104. BONUS: The Truant Pen Podcast- Practical Tips for Show, don't Tell

Find the Truant Pen Podcast here!

For today’s podcast, I’m delighted to welcome my friend and fellow author/ editor/ book coach, Suzy Vadori.

Suzy is Calgary Bestselling Author of The Fountain Series (The Fountain, The West Woods, Wall of Wishes). This fantastical series has received three Aurora Nominations for Best Young Adult Novel. She is represented by Naomi Davis of Bookends Literary Agency.

Suzy is the founder of the Inspired Writing Community, a Resident Writing Coach for Writers Helping Writers, a touring member of the Young Alberta Book Society (YABS) and a former Program Manager for When Words Collide (WWC), a festival for readers and writers.

Suzy specializes in breaking down complex writing concepts for newer writers into manageable steps, to get the book idea exploding in their minds onto the page in a way that will make readers take notice.

You can learn more about Suzy’s books and coaching/ editorial work on her website:

https://suzyvadori.com/

She also hosts the fabulous Show, Don’t Tell podcast which you can find here:

https://showdonttellwriting.buzzsprout.com/

🌟 Grab your spot in Suzy's Inner Circle at www.suzyvadori.com/innercircle

Sign Up for the Inspired Writing Newsletter HERE

Submit Your Page for our Show don't Tell Coaching Episodes

Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts (Thank you!)

 Intro and Outro Music is Daisy by Zight and used under a CC by 4.0 DEED Attribution 4.0 International license. For more music by Zight visit https://www.youtube.com/zight 

Transcript

Sam Cameron (00:00:03):
Welcome to Truant Pen, a podcast of actionable advice for stuck writers.

Sam Cameron (00:00:08):
I'm your host Sam Cameron and today I am joined by Susie Vidori.

Sam Cameron (00:00:14):
Susie is Calgary best-selling author of The Fountain series.

Sam Cameron (00:00:19):
This fantastical series has received three Aurora nominations for Best Young Adult Novel.

Sam Cameron (00:00:23):
She's represented by Naomi Davis of Bookends Literary Agency.

Sam Cameron (00:00:28):
Susie is also the founder of the Inspired Writing Community,

Sam Cameron (00:00:31):
a resident writing coach for writers helping writers,

Sam Cameron (00:00:34):
a touring member of the Young Alberta Book Society,

Sam Cameron (00:00:37):
and a former program manager for When Words Collide,

Sam Cameron (00:00:40):
a festival for readers and writers.

Sam Cameron (00:00:42):
Susie specializes in breaking down complex writing concepts for newer writers into

Sam Cameron (00:00:47):
manageable steps to get the book idea exploding in their minds onto the page in a

Sam Cameron (00:00:52):
way that will make readers take notice.

Sam Cameron (00:00:55):
Susie, welcome.

Sam Cameron (00:00:56):
Thank you for coming.

Suzy Vadori (00:00:57):
Oh, thanks for having me, Sam.

Suzy Vadori (00:00:59):
It's awesome to be here.

Sam Cameron (00:01:01):
So Susie is here today to talk about her favorite subject,

Sam Cameron (00:01:06):
which is show don't tell a piece of writing advice that I think every writer has

Sam Cameron (00:01:11):
heard at some point.

Sam Cameron (00:01:14):
And when Susie pitched this idea,

Sam Cameron (00:01:16):
she said,

Sam Cameron (00:01:16):
unless you think it's too basic,

Sam Cameron (00:01:18):
except I don't talk about it in a basic way.

Sam Cameron (00:01:20):
So we're going to talk about show don't tell in a non basic way.

Suzy Vadori (00:01:23):
Yeah, I think it's so much more than just this tired old phrase.

Suzy Vadori (00:01:27):
So before you tune out and skip to the next episode,

Suzy Vadori (00:01:30):
I promise you're going to learn something regardless of your skill level.

Sam Cameron (00:01:35):
Nice.

Sam Cameron (00:01:36):
So let's start by talking about what does this actually mean?

Sam Cameron (00:01:43):
Because I think a lot of people interpret this advice in different ways.

Sam Cameron (00:01:48):
So what does it mean to you?

Sam Cameron (00:01:49):
Oh my gosh, how long do we have?

Sam Cameron (00:01:51):
I could talk about this all day long.

Suzy Vadori (00:01:53):
All right, so Show Don't Tell in its basic format, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:01:57):
I said I wasn't going to talk basic,

Suzy Vadori (00:01:58):
but we're going to start there,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:00):
is sort of how you immerse readers in your writing.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:04):
So we want readers to not just listen to or watch them from the sidelines.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:10):
We want them to actually be in your characters' bodies,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:12):
experiencing what's going on around them,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:14):
because we know that

Suzy Vadori (00:02:15):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:02:38):
It's so that you can learn about other people's,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:40):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:41):
or something that's set in a different place on earth.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:44):
It's so that you can learn about other people's lives, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:02:47):
Or from a point of view that isn't your own.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:51):
So there's lots of things.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:53):
that we can do.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:53):
I mean, this is like at its crux.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:57):
That's what show don't tell means.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:59):
And so what it means for writing is that there are real and technical skills that

Suzy Vadori (00:03:04):
you can learn to make this happen in your reader's minds.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:07):
And there's a lot of them.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:08):
So I'm not going to go into them just yet.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:09):
We're going to get through it.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:11):
But you're going to learn some things.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:12):
Some of them you've probably heard of.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:14):
And some of them I can almost guarantee unless you've been following me for a long time.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:18):
You haven't.

Sam Cameron (00:03:20):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:03:21):
So for those of you who don't know,

Sam Cameron (00:03:22):
I didn't mention this in the intro,

Sam Cameron (00:03:23):
but Susie actually has her own podcast,

Sam Cameron (00:03:25):
which is the Show Don't Tell podcast.

Sam Cameron (00:03:27):
And that's what she talks about over there.

Sam Cameron (00:03:31):
So what you were just describing, Susie, about how this is the way that you immerse

Sam Cameron (00:03:35):
Bruce your reader in the experience of the character.

Sam Cameron (00:03:39):
I think that's a really important point because that is a large part of what

Sam Cameron (00:03:43):
separates written fiction or even narrative nonfiction or memoir from other mediums

Sam Cameron (00:03:51):
or media of storytelling.

