Book Trailer

Click here to see it on youtube

Novelists (not that I consider myself one, yet) have many tools to keep themselves inspired. This book trailer is my tool to keep an eye on the prize through the difficult, difficult process of editing. It was fun to make, but very time consuming to search for the right images online. Even some of these aren't the right images. Thanks to my friend Lawrence Dudley, a fantastic photographer and designer, for sharing some of his photographs and to the others (for which some I couldn't find the copyright info.) The song is "I want you" by Third Eye Blind.

If you reading this, please let people know about the book cover contest. I'd really like to see some more entries before Feb. 23rd.

Cheers.

Showing vs. Telling

Show not tell is perhaps the most invaluable and—frequent—instruction I've had since I started to write. Books, forums, critique partners, blogs they all advise that to write good fiction you must show a story, not tell it.

But

No one seems to bother to tell the novice writer how to show it.

In the book Stein on Writing there is an entire chapter dedicated to solving that problem, it's called "How to show instead of tell."

Below is an example of the evolution from telling to showing from that chapter:

He took a walk tells.
He walked four blocks begins to show.
He walked the four blocks slowly shows more clearly.
He walked the four blocks as if it were the last mile shows more by giving the reader a sense of the character's feelings, which the previous version did not.

So, next time writing a scene don't only tell the reader what your character is doing, but show it by characterizing his/her actions. Mr. Stein goes on saying the best way to determine if a scene is showing not telling is by gauging how visual the passage is. More visual, more showing.