Writers always hear the saying “Show, don’t tell”. Great advice, but most of the time there isn’t sufficient information to back up this advice to make it click. When writing your blog you want to show your readers what’s happening, not just tell them what has happened.
Why does this matter? Showing your readers what’s going on rather than telling them what transpired gives the reader a chance to be involved in the action rather than getting the information second hand TiVo-like.
Here’s an example of what I mean:
“Eric was a mean old man.”
This is an example of telling. The author is telling you about Eric rather than letting the reader experience Eric’s temperament on their own. Instead, the author can show the reader what Eric is like:
“Eric was the person you avoided. He stomped on toes, played mean games on children, and made dogs whine. Sadly his trickery didn’t stop at feeble jests, no, Eric was surely the Devil.”
This sentence has a lot of information. The reader learns a little about Eric and what makes him so mean instead of just knowing and having to trust the author when they say “Eric was a mean old man.”
Let your readers FEEL! When you let your readers feel the bitterness, anguish, joyful banter, exquisite pleasure of a first kiss, or the menacing laugh of a dirty trick, you allow them to indulge with you. The reader gets to understand you or the fictional characters.
How can this be done with a site about your everyday life that monotonously chugs by with the same nonsensical boring interjections as the day before? Easy! All you have to do is show your reader what happened to you. Let them see it through your eyes.
For example if you walked into a classroom and everyone started laughing, you should show them just how it was. “I entered the loud room in hopes that the children would not laugh at me and my unsightly hair, but to my dismay they giggled hysterically. It was not my hair, I felt it above my head and it didn’t seem too bad. No, it was much worse. My hands traveled south and low and behold my fly was undone.”
Another example could be something like this:
“They talked lovingly for hours about the crashing waves.”
Yes, that’s nice but I want to be there with them!
Sandra stared into his eyes and let the passion of her heart flood over her like the waves before them. “It’s pleasant tonight,” said she.
“Not as pleasant as the sun glistening in your eyes. Why not even the the deafening sound of thundering water can drown out the beauty that screams from your aura,” Michell caressed her face gently.
In this example the reader gets to hear some of their conversation instead of just knowing that they talked.
Many people do not subscribe to this “Show, don’t tell” philosophy. Many famous authors believe that this idea is just a bunch of hogwash and writers don’t need to be concerned with it. If you feel this way that’s fine, continue writing your blog any way you see fit, but don’t forget it’s always fun to spice up your blog every once and a while.
That's OK, show than tell, but what about the length of the sentences and the paragraphs.
Do they need to be long or short?
The length is all up to you, just as long as you don't have run on sentences (which is something that I always have to be conscious of). Keep your sentences the same as you would with any of your other posts. You can still be creative and show what happened with short sentences.
Patricia Vennes
writersrants.com
Anil (above) has an interesting question. Showing instead of telling will most likely (not sure, but I think) make your articles/paragraphs/sentences become longer and attention spans are probably not what blog readers have the most of
But I agree, especially when you're telling a story (not in writing), it's much more fun for the other party to "feel" and "see" what you're telling, instead of just hearing it.
This is a toughie because there are definitely two sides to it. I totally agree that there needs to be something left to the readers imagination. Let the reader decide if the barn is red or green, maybe even brown.
But keep in mind this is coming from a blogger that is cursed with posts that are way too long, even though I already do my best to shorten them.