Sam Cameron (00:03:53):
So I don't know if you've experienced this with any of the writers you've worked

Sam Cameron (00:03:56):
with,

Sam Cameron (00:03:56):
but I very commonly will see the issue where I'm reading a scene and

Sam Cameron (00:04:03):
and it is like the author the narrator is like a camera describing what is visible

Sam Cameron (00:04:11):
and the author is doing that because they've been told show don't tell and they

Sam Cameron (00:04:15):
interpret that to mean they should only show what is externally visible but that

Sam Cameron (00:04:20):
loses out on what a novel can do that a television show for example can't do

Suzy Vadori (00:04:28):
Absolutely.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:28):
So I love that you use the example of a camera because I use that a lot when I talk

Suzy Vadori (00:04:33):
about showing and telling.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:34):
And by the way, telling is allowed.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:36):
So for those before you put hateful comments saying telling is sometimes required.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:41):
Absolutely.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:42):
But I can tell you that most writers that I work with initially don't show enough.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:47):
So that's why we focus on that.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:49):
There comes a point like I've been working with a writer for six months or

Suzy Vadori (00:04:52):
something when I'm like,

Suzy Vadori (00:04:53):
OK,

Suzy Vadori (00:04:53):
now you're over showing.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:55):
but you're right Sam when we think we're doing it what we do oftentimes is we have

Suzy Vadori (00:04:59):
a character walk into a room and stop and look around and observe everything we

Suzy Vadori (00:05:04):
don't that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about show don't tell in in the

Suzy Vadori (00:05:08):
way that is effective we want to have your character interacting with the setting

Suzy Vadori (00:05:13):
and actually experiencing that and we want your readers to feel like they're

Suzy Vadori (00:05:17):
actually in your character's

Suzy Vadori (00:05:19):
And so the thing that you're talking about that we can do as writers,

Suzy Vadori (00:05:23):
which is why I think that reading and writing is never going away,

Suzy Vadori (00:05:25):
by the way,

Suzy Vadori (00:05:26):
that we can't do in film and movies is we have that interiority,

Suzy Vadori (00:05:30):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:05:30):
So we've got two things at our disposal or three, really.

Suzy Vadori (00:05:34):
We have inner thoughts, which is your character's thoughts, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:05:38):
And typically in today's market that we're talking either

Suzy Vadori (00:05:43):
First person point of view or third person close, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:05:46):
You may use omniscient as well.

Suzy Vadori (00:05:47):
It's pretty rare these days unless you have a really good reason for using it within your book.

Suzy Vadori (00:05:53):
It like somehow serves the story and there's no other way to tell it.

Suzy Vadori (00:05:57):
Don't just pick them willy nilly because in grade 12,

Suzy Vadori (00:06:00):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:06:01):
or your high school English teacher who may have been Sam Cam,

Suzy Vadori (00:06:03):
I don't know.

Suzy Vadori (00:06:04):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:06:19):
writing or don't remember your English teachers words omniscient means that you can

Suzy Vadori (00:06:24):
hear multiple characters thoughts it can be really hard to do well but inner

Suzy Vadori (00:06:29):
thoughts is something that we have the other two things that we have in writing

Suzy Vadori (00:06:32):
that we don't have anywhere else I mean you do have inner thoughts in movies before

Suzy Vadori (00:06:36):
you put in the comments oh what about voiceovers yeah but you can do them they're

Suzy Vadori (00:06:40):
distracting they're difficult and you can't do them to the extent that you can

Suzy Vadori (00:06:45):
We still feel like somebody's narrating the story.

Suzy Vadori (00:06:47):
We never feel like when we're watching the movie we are the person, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:06:51):
Even if you've got that voiceover.

Suzy Vadori (00:06:53):
And then you've got reactions or sort of visceral reactions that happen in their body.

Suzy Vadori (00:06:59):
And then we also have reactions, which sometimes can be internal as well.

Suzy Vadori (00:07:03):
So you're reacting to the world around you.

Suzy Vadori (00:07:06):
You're reacting to the setting.

Suzy Vadori (00:07:07):
You're reacting to what's happening,

Suzy Vadori (00:07:10):
what other characters are doing to you,

Suzy Vadori (00:07:12):
around you,

Suzy Vadori (00:07:13):
near you.

Sam Cameron (00:07:15):
Yeah and actually I was recorded an episode with Susie on her podcast about writing

Sam Cameron (00:07:21):
for young adults and one of the things we talked about was how interiority is

Sam Cameron (00:07:26):
really really popular these days and so if you are kind of looking at older models

Sam Cameron (00:07:34):
you may not see it as much as if you're looking at newer models so it's important

Sam Cameron (00:07:38):
to stay kind of up to date on what's trendy and I think part of why

Sam Cameron (00:07:44):
High levels of interiority are so popular right now is exactly because it's what

Sam Cameron (00:07:50):
separates written written works from visual.

Sam Cameron (00:07:56):
And so it's what we can't get from these other media.

Sam Cameron (00:08:01):
And so we want more of it in books.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:03):
Yeah.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:04):
And I think, you know, as I mean, talk about other things in, you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:08:09):
Other mediums,

Suzy Vadori (00:08:10):
even including social media or things that you can consume on the internet,

Suzy Vadori (00:08:14):
which are competing with reading.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:17):
And that...

Suzy Vadori (00:08:20):
Sort of ability to climb into somebody's shoes is something that people expect now.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:25):
It's because we've cracked it, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:08:27):
Like there's a lot of research.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:29):
I mean, think about social media.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:30):
You are the product, by the way, on social media.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:33):
They know exactly how to get your brain engaged.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:36):
But we can learn from some of those things in writing as well.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:39):
We can learn from all of the advances that have been made in understanding what holds attention.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:48):
And we can do that by immersing your reader in the showing.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:53):
I want to say one other thing Sam about that camera metaphor because I use that

Suzy Vadori (00:08:57):
metaphor a lot when talking about when to show and when to tell.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:01):
So if you would imagine for a moment that you are a movie director when you're

Suzy Vadori (00:09:05):
okay,

Suzy Vadori (00:09:05):
we're going to manifest this for everybody listening right now.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:08):
When your book series becomes a movie or a Netflix,

Suzy Vadori (00:09:12):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:09:13):
series or whatever it is that you're going to end up being it's going to be on the

Suzy Vadori (00:09:16):
screen.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:16):
Let's just manifest that we'll state it that way.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:19):
When it happens, there will be choices to make.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:22):
And that is your role as the writer.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:25):
So there's your story and there's your plot and you can write it straight forward.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:29):
But you have choices to make along the way.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:31):
You're the director.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:32):
As the writer, you're the director.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:33):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:10:00):
Two people walk across a bridge.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:02):
That's what's in the outline.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:04):
That's what's in the plot.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:05):
It has to happen.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:06):
They have to walk across the bridge.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:08):
But you need to decide as the writer,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:11):
When to show and zoom in and hear what they say while they're crossing the bridge

Suzy Vadori (00:10:16):
and all the details that happen and slow it down.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:20):
Right.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:20):
And be on that bridge with them and walk across the bridge.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:23):
Is that conversation important?

Suzy Vadori (00:10:25):
That is your decision.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:26):
That is your job as the director of your book, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:10:29):
You're the writer.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:29):
That's your job.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:30):
You have to decide.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:31):
If it's not important and they just have to get to the other side,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:34):
like the chicken crossing the road,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:36):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:10:37):
If that's all you need to do,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:39):
zoom out,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:40):
play the music,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:41):
not really in a book,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:41):
but imagine that you're playing the music,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:43):
you have them hold hands,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:45):
skip across the bridge,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:46):
and they're done,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:47):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:10:47):
We don't hear what happens.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:49):
We don't know,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:50):
or you could summarize,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:51):
they talked about the chicken crossing the road the whole time that they walked

Suzy Vadori (00:10:55):
across the bridge.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:55):
I mean, it's not a really good example, but I'm kind of, you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:59):
under the gun here to get an example.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:02):
But yeah, you can tell that as well.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:04):
And so think, yeah, that movie camera or that camera lens is a really important one.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:09):
And just know that you have choices.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:12):
And when you are showing something,

Suzy Vadori (00:11:17):
we don't want to hear everything all the time and start every single day of your

Suzy Vadori (00:11:22):
character's life with them waking up

Suzy Vadori (00:11:24):
and yawning and reaching for their glasses and then putting their feet down on the floor.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:28):
And then, I mean, it can be really, really boring, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:11:32):
So use it sparingly and make your choices.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:35):
But where are the places that we need it?

