From Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past” -
“A pair of wings, a different respiratory system, which enabled us to travel through space, would in no way help us, for if we visited Mars or Venus, keeping the same senses, they would clothe everything we could see with the same aspect as the things of the Earth. The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess new eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do, with great artists; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star.”
Easy enough. Replace all the ‘tells’ with ‘shows’ and voila!
Okay. But, like, how??
How I ‘show and not tell’ in my work
If the ‘Show, don’t tell’ rule feels redundant and useless to you, I’m here to help. I LIVE by this rule. This rule saved my soul and cleared my acne. Okay, not really, but it did save the soul and cleared up the unnecessary bumps in my writing. So, here are three things I do to make sure I am keeping it at the back of my mind.
* Use the five senses
Okay. But like. How?
Staying aware of the five senses is SO important to your story and gives it that extra ‘umph’ that you’ve been missing. You don’t want to overload your reader with senses but making sure you’ve got a few in place will keep you from having to go back and add a bunch in later.
I find it easier to sprinkle them in as I write. It also helps keep you in the zone. Let’s say you are writing your character outside a bar in the rain. Instead of saying:
Luke stood outside the bar. The rain poured from the sky. It was cold and he shivered.
You say:
Fat drops of water (sight) splattered over Luke’s bare toes as the garbled music and clinking glasses faded behind him (hear). The sharp air stung his lungs (feel), sinking into his throat until puffs of smoke slid between his chattering teeth. Huddled against the damp brick wall, Luke licked his cracked lips lifting the faint methanol and mint residue onto his tongue (taste).
Of course, you don’t have to elaborate every single instance where the 5 senses can be used. But, they help a lot when it comes to creating fuller scenes. Keeping touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste in the back of your mind while you write will dramatically help you with the ‘Show, don’t tell’ rule. This is especially important if your character is missing one or more of these senses. You will need to focus on the others and make them stronger.
*Eliminate filler words
Easy. Right? But, like, how?
I keep a list of filler words next to me at all times when I’m editing. Once you get the hang of what words to avoid, it’ll become easier in your writing. Since paying closer attention to the filler words and actively choosing stronger words, it has helped avoid 'telling’ immensely. A lot of filler words are also senses that need filling out.
Instead of saying: Ted saw the yellow ball.
You’d say: A yellow ball bounced away from Ted.
But to get away from senses, I’ll use another example.
Instead of saying: Isa thought about going to the store. (Thought being the filler word here)
You’d say: Isa opened the fridge, frowning when there was no milk. Closing the door, she grabbed her keys off the counter and jotted down a quick list of household items.
Instead of 'telling’ your readers that Isa thought about going to the store, you 'showed’ her thought process.
*Read your work out loud
Okay, but…wait? How will that help?
My editor @fmtpextended taught me this neat trick and it has helped so much! It is crazy how much this small tip has improved my writing, especially where 'show, don’t tell’ comes in. If your sentences feel choppy, don’t flow, and kind of jump from one to point to another, you’ll want to read it out loud. This will help your brain connect things that maybe you didn’t catch while writing or reading. Our brains also have a bad habit of filling in or correcting mistakes without us even realizing it.
When you read out loud, you catch those mistakes much easier the first time around. It also helps you know what it will sound like to others. And you can easily pinpoint where you can add the senses and eliminate filler words.
That’s it! There are plenty more tips and advice about this process. And, everyone has their own way about writing through the 'show, don’t tell’ rule. These are the three things that help me most and I hope that they’ll be of use to you. Happy writing.
“How to understand the experience of feeling? We know what sensing is, an inner touch. Feeling requires another quality. It has nothing to do with “like” or “dislike,” and yet it is emotion. I feel sorrow or joy. Feeling is always rising up. Like fire it flares up, then dies away. And I feel “I am.” Pure feeling has no object. I can understand it only if I am capable of seeing without an idea, word or image, able to be in contact with what is.”
The eyes-in-the-front thing (usually) only applies to mammals. Crocodiles, arguably the inspiration for dragons, have eyes that look to the sides despite being a predator.
hey what up I’m about to be That Asshole
This isn’t a mammalian thing. When people talk about ‘eyes on the front’ or ‘eyes on the side,’ they’re really talking about binocular vision vs monocular vision. Binocular vision is more advantageous for predators because it’s what gives you depth perception; i.e, the distance you need to leap, lunge, or swipe to take out the fast-moving thing in front of you. Any animal that can position its eyes in a way that it has overlapping fields of vision has binocular vision. That includes a lot of predatory reptiles, including komodo dragons, monitor lizards, and chameleons.
(The eyes-in-front = predator / eyes-on-sides = prey thing holds true far more regularly for birds than it does for mammals. Consider owls, hawks, and falcons vs parrots, sparrows, and doves.)
But it’s not like binocular vision is inherently “better” than monocular vision. It’s a trade-off: you get better at leap-strike-kill, but your field of vision is commensurately restricted, meaning you see less stuff. Sometimes, the evolutionary benefit of binocular vision just doesn’t outweigh the benefit of seeing the other guy coming. Very few forms of aquatic life have binocular vision unless they have eye stalks, predator or not, because if you live underwater, the threat could be coming from literally any direction, so you want as wide a field of view as you can get. If you see a predator working monocular vision, it’s a pretty safe assumption that there is something else out there dangerous enough that their survival is aided more by knowing where it is than reliably getting food inside their mouths.
For example, if you are a crocodile, there is a decent chance that a hippo will cruise up your shit and bite you in half. I’d say that makes monocular vision worthwhile.
Which brings us back to OP’s point. Why would dragon evolution favor field of view over depth perception?
A lot of the stories I’ve read painted the biggest threats to dragons (until knights with little shiny sticks came along) as other dragons. Dragons fight each other, dragons have wars. And like fish, a dragon would need to worry about another dragon coming in from any angle. That’s a major point in favor of monocular vision. Moreover, you don’t need depth perception in order to hunt if you can breathe fucking fire. A flamethrower is not a precision weapon. If you can torch everything in front of you, who cares if your prey is 5 feet away or 20? Burn it all and sift among the rubble for meat once everything stops moving.
Really, why would dragons have eyes on the front of their heads? Seems like they’ve got the right idea to me.
Worthwhile cryptozoological discourse
i want to point out also that crocodiles live in water, which has much more perceptible currents than air does. the crocodile snout is sensitive! some sources say it’s as sensitive as a human fingertip. so they can have a really broad field of vision to scan around, and to gather a maximum amount of data on stuff abovethe water, while their sensitive snout is still below the water, feeling for the turbulence patterns of other swimming creatures. they employ both together.
they don’t need binocular vision to judge how close their prey might be. they have that big enormous triangular snout in front of them to feelit.
tldr; dragons have plenty of good reasons to have monocular fields of vision, possibly including sensitive snoots.
