How To Improve Your Dialogue

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20 Emotional Wounds in Fiction That Make Readers Root for the Character

Abandonment: Characters who have been abandoned by loved ones or caregivers can evoke sympathy from readers.

Betrayal: Being betrayed by someone close can create deep emotional wounds that make readers empathize with the character.

Loss of a Loved One: Whether through death or separation, the loss of a loved one can be a powerful emotional wound.

Rejection: Characters who experience rejection, whether in relationships or by society, can be relatable and evoke empathy.

Abuse: Physical, emotional, or psychological abuse can create complex wounds that shape a character's personality and behavior.

Neglect: Characters who have been neglected, especially in childhood, can evoke sympathy from readers.

Failure: Experiencing a significant failure or loss can create emotional wounds that make characters more relatable.

Guilt: Characters who carry guilt for past actions or decisions can be compelling and evoke empathy from readers.

Shame: Feelings of shame can create internal conflict and make characters more relatable and sympathetic.

Injustice: Characters who have experienced injustice or unfair treatment can evoke strong emotions from readers.

Trauma: Characters who have experienced traumatic events, such as war or natural disasters, can be sympathetic and relatable.

Loneliness: Characters who feel lonely or isolated can evoke empathy from readers who have experienced similar feelings.

Fear: Characters who face their fears or struggle with phobias can be relatable and evoke empathy from readers.

Self-doubt: Characters who struggle with self-doubt or low self-esteem can be relatable and evoke sympathy.

Identity Crisis: Characters who are grappling with questions of identity or struggling to find their place in the world can be sympathetic.

Addiction: Characters who struggle with addiction can be complex and evoke empathy from readers.

Betrayal of Trust: Characters who have had their trust betrayed can be sympathetic and relatable.

Unrequited Love: Characters who experience unrequited love can be sympathetic and evoke empathy from readers.

Isolation: Characters who feel isolated or disconnected from others can be relatable and evoke sympathy.

Fear of Failure: Characters who struggle with a fear of failure can be relatable and evoke empathy from readers.

a week in the life of London's youngest agency head (insp.)

Fanart poster made by me (Instagram / Twitter )

why the net, kaz?

i loved your recent answer about pacing it was so helpful! it wasn’t my question but the advice was brilliant! not sure if i’ve just missed it but do you have a post on showing not telling? i’m not great with exposition and writing descriptions about things that matter in a scene! thank you :)

Guide: Showing vs Telling

I talk a lot about showing vs telling but I don't have a whole post about it, so here goes! ♥

"Showing vs telling" is one of those phrases that strikes fear into the hearts of newer writers, but it's actually very simple and nothing to worry about.

This quote, which is paraphrased from something once said by writer Anton Chekhov, is the absolute best illustration of showing vs telling.

...

Telling: Sally walked outside and saw the moon was shining.

Showing: Sally walked outside and carefully stepped over the puddles of moonlight left behind by the evening's rainstorm.

...

Telling: It was a long walk to the road.

Showing: Sally skirted the shadows as she traversed the muddy distance between the house and the road.

...

Telling: Sally was mad.

Showing: She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, her nostrils flaring as her mind raced through every mean word Harold had said.

...

Humans are pretty good at interpreting sensory details. If it's night and we see light shining in a puddle, we know that light is coming either from the moon or an artificial light. We can look up in the sky and see whether it's the moon or whether there's an artificial light nearby. If we suddenly find ourselves standing in a forest and hear wolves howling nearby, we can probably guess we're in a remote location and are possibly in danger. If we go outside and smell wood burning and see black smoke, we can guess there's a fire. If it's cold outside and there are homes with fireplaces nearby, we might assume someone has a nice fire going in their fireplace. If we're in the middle of nowhere, we might guess it's a campfire. If it's the middle of summer, we might worry that there's a wildfire or wonder if a neighbor is burning yard waste.

Showing vs telling is all about taking the direct thing you want to tell the reader--Sally was mad--and thinking about the sensory details that would illustrate that thing for the reader. What can be seen? What can be heard? What can be smelled? What can be tasted? What can be felt?

You don't have to pull every sense into your description, though. Only the ones that best convey the thing you're trying to convey. In the case of "Sally was mad..."

What can we see? Her fists are clenched, her jaw is tight, her nostrils are flaring.

What can we hear? She is grunting, spitting through her teeth when she speaks, she's breathing heavily.

What can we smell? Well, in the case of anger, we generally don't smell anything. Though, if the thing she's angry about has any smells associated with it--like being mad about burning some cookies--that is certainly something to consider.

What can we taste? A third-party observer might not taste anything, but Sally might taste the char of the burned cookies. Or she might taste bile in her throat that resulted from anger-related stomach upset.

What can we feel? Again, a third-party observer might not feel anything associated with someone's anger--unless it's the vibration of a tapping foot of the hot breath of someone's angry words--but Sally might feel her heart racing or heat rising into her cheeks. She might feel the grit of the burned cookies in her mouth.

Showing vs telling means looking at those possibilities and choosing a few that can be combined to create the impression you want to give.

However, sometimes--for the sake of pacing, scene transitions, exposition following a time jump, and for other reasons, telling can actually be the better choice.

Here are some situations where telling is better than showing:

1) When something happened but it isn’t critical for the readers to see the thing actually play out. If the burned cookies played only a small role in Sally's anger, it may not be important to show how the burned cookies affected her. It might just be better to say, "The burned cookies only added to Sally's fury."

2) When clarifying less important things that happened during a “time skip.” If the situation that caused Sally's anger happened off the page, that might be a good time to tell rather than show. Otherwise, you have to do a little flashback to show the thing happening, but that might not make sense to do, especially if the thing that happened wasn't as important as the fact that she's in a bad mood when the new chapter begins.

3) When you need to make a long conversation, speech, or description a little bit shorter. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm your reader with page after page of description, so sometimes it makes more sense to tell things directly to the reader rather than to show them. Any time you get to something that can be told or shown, ask yourself if this is an opportunity to bring some description into the story, or whether "showing" the thing would slow things down or clutter up a section that already has a lot of description.

4) When you need to deliver back story or other important information. If Sally being angry about the cookies preceded an event that was important to her backstory, and this story is being told by one of Sally's acquaintances to another character in the story, this might be a time when it's better to just say, "She was angry about some burned cookies, and that's why she stormed into the village and accidentally bumped into Lord Rotherwell." Otherwise, you once again get into sort of a flashback type situation, which might work in some backstory explanations but not others.

I hope that helps! :)

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some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.

Finally got around to redoing all the Eras

(except for the Inevitable shhhhhhhh the giant whale just wouldn’t fit)

Sometimes I forget how much they’ve changed and how much I’ve improved art-wise from the first compilation page from over a year ago