Suzy Vadori (00:11:37):
And by the way,

Suzy Vadori (00:11:38):
waking up in a book,

Suzy Vadori (00:11:40):
one of those things that's super cliche,

Suzy Vadori (00:11:42):
could earn you an instant rejection from an agent if you open your book that way.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:47):
Many other agents will accept it, but look for why it's different or how it's different.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:53):
but yeah I mean we assume that people in the world wake up every single day and

Suzy Vadori (00:11:57):
probably eat and probably use the bathroom right unless there's something

Suzy Vadori (00:12:01):
interesting about it or it has to do with the story you don't need to tell us yeah

Sam Cameron (00:12:05):
so that actually that last bit sort of answers one of the questions I was going to

Sam Cameron (00:12:08):
ask you which was so to recap the showing a shown scene is one where you zoom in

Sam Cameron (00:12:17):
and the audience hears the dialogue word for word

Sam Cameron (00:12:22):
We get the internal processing,

Sam Cameron (00:12:25):
we get the internal reactions,

Sam Cameron (00:12:26):
we get the physical reactions,

Sam Cameron (00:12:29):
and we get all up close and personal with that business.

Sam Cameron (00:12:32):
And then something that is told is like you are summarizing.

Sam Cameron (00:12:35):
You're not in the weeds with the character.

Sam Cameron (00:12:38):
As they're experiencing it, it's sort of like you're telling your spouse what happened

Sam Cameron (00:12:44):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Sam Cameron (00:12:47):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:13:05):
it's a lot more interesting okay I could tell you this story about this guy that I

Suzy Vadori (00:13:09):
actually saw outside my house today and he was walking along stopped at my little

Suzy Vadori (00:13:13):
free library and then he walked along some more and then there was a banana peel on

Suzy Vadori (00:13:17):
the ground and he went up into the air and his arms were flailing and everything by

Suzy Vadori (00:13:21):
now I am laughing by the way I lie for a living so this didn't actually happen I am

Suzy Vadori (00:13:25):
a fiction writer

Suzy Vadori (00:13:26):
And so by this time, I'm laughing hysterically.

Suzy Vadori (00:13:29):
I'm telling this story and you're looking at me going like, Susie, what are you talking about?

Suzy Vadori (00:13:34):
And I say, oh, you had to be there, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:13:37):
So one of the things that we want to do is let your reader be there because we

Suzy Vadori (00:13:40):
don't want them to hear the story.

Suzy Vadori (00:13:41):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:14:10):
Just on this sort of movie metaphor,

Suzy Vadori (00:14:13):
there's many writers and readers will say that when they read a book,

Suzy Vadori (00:14:19):
it actually creates images or it kind of plays in their mind like a movie.

Suzy Vadori (00:14:23):
That's very common.

Suzy Vadori (00:14:25):
By the way, if you can't do that, that's okay.

Suzy Vadori (00:14:27):
There's about 2% of the population who doesn't actually

Suzy Vadori (00:14:30):
Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:14:58):
You know picture an apple in your mind and you might think I mean metaphorically

Suzy Vadori (00:15:02):
and then I asked you the color somebody with aphantasia,

Suzy Vadori (00:15:05):
which is the opposite right that 2% cannot tell you the color because they didn't

Suzy Vadori (00:15:09):
actually generate an image.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:11):
So for those writers,

Suzy Vadori (00:15:13):
you need to learn you need to actually pay special attention to this because you

Suzy Vadori (00:15:17):
don't want to write for 2% of the population.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:20):
What's funny is I've actually worked with a number of aphantasic writers and a

Suzy Vadori (00:15:24):
number of my colleagues are also aphantasic book coaches because they've had to

Suzy Vadori (00:15:29):
learn how to construct this for other people and how to make this fantasia happen.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:34):
I happen to be on the other,

Suzy Vadori (00:15:35):
it's a continuum,

Suzy Vadori (00:15:37):
I happen to be on the other end of the extreme where I can hear and smell and taste

Suzy Vadori (00:15:41):
and all the things and I'm trying to learn more about that because I'm fascinated

Suzy Vadori (00:15:44):
by brain science and how show don't tell in your writing and how the techniques are

Suzy Vadori (00:15:48):
actually can make this thing happen in people's minds.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:51):
It's pretty cool.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:53):
But yeah, that's why you want to be giving readers details.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:57):
Now they're going to fill some of it in.

Suzy Vadori (00:16:00):
If you're aphantasic,

Suzy Vadori (00:16:01):
you actually need the details as well because you will still experience it.

Suzy Vadori (00:16:05):
Aphantasic people have extremely well-developed imaginations and they tend to be

Suzy Vadori (00:16:13):
really good in scientific fields.

Suzy Vadori (00:16:15):
Truant Truant Truant

Sam Cameron (00:16:33):
Having aphantasia does not at all make it so you can't be a writer So if you just

Sam Cameron (00:16:38):
realize that you have aphantasia from that little experiment John Green has

Sam Cameron (00:16:43):
aphantasia He's an incredibly successful author So there's no reason that you can't

Sam Cameron (00:16:48):
learn to do this And there's probably things that you've found meaningful about

Sam Cameron (00:16:53):
reading as an experience Even if you have aphantasia

Sam Cameron (00:16:57):
um I actually have a critique partner who I don't know if she's all the way at the

Sam Cameron (00:17:00):
aphantasia end of the spectrum but she's in that side yeah it's actually really

Sam Cameron (00:17:05):
helpful for like me because I'm somewhere in the middle I think like I don't have

Sam Cameron (00:17:10):
the hyperphantasia but I'm not a aphantasia um and it's actually kind of helpful

Sam Cameron (00:17:15):
for me to be writing for someone who

Sam Cameron (00:17:19):
who's more towards that aphantasia side of the spectrum because she will make it

Sam Cameron (00:17:24):
very obvious to me if I haven't described enough because she's like I can't

Sam Cameron (00:17:30):
visualize this at all right because she's not going to fill in the blanks the way

Sam Cameron (00:17:33):
that I fill in the blanks but at the same time I can kind of do the same thing for

Sam Cameron (00:17:39):
her

Sam Cameron (00:17:40):
Because when she's writing, there's a lot of stuff that she's not visualizing.

Sam Cameron (00:17:45):
And so she kind of relies on me to say, like, wait a second, this doesn't make any sense.

Suzy Vadori (00:17:51):
Yeah, exactly.

Suzy Vadori (00:17:52):
And so it's about how, like, there is a continuum of brains out there.

Suzy Vadori (00:17:57):
And, and

Suzy Vadori (00:17:59):
It's great to be aware of where you are on that spectrum so that you can be really

Suzy Vadori (00:18:03):
aware and see it in your own writing and be able to compensate whether you're on

Suzy Vadori (00:18:08):
one end or the other,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:09):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:18:09):
Like, again, they're all ranges of normal.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:13):
It's not a disability if you can or can't do it.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:17):
So it's just good to know.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:19):
And so one of the things that happens in show...

Suzy Vadori (00:18:22):
So one of the things that makes show don't tell one of the most difficult...

Suzy Vadori (00:18:29):
techniques to learn is that this ability to fill it in or however your brain

Suzy Vadori (00:18:35):
constructs things,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:36):
whether it's with images or whether it's not,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:39):
whether it's with details and facts,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:43):
you are doing that as you're writing.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:45):
And so when you write,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:48):
you are imagining this whole scenario and then whatever gets on the page gets on

Suzy Vadori (00:18:53):
the page.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:54):
It's not going to be everything.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:55):
We're going to talk about that in a minute because we don't want, you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:59):
eight pages of purple prose describing everything that's not what show don't tell

Suzy Vadori (00:19:03):
means again you need to be judicious you need to know how much I'm going to share

Suzy Vadori (00:19:07):
some of that but what happens is as you write you've got this beautiful world in

Suzy Vadori (00:19:14):
your mind whether that's visual or not and then you write it down what you want

Suzy Vadori (00:19:19):
your writing is almost like a game of telephone so I'm sure you've all played the

Suzy Vadori (00:19:22):
game of telephone Sam did you play the game of telephone as a kid

Suzy Vadori (00:19:25):
And basically what it is, if you have never played it, you sit in a circle or a line.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:31):
and you think of a phrase or a word.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:34):
It's usually a phrase or a sentence.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:35):
And one of the kids whispers it to the next kid and whispers it to the next kid and

Suzy Vadori (00:19:40):
whispers it to the next kid.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:41):
And the goal,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:42):
theoretically,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:43):
of the game is to get it to the end of the line with it being attacked.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:48):
But what usually happens,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:49):
especially if you're a writer and you lie for a living,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:52):
like fiction writers do,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:54):
you were probably that kid that if it got to the end of the line,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:56):
it made too much sense.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:57):
You said something else.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:58):
That was me.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:59):
I don't know if it was you or me.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:01):
Yeah,

Suzy Vadori (00:20:01):
no,

Sam Cameron (00:20:01):
there was always there was always some kid who would make up something wildly

Sam Cameron (00:20:04):
different just to like throw off the whole game.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:07):
Yeah, exactly.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:08):
Because that's part of the fun is that it doesn't actually translate.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:10):
And so but your goal as a writer is to get your writing to the end of the line so

Suzy Vadori (00:20:16):
that they read it and they actually get what you were trying to say.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:20):
That's where showing comes in and being very, very clear, because here's the problem.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:25):
When you read your own work back to yourself,

Suzy Vadori (00:20:28):
your brain is really,

Suzy Vadori (00:20:29):
really smart and it fills in the gaps.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:31):
And so whether or not you got it on the page,

Suzy Vadori (00:20:34):
you will have no idea because you still see your beautiful picture and your

Suzy Vadori (00:20:39):
beautiful world.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:40):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:21:05):
and you're mad because you think that they don't like your idea,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:08):
but they never even saw it,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:09):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:21:10):
They only saw like this,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:12):
like I use the imagery of,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:14):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:15):
if I was learning to draw,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:16):
I mean,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:18):
I'm a terrible drawer,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:20):
by the way,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:20):
and please don't offer to give me art lessons because lots of people offer to give

Suzy Vadori (00:21:24):
me art lessons.

Suzy Vadori (00:21:25):
I'm like one day in my life that will be a priority, but I have a lot on my plate right now.

Suzy Vadori (00:21:29):
So I draw stick figures.

Suzy Vadori (00:21:31):
Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:21:46):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:22:14):
you know kind of lukewarm review you probably haven't paid enough attention on how

Suzy Vadori (00:22:20):
to actually construct that in your reader's mind and you have to practice that it's

Suzy Vadori (00:22:24):
not something that you can do just like I can't paint the Mona Lisa without taking

Suzy Vadori (00:22:29):
art lessons I assume that if I spent 10,000 hours which is what it takes to master

Suzy Vadori (00:22:34):
a skill I'd be able to paint the Mona Lisa I assume that's true probably and I was

Sam Cameron (00:22:41):
thinking about maybe not as you were I don't know

Sam Cameron (00:22:44):
Um,

Sam Cameron (00:22:44):
I was thinking as you were saying this,

Sam Cameron (00:22:46):
that there's also an element of showing which is not visual.

Sam Cameron (00:22:52):
Um,

Sam Cameron (00:22:52):
so like on the one hand,

Sam Cameron (00:22:53):
it is about creating an image in the mind of your reader so they can visualize it,

Sam Cameron (00:22:57):
but it's also about creating emotion in your reader.

Sam Cameron (00:23:00):
And I was reminded as you were talking about a scene that I wrote for one of my books.

Sam Cameron (00:23:05):
where there's an argument between these two siblings one of the siblings has ADHD

Sam Cameron (00:23:11):
and she's had a moment where her ADHD has kind of derailed a thing she was supposed

Sam Cameron (00:23:16):
to do and her brother swoops in to save her and then she's really mad about it

Sam Cameron (00:23:19):
because of the way that he swooped in to save her was really patronizing and when I

Sam Cameron (00:23:25):
gave this scene to readers the readers who had ADHD understood this experience and

Sam Cameron (00:23:32):
so they got the emotions of the character right away

Sam Cameron (00:23:35):
But the readers who didn't have that context were like, I don't understand why she's back.

Sam Cameron (00:23:40):
Her brother helped her.

Sam Cameron (00:23:42):
And so I needed to then do more in that scene to contextualize that experience so

Sam Cameron (00:23:51):
that it was clear

Suzy Vadori (00:23:52):
Yeah,

Suzy Vadori (00:23:54):
and sometimes we can lean on shared experiences and we can kind of tell or like

Suzy Vadori (00:24:00):
mention it quickly.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:01):
But you're absolutely right.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:02):
If your reader doesn't have that in their memory bank and can't call on it,

Suzy Vadori (00:24:08):
then you're going to have to show it to them.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:11):
Okay so I love that you brought up emotions because I want to talk about how okay

Suzy Vadori (00:24:14):
so I just told you that you're writing stick figures maybe and you don't know how

Suzy Vadori (00:24:19):
so how could you actually find like I'm not saying that you always have to go

Suzy Vadori (00:24:23):
externally yes getting a reader to help you or

Suzy Vadori (00:24:25):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:24:48):
And sometimes this is where it ends, this conversation, is about emotion.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:52):
And because, and we talk about don't name emotion.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:56):
So that's like a sort of rule that's thrown out there.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:58):
And like I said,

Suzy Vadori (00:24:59):
you're going to hear some that are tired or typical,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:02):
and you're going to hear some other ones that are new.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:04):
And kind of my own thing.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:06):
But

