This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 444th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

So welcome back to me too.

As you may have noticed, I took a two- week break from the podcast while dealing with a move.

But now I'm back.

I'm still in the process of all those continuing details of being in a new place, but I'm

settling into what is now more or less the new old regular routine.

I'm still figuring out getting back into the swing of writing including editing my

portal fantasy dreambreaker but for today everything's back up and rolling.

So I hope you enjoy today's topic.

Three tips for upping your show don't tell game. When looking for a new book to read, there are a couple

quick tests I do to determine whether it seems like I can trust the author to

know what they're doing all book long. The first and most important of these

tests usually requires just a quick glance across the first page to see

whether the author demonstrates a grasp of show don't tell.

Show don't tell is one of the most basic principles of narrative fiction.

Defined in a nutshell, it is the technique that allows readers to experience the events of the story

rather than observing them. Showing readers what's happening involves active

verbs that evoke all the senses. Showing invites readers to inhabit the context of the

story with the subtext of their own imaginations. Showing dramatizes. This is in contrast to telling readers what happened.

Telling spells things out as simply as possible. It doesn't evoke a character's joy.

It just tells readers she was happy.

In short, telling summarizes.

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