By: Alissa Damiano
In the article titled “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musing for College Writing Students,” the author E. Shelly Reid discusses the different methods to help improve our writing skills and make our writing more efficient overall. Even though all ten ways were very informative and helpful for my future writing pieces, a few stood out to me the most and felt were the most important to use when writing.
Show Don’t Tell
The idea of “show don’t tell” has been taught to me since grade school and I remember my elementary school teachers always stressing this idea in our writings in order to make them more vivid and exciting to read. By showing instead of telling, you as a writer are giving readers a visual of the experience/ information you are portraying to them instead of just telling them exactly what it is or what happened. By telling instead of showing, readers can get tired and bored very easily. I was always taught to keep our audiences in mind when writing and to make sure that everything you are writing about is going to capture their attention and keep them engaged throughout the entire piece. Overall people tend to engage more with visuals and feeding their imaginations rather than just telling them.
In order to incorporate show don’t tell into my own writing, I tend to ask myself questions to help be more specific and descriptive when describing a person, place, or thing. For example, if I was writing about going to the beach, instead of just saying I went to the beach, I could ask myself questions like: “What colors remind you of the beach?” “What did the beach smell like?” “What was the temperature like on the beach?” “How did it feel to step onto the beach for the first time that day?” Asking myself these questions allows me to be more descriptive for my audience of readers who may have not had that same experience, but I wanted them to feel and see exactly what I felt and saw that day on the beach.
Audiences and Messages
Prior to reading this article, I was not aware of how easily a message can change whenever the audience has changed. These two factors go hand in hand since writers tend to write based on their audiences and what they feel would resonate with them the most. Whenever I am writing a piece, I always think of my audience first and ask myself what they need from me as a writer as well as what would interest them through my writing. Any slight change in an audience can change the message of a story completely, so as a writer it is very important to be aware of who exactly your audience is so you can attend to their needs as readers and help them to understand and visualize your writing. Asking yourself questions as a writer is also very beneficial in this situation as well since it allows you to be more specific and aware of what you need to convey to your audience.
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