Suzy Vadori (00:25:07):
Not naming emotions is something that you've probably been instructed to do before.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:11):
And what I mean is say,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:12):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:12):
not that she's happy,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:14):
but that she had a wide grin on her face,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:17):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:25:17):
Which implies that she's happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:19):
And so I want to show you why.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:22):
Because people say, oh, yeah, yeah, I can do that.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:25):
But they think that it's like this snobby literary rule that makes,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:29):
quote unquote,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:30):
you can't see me doing air quotes,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:31):
but I'm doing air quotes.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:33):
That makes good writing.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:34):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:37):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:40):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:43):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:46):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:49):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:52):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:55):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:57):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:59):
Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:26:02):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:26:06):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:26:09):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:26:17):
Maybe your brain can hold a lot of facts at once.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:20):
But when we read, we need more than that.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:22):
And so our brains actually go to sleep when you give us too many facts because it's

Suzy Vadori (00:26:26):
already interpreted for us.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:27):
She's happy, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:26:29):
If you tell me that she had a wide grin on her face,

Suzy Vadori (00:26:34):
I have to do something with that as the reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:37):
And in fact, my brain has to wake up a little bit and say she had a wide grid on her face.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:41):
And then my neural pathways have to associate that with being happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:44):
Oh, she's happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:45):
Right.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:46):
You can see I actually my brain woke up and went didn't hold that fact.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:50):
She's happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:51):
Thanks for interpreting it for me, Susie.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:53):
Right.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:54):
And told me something that I had to do myself and I got the reader involved.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:58):
And because of that, it's more interesting to them.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:01):
It keeps them awake.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:02):
Okay, so that's a very simple example.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:04):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:27:06):
Yeah, go ahead.

Sam Cameron (00:27:07):
And I can see how that actually like imitates that.

Sam Cameron (00:27:09):
I can see how that imitates for our brains,

Sam Cameron (00:27:12):
the experience of living in the real world,

Sam Cameron (00:27:14):
because in the real world,

Sam Cameron (00:27:16):
we encounter stimuli all the time.

Sam Cameron (00:27:18):
And so if instead of someone narrating to us their experience of whatever happened,

Sam Cameron (00:27:27):
right,

Sam Cameron (00:27:27):
or just saying like,

Sam Cameron (00:27:28):
oh,

Sam Cameron (00:27:28):
she's happy.

Sam Cameron (00:27:30):
If that person is instead narrating

Sam Cameron (00:27:34):
What our brain would be taking in visually or auditorially or olfactory or whatever

Sam Cameron (00:27:42):
senses you want to use.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:44):
Yes.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:44):
If we're being given that information,

Sam Cameron (00:27:47):
then it's more similar to like walking around in the world and like you're

Sam Cameron (00:27:50):
interacting with a person and subconsciously or possibly consciously for some

Sam Cameron (00:27:54):
people.

Sam Cameron (00:27:56):
you're looking at people's faces and interpreting their body language and their

Sam Cameron (00:27:59):
tone of voice yes exactly bringing in that information and so so if you're using

Sam Cameron (00:28:06):
those kinds of imitating that experience for the reader it gives you your brain a

Sam Cameron (00:28:12):
closer experience to like living life

Suzy Vadori (00:28:16):
Absolutely.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:16):
And so, yeah, we don't walk around saying, I think I'm happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:21):
We just walk around with that feeling.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:23):
And so we want people to feel the feeling.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:25):
And brains are cool.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:26):
Back to brain science.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:28):
There's also research out there that shows that when we read something that does

Suzy Vadori (00:28:33):
this well,

Suzy Vadori (00:28:35):
the actual brain waves and activity that happens are as if we're really there.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:40):
So if we're in a scary situation,

Suzy Vadori (00:28:43):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:28:43):
our heart might actually pound as we're reading,

Suzy Vadori (00:28:45):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:28:45):
Like these things are actually happening within our body.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:48):
So we want to engage the reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:49):
This is like how we get you involved, right?

Sam Cameron (00:28:53):
We don't want to drink so much water when I was reading The Hunger Games for the

Sam Cameron (00:28:56):
first time because she's so thirsty for so much of the book.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:59):
Oh my gosh, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:29:01):
Yeah.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:01):
And so that's what we want.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:02):
And that's because it's done well in that book, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:29:06):
And it's not just like, oh, I'm thirsty again.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:10):
it's like oh my throat is so dry I can't get the words out like you're actually

Suzy Vadori (00:29:14):
describing I don't know what I don't know how it's actually just I don't remember

Sam Cameron (00:29:17):
what words she used but I remember being so thirsty and like it was such a tension

Sam Cameron (00:29:23):
for myself because I I did not want to put that book down but I had to keep leaving

Sam Cameron (00:29:28):
my room to go refill my water cup because I was drinking so much water oh my gosh

Suzy Vadori (00:29:33):
Sam why did you not just have a cup oh you had to leave it I'm like I thought you

Suzy Vadori (00:29:37):
meant to get the water okay don't refill it

Sam Cameron (00:29:40):
I have a vivid memory of like being in my childhood bedroom and walking to the

Sam Cameron (00:29:44):
bathroom that I shared with my brothers to like refill my cup in the sink very

Sam Cameron (00:29:49):
frequently while I was reading that book.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:52):
I love that.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:53):
And I mean,

Suzy Vadori (00:29:54):
I'll date myself here,

Suzy Vadori (00:29:55):
but I was not still in my parents home when I met Hunger Games came out.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:59):
So okay, but that's good.

Suzy Vadori (00:30:02):
So that's emotions, but it's also leading into something else, this whole concept.

Suzy Vadori (00:30:07):
And you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:30:07):
the more I study show don't tell,

Suzy Vadori (00:30:09):
the more it kind of bleeds into every other thing in writing,

Suzy Vadori (00:30:14):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:30:14):
Like, I feel like it's the umbrella

Suzy Vadori (00:30:16):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:30:21):
Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:30:30):
so I'm going to talk about another one that you may have heard because it's very

Suzy Vadori (00:30:33):
typical and these are the two like there's actually three that are like super

Suzy Vadori (00:30:37):
typical the next one is don't use ly adverbs right and I'll explain that for a

Suzy Vadori (00:30:43):
second right adverbs because that's what people think show don't tell is don't name

Suzy Vadori (00:30:47):
emotions and don't use ly adverbs but again I'm going to explain why and then I'm

Suzy Vadori (00:30:50):
going to extrapolate how that works in all of your writing and not just these two

Suzy Vadori (00:30:55):
simple rules

Suzy Vadori (00:30:57):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:31:01):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:31:12):
Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:31:42):
She strode to the corner, her heels clicking, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:31:46):
She's walking quickly.

Suzy Vadori (00:31:47):
Way more interesting.

Suzy Vadori (00:31:48):
That one happens to be longer, but it doesn't necessarily have to be longer, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:31:53):
So just take that extra beat.

Suzy Vadori (00:31:55):
It's one thing that you can look for in your own writing where you're always telling.

Suzy Vadori (00:31:58):
Now, does that mean that you have to get rid of 100%?

