on this segment and on my
blog post I want to talk about Writing tips for Writers and Authors. Every week I will be bringing you an
important writing tip to help guide and develop on one’s writing. For example, for this week we will begin on
On the book by author Ron Rozelle entitled, Description & Setting: Techniques and exercises for crafting a believable world of people, places and
events.
For today we are focusing on the difference between showing
and telling p. 63 from Rozelle’s book,”
He uses a sample in which he writes, Consider this
statement:
A good time was had by all.
Then Ron Rozelle goes a step further and he then goes onto talk
about a passage from Toni Morrison’s novel Sula:
The following is an excerpt of Morrison’s novel:
Old People were
dancing with little children. Young boys
with their sisters, and the church women who frowned on any bodily expression
of joy except (when the hand of God commanded it) tapped their feet. Somebody (the
groom’s father, everybody said) had poured a whole pint jar of cane liquor into
the punch, so even the men who did not sneak out the back door to have a shot,
as well as the women who let nothing stronger than Black Draught enter their
blood, were tipsy. A small boy stood at
the Victoria turning its handle and smiling at the sound of Bert William’s “Save
a Little Dram for me.”
Next Rozelle posts the next questions taken from his book
page 63:
Which of the two descriptions on page 63, Does more for you
as a reader?
Then he tells us that, “I’ll bet you chose the longer one,
unless you’re one of those people who likes to be different just for the heck
of it-one of those go-against the grain sorts.
The main point from this section is: “In terms of what you
end of knowing about this celebration, they both do exactly the same thing. We as the reader as he points out end up,
both times, realizing that a good time was had by all.”
So then why should we then choose as he points out “opt for
the longer one when the snippet fills the bill?
This is another good point.
So why then? Rozelle then adds, “Brevity
doesn’t usually fill the bill for a writer or- much more to the point- for a
reader.”
I will be bringing you more writing tips on my blog on
weekly basis. I hope you will check
them out.
Here is the book by Roselle:
Be sure to get your copy next week we will go over more on his book.
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