Description by Monica Wood

Author:Monica Wood
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi

Do you see the difference? This is narrative that is every bit as effective as scene. Narrative does not have to be merely informational. This passage contains imagistic language ("silky arms" and laughter like a "salve") and a haunting bit of sound with the whispered "I love her ... I hate her." The internal monologue (". . . who could blame them?") brings your readers deep inside Mrs. Brimley's experience.

Now you have an engaging story opening that introduces two contrasting characters and sets up a tense internal conflict in Mrs. Brimley. Technically, you have "shown" nothing, but by using imagis­tic language and a bit of internal monologue you have summarized the story's basic conflict and given your lucky readers a perfect point of entry: a character with some meat on her bones, and a story with a destination. You have revealed something about Mrs. Brimley that might have been diluted or lost in a full-blown scene.

If you forced yourself to "show" everything you've "told" in this passage, you'd be confronted with five pages instead of one paragraph. You'd have to begin with a scene that shows Ms. Kendall being the preferred teacher, then you'd have to show Mrs. Brimley in a situation where she loves Ms. Kendall, and another in which she hates her. You'd lose the immediacy of the dilemma, the mantra-like I love her, I hate her, the tinge of mystery, and the intensity of Mrs. Brimley's sorrow. A scene-by-scene revelation would rob your readers of that exquisite, all-at-once wallop of insight—that Mrs. Brimley has suffered a long time with her conflicting emotions. Besides, your readers may become impatient with a story that takes too long to begin.

Of course, the happiest compromise in the scene-narrative di­lemma is combination. This blending process is what good writing is all about. During revision you make continual decisions about scene and narrative, whether you realize it or not. You might throw out a line here, add a snippet of dialogue there, change an adjective or verb. You're balancing, balancing: scene and narrative, narrative and scene. Showing, telling, telling, showing. The combination often yields something like the following:

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