Suzy Vadori (00:32:01):
100%, you don't.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:03):
But try and get rid of a lot.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:05):
If you've got that littered all over your opening pages...

Suzy Vadori (00:32:09):
An agent or a reader is going to pass.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:12):
They may not know why, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:32:14):
And this is the other thing is when I teach techniques,

Suzy Vadori (00:32:16):
I like to tell writers,

Suzy Vadori (00:32:18):
people are going to like your writing more.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:21):
They may have no idea why.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:23):
Even an agent or an editor may not know why when you do these things,

Suzy Vadori (00:32:27):
they like your writing more.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:29):
In fact, a lot of my clients come back and say to me, the agent's like,

Suzy Vadori (00:32:33):
this just jumped off the slush pile or whatever right like like that that kind of

Suzy Vadori (00:32:38):
language because we're working on things we're engaging them we're using techniques

Suzy Vadori (00:32:43):
that they may not notice and we don't want them to notice what we're doing right

Suzy Vadori (00:32:47):
like that's not the point um the point is to engage the reader okay yeah I like

Sam Cameron (00:32:52):
that you're explaining why to do these things because I think

Sam Cameron (00:32:57):
A lot of writers have heard, oh, don't name emotions, don't use L-Y adverbs.

Sam Cameron (00:33:01):
And so what they do is they take those things out of their work,

Sam Cameron (00:33:05):
but they don't realize that they need to replace them with something else to get

Sam Cameron (00:33:10):
across the meaning that those words were trying to do.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:14):
Exactly.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:15):
And to light up the reader's brains in the process.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:17):
So there are technical ways that you can do that.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:20):
And then the third really typical one, which I won't spend a lot of time on, is info dumps.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:24):
If we're info dumping,

Suzy Vadori (00:33:25):
like if you're giving me three pages of description of your world building before

Suzy Vadori (00:33:30):
you get to the story,

Suzy Vadori (00:33:32):
it's too much.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:32):
Take it out.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:34):
I like to say, give us a detail or two.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:37):
Right and sprinkle them throughout so you may need that information if you're

Suzy Vadori (00:33:42):
writing fantasy in particular where the world is not on earth and it's something

Suzy Vadori (00:33:46):
completely new you need that information so go ahead write it but know that don't

Suzy Vadori (00:33:51):
count it to your word count right and then sprinkle in a few things it's often

Suzy Vadori (00:33:55):
enough to give us a few really specific things that's one that I would say um if

Suzy Vadori (00:34:01):
you are

Suzy Vadori (00:34:02):
Being vague, I can't picture anything.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:05):
I can't remember anything, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:34:08):
There's nothing to remember because you haven't given me anything, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:34:12):
So if you're using words like objects or something or someone, be specific.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:18):
Be as specific as you can.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:20):
And that doesn't, again, I don't need a paragraph.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:23):
Use a word from your world.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:25):
She picked up something.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:26):
Give me something that she picked up that means something in your world, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:34:31):
Because

Suzy Vadori (00:34:32):
and this is the one the vague versus specific rule.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:36):
This is the one where I can tell you if I read your manuscript and I'm seeing a lot of vagary

Suzy Vadori (00:34:43):
I know that you haven't made a decision somewhere along the line you haven't

Suzy Vadori (00:34:46):
decided yet and there's a lot of advice out there that will say push through don't

Suzy Vadori (00:34:50):
stop and that might be true except in this case if you haven't decided something

Suzy Vadori (00:34:56):
decide if you haven't decided how your magic works if you haven't decided who the

Suzy Vadori (00:35:01):
killer is if you haven't decided something in your book you are going to have

Suzy Vadori (00:35:05):
passages that are so vague because you don't know the answer that

Suzy Vadori (00:35:13):
It's really hard to go back and fix them later because there's nothing to fix.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:17):
There's no grammatical issue, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:35:20):
But search on these words because you're going to have to rewrite that whole

Suzy Vadori (00:35:23):
section to layer in something else when you make that decision.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:27):
So I like to get writers to stop and make a decision.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:31):
Writers often say, how do you do that?

Suzy Vadori (00:35:33):
How do you know that I haven't decided who she marries yet or who she chooses in

Suzy Vadori (00:35:38):
the love triangle?

Suzy Vadori (00:35:39):
I'm like, oh, I can tell.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:41):
and doesn't mean give it away.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:42):
It just means that you use some really vague language.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:46):
It's like something that you do as a protection to leave all your options open.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:51):
If you know the answer, you can still obscure it if it's not time to make the big reveal yet.

Sam Cameron (00:35:56):
Yeah,

Sam Cameron (00:35:57):
I think it's Lisa Krohn who talks about,

Sam Cameron (00:35:59):
and I forget which one of her books she says this in.

Sam Cameron (00:36:00):
She says,

Sam Cameron (00:36:01):
decisions beget decisions,

Sam Cameron (00:36:04):
which is,

Sam Cameron (00:36:04):
or like specifics beget specifics might be what she says.

Sam Cameron (00:36:08):
Which is the idea that like once,

Sam Cameron (00:36:11):
You make the decision.

Sam Cameron (00:36:12):
I say this as someone who loves using placeholders when I'm drafting for things I don't know.

Sam Cameron (00:36:18):
But I also know very clearly when I'm writing something.

Sam Cameron (00:36:22):
So I was drafting something the other day.

Sam Cameron (00:36:24):
I knew that these characters were going back to their hometown.

Sam Cameron (00:36:27):
I had not decided where their hometown was or anything to do with their hometown.

Sam Cameron (00:36:31):
And so I was like, well, we got to decide something.

Sam Cameron (00:36:32):
So I decided they came from a place that had a lot of dairy farms.

Sam Cameron (00:36:35):
And that one detail, like,

Sam Cameron (00:36:38):
Exploded the whole rest of everything Like I had so much more I could write about

Suzy Vadori (00:36:43):
Yeah and you're not sort of just marking the scene and getting through it you can

Suzy Vadori (00:36:47):
be specific yeah you don't have to decide everything but sometimes you're going to

Suzy Vadori (00:36:50):
come to these decisions and you have to and you know as a coach and I'm sure you do

Suzy Vadori (00:36:54):
this with your writers as well Sam but as a coach I like to warn writers up front I

Suzy Vadori (00:36:59):
am going to force you to make decisions now I will not hold your feet to the fire

Suzy Vadori (00:37:04):
you can change your mind

Suzy Vadori (00:37:06):
Now,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:06):
if we're changing your mind every single week,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:07):
we're going to have a very different conversation and we're going to figure out why

Suzy Vadori (00:37:11):
we're doing that because we're never going to make any progress.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:13):
But here's the thing, because again, back to brains.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:17):
If you've ever experienced overwhelm or what you would describe as overwhelm,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:20):
you probably have at some point in your life,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:22):
but overwhelm is a real phenomenon that happens to your brain where your brain

Suzy Vadori (00:37:26):
actually shuts off,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:27):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:37:28):
And the reason that it happens is because it's like if you were coming up to a fork

Suzy Vadori (00:37:33):
in a road and you could go left or your right and you don't make a decision and so

Suzy Vadori (00:37:37):
you stand at that fork in the road,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:38):
that's what your brain does.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:40):
You haven't given me information so I can't do anything.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:43):
Right.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:44):
And so people don't often recognize overwhelm.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:47):
They think that it's because they have, you know, too much going on.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:51):
And it is.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:52):
But if they just made,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:54):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:54):
if they would just make those decisions and they could start to move forward.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:58):
And so what I do with writers is we say, well, we came to a fork in a road, pick left or right.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:03):
If we go down the left fork in the road and the trees are all dead and,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:08):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:08):
like it's spooky and scary and you want to turn back,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:12):
turn back.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:13):
But you know what?

Suzy Vadori (00:38:14):
We can do that pretty quickly.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:16):
We can start writing.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:17):
Like you said,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:18):
if you'd picked,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:19):
it was in the area with dairy farms and then it got distracting or didn't fit,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:24):
you could always go back to that scene and say,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:26):
okay,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:26):
it's not dairy farms.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:27):
Actually,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:28):
it would be more helpful if they were fields of soy or cornfields because I want

Suzy Vadori (00:38:34):
the spooky element of being children of the corn or something.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:38):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:38:56):
write a book for a decade or several decades because you're out there I'm sure

Suzy Vadori (00:38:59):
you're listening to this podcast some of you or if you've you know been writing and

Suzy Vadori (00:39:04):
putting in these sort of vagary scenes that you're maybe never going to be able to

Suzy Vadori (00:39:08):
fix because you don't know that they're there but they're going to your reader's

Suzy Vadori (00:39:12):
going to be like what is this I have no nothing's happening in my brain here

Suzy Vadori (00:39:16):
because you're giving me nothing to work with yeah so you're always further ahead

Suzy Vadori (00:39:21):
if you make those decisions than if you just stand at the fork in the road

Sam Cameron (00:39:26):
Yeah,

Sam Cameron (00:39:26):
I think a lot of writers are scared of they want to make sure they're making the

Sam Cameron (00:39:31):
right decision or the quote unquote right decision or the,

Sam Cameron (00:39:35):
you know,

Sam Cameron (00:39:35):
writing their book the quote unquote right way.

Sam Cameron (00:39:38):
And I like to say that the right way to do it is the way that results in a done book.

Sam Cameron (00:39:43):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:39:43):
And like Susie said, you can change your mind.

Sam Cameron (00:39:47):
about anything sure you can at any point you know so it's just important to make a

Sam Cameron (00:39:52):
decision so that you can have the specifics to come up with more specifics you know

Sam Cameron (00:39:57):
and and make your way to the end um and then if you realize that that one decision

Sam Cameron (00:40:03):
didn't work you can undo it and make a decision exactly and our mentor Jenny Nash

Suzy Vadori (00:40:08):
actually of Author Accelerator I don't know if you read this one Sam

Suzy Vadori (00:40:12):
kind of blindsiding you here.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:13):
But she sent out a newsletter in January that I haven't had a chance to talk to her about yet.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:17):
But I'm excited about it and I keep quoting it.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:19):
So maybe one of those is going to cross her mind.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:22):
And Jenny, if you're listening to this, I want to talk about it.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:24):
Okay,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:25):
so she put into chat GPT because we're trying to find,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:28):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:28):
ethical and interesting uses of AI in the writing world,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:33):
which isn't to write your book,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:34):
by the way,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:34):
because it'll be full of that vagary.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:35):
That's how I know that something is AI written.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:38):
Actually, it's because it can't generate anything new.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:42):
It just kind of,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:44):
it looks for the common denominator in successful writing and then makes an average

Suzy Vadori (00:40:49):
of everything,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:50):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:40:50):
So it's never specific.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:53):
But anyways, that's totally not what I was going to talk about.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:56):
So in Jenny's newsletter,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:57):
she actually shared that she asked it,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:00):
asked her chat,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:02):
how many decisions does a writer make while writing a fiction novel?

Suzy Vadori (00:41:07):
And it came back with somewhere between 250,000 to 1 million.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:12):
And she said, it kind of blew my mind, but then I thought about it.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:14):
And I mean, we're talking about bigger decisions, but decisions on everything.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:18):
And this is where I want to lead into one of the next things that you can look for

Suzy Vadori (00:41:21):
in your own writing,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:23):
where you are absolutely telling us.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:25):
And this one's one that people miss.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:28):
And it is when you are reporting about something,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:32):
and I talked about this already a little bit,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:33):
but I'm going to bring it into your scenes,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:35):
reporting something off screen.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:37):
Right?

Suzy Vadori (00:41:38):
So when you make a decision, okay, you look at your outline, hopefully you outline.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:43):
I love to outline.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:45):
If you don't outline, that's okay.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:47):
When you come up with an idea for a scene or something has to happen,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:50):
a plot point has to happen,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:51):
you know that they need to

Suzy Vadori (00:41:52):
Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:42:21):
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Suzy Vadori (00:42:47):
Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:43:02):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:43:23):
You know,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:24):
in that case,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:25):
it might be somebody comes home,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:27):
but you skip ahead to the soldier coming home from the fight scene,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:31):
and then he tells his spouse about the fight scene,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:33):
and that's how we hear about it.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:34):
It's like my story with the banana peel that I talked about earlier, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:43:38):
You had to be there.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:40):
Bring us there and do the work.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:42):
Don't be stingy with the reader because you don't feel like writing a fight scene.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:48):
Do the work.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:49):
Immerse us.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:50):
So watch for scenes like that where a character is telling another character about

Suzy Vadori (00:43:54):
something that happened that we aren't present for.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:56):
And if it happened in the past, drop us into a flashback.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:00):
Let us be there.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:02):
Because if we're not there,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:03):
we care about it a lot less and we're going to retain it a lot less.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:07):
We're not as interested in it.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:09):
This also shows up in manuscripts.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:12):
If you have, I call them recap scenes.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:15):
So a lot of times,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:16):
a few times,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:17):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:18):
publishers will contact or tell their writer,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:20):
go work with Susie,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:21):
your manuscript's too long,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:22):
let's find places to cut your manuscript.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:24):
Because this happens in publishing, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:44:27):
They might have a cap in terms of word count.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:30):
And

Suzy Vadori (00:44:31):
if a manuscript's too long.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:32):
And the writer tells me, I don't want to cut anything.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:35):
I'm not willing to cut any of my scenes.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:37):
And I go, well, let's just look, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:44:40):
Because I promise you I can find places where you can cut your word count without

Suzy Vadori (00:44:45):
changing anything that happens.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:47):
I promise it's true.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:49):
And so one of the biggest places that I can find a lot of word count in many,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:53):
many books,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:54):
especially like epic sized books,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:57):
like long science fiction or

Suzy Vadori (00:45:00):
historical fiction is when we're recapping scenes so it looks kind of like this you

Suzy Vadori (00:45:06):
did the work you took us to the battle and you brought us to the moment where the

Suzy Vadori (00:45:11):
soldier's best friend dies in his arms and we're just got it you did a great job by

Suzy Vadori (00:45:16):
the way Ryder good job you did a great job on the scene and then the next scene the

Suzy Vadori (00:45:21):
soldier is walking to the house of his best friend's widow and he tells him all of

Suzy Vadori (00:45:27):
that again and we watch the widow

Suzy Vadori (00:45:29):
and we go through her reaction again.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:32):
Here's the problem.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:34):
I just went through as a reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:36):
Okay, you did a good job.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:37):
You showed me I was gutted.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:40):
I maybe put the book down for a beat and went and,

Suzy Vadori (00:45:42):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:45:43):
got a glass of water or something a little stronger to get through that.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:47):
And the issue is, I'm not going to do that arc again.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:52):
And I already saw it.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:53):
So don't lose sight of your reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:55):
Everything that you write needs to be focused on your reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:58):
Does the reader have the information already?

Suzy Vadori (00:46:00):
This is also true for info dumps.

Suzy Vadori (00:46:03):
Does your reader need the information?

Suzy Vadori (00:46:04):
Does your reader have the information?

Suzy Vadori (00:46:06):
And writers will say to me, but the widow needs to know.

Suzy Vadori (00:46:09):
Okay, cool.

Suzy Vadori (00:46:12):
So that's where you slip into telling.

Suzy Vadori (00:46:14):
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Suzy Vadori (00:46:17):
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Suzy Vadori (00:46:21):
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Suzy Vadori (00:46:24):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:26):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:28):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:31):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:34):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:37):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:39):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:41):
you would like have the death scene with the dramatic music and everything and then

Sam Cameron (00:46:47):
the director would probably have like a silent shot of the soldier of the widow's

Sam Cameron (00:46:55):
sobbing without us actually hearing any of the words right and that that's

Suzy Vadori (00:46:59):
essentially accomplishing the same thing yeah because we we can't go yeah but think

Suzy Vadori (00:47:03):
about your reader you don't want them to have to go through that emotional arc

Suzy Vadori (00:47:06):
again

Suzy Vadori (00:47:07):
and also it's boring because we already know what happens it loses its punch now if

Suzy Vadori (00:47:14):
you must repeat a scene if you must bring something up again because I can hear it

Suzy Vadori (00:47:20):
already but Susie I have to you can but just remember when you do that keep it as

Suzy Vadori (00:47:27):
short as possible and also give us something new so this actually comes up a lot of

Suzy Vadori (00:47:33):
times when we're writing book two

Suzy Vadori (00:47:36):
And writers contact me,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:39):
book one,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:39):
I actually went through this recently,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:41):
one of my writers,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:42):
she wrote a book and it became a USA Today bestseller and she's writing book two

Suzy Vadori (00:47:47):
and she's like,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:48):
oh my gosh,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:48):
I'm just rewriting book one and then I have to blow it up.

Suzy Vadori (00:47:52):
Because the problem is,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:53):
and people think it's going to be easier because they already created the

Suzy Vadori (00:47:55):
characters in the world.

Suzy Vadori (00:47:56):
But the problem is, you've already created the characters in the world.

Suzy Vadori (00:47:59):
So what the heck do you talk about?

Suzy Vadori (00:48:01):
And how much do you need to recap?

Suzy Vadori (00:48:04):
And how much can you kind of move on?

Suzy Vadori (00:48:07):
And I like to say keep it fresh and give the reader new information.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:11):
So the way that this shows up is,

Suzy Vadori (00:48:12):
sure,

Suzy Vadori (00:48:12):
you might have to recap what happened at the battle in book one because we need the

Suzy Vadori (00:48:17):
information or the book doesn't make any sense.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:19):
But maybe the character is 10 years older and has a different perspective on it.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:24):
And instead of being gutted by it, he sees it in a different lens.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:29):
Give us new information.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:32):
Or he found out later that the battle should have never happened because the

Suzy Vadori (00:48:36):
captain was corrupt and they weren't supposed to be there.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:39):
Like, give us something.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:40):
But yeah, give us something different.

Sam Cameron (00:48:43):
Yeah,

Sam Cameron (00:48:43):
I'm thinking about,

Sam Cameron (00:48:44):
as you were saying that,

Sam Cameron (00:48:45):
like dual POV romances,

Sam Cameron (00:48:48):
where one of the challenges for that writing in that genre is you kind of need to

Sam Cameron (00:48:54):
have both characters hit certain emotional beats.

Sam Cameron (00:48:58):
But like, for example, you don't want to write a whole scene

Sam Cameron (00:49:01):
Like let's say it's the first sex scene.

Sam Cameron (00:49:03):
You don't want to write the whole sex scene from character A's point of view and

Sam Cameron (00:49:07):
then rehash the entire same scene from character B's point of view.

Sam Cameron (00:49:11):
Like that would be really boring.

Sam Cameron (00:49:12):
You want to pass the baton.

Sam Cameron (00:49:14):
So that might be like the sex scene is from character A's point of view up until a

Sam Cameron (00:49:19):
point and then it switches to character B or character A gets all of the sex scene

Sam Cameron (00:49:25):
and character B

Sam Cameron (00:49:26):
Picks up with the next morning.

Sam Cameron (00:49:30):
Those are the things that you don't want to rehash the same scene,

Sam Cameron (00:49:33):
even if you have multiple POV characters.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:35):
Well, yes.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:37):
And I will say that many writers will come back and say, but I saw that in a book.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:41):
And if you actually study what they did,

Suzy Vadori (00:49:43):
there may be some overlap,

Suzy Vadori (00:49:46):
but they're bringing something new,

Suzy Vadori (00:49:48):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:49:48):
Or something that we missed, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:49:50):
So if there's an overlap, you don't want to rehash the whole scene.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:53):
Certainly not the same way.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:55):
um but if there's overlap and you're showing an event again uh because you started

Suzy Vadori (00:50:01):
you know maybe they have completely different interpretations of what yes yeah but

Suzy Vadori (00:50:07):
use it sparingly because it is it's boring um okay so I don't know how many more we

Sam Cameron (00:50:13):
can go through like I said I can talk about this I mean all day we I could talk

Sam Cameron (00:50:17):
about it all day too so what where have we been so far I usually like to try to

Sam Cameron (00:50:22):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Sam Cameron (00:50:25):
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Sam Cameron (00:50:30):
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Sam Cameron (00:50:39):
You have various tools at your disposal, like interiority or internal thoughts.

Sam Cameron (00:50:47):
We have things like body language, physical reactions.

Sam Cameron (00:50:52):
Those are all tools that we have.

Sam Cameron (00:50:55):
We've talked about

Sam Cameron (00:50:57):
We don't name emotions.

Sam Cameron (00:50:59):
We don't use ly adverbs because you're going to replace those things with more

Sam Cameron (00:51:05):
active things that tickle our brains.

Sam Cameron (00:51:07):
Yeah, more active things that tickle our brains.

Sam Cameron (00:51:10):
We talked about being specific,

Sam Cameron (00:51:13):
which kind of relates back to the not using the adverbs and not use naming the

Sam Cameron (00:51:18):
emotions.

Sam Cameron (00:51:20):
There's an example I like to use when I'm teaching where I took this scene and

Sam Cameron (00:51:25):
And I took out all of the interiority.

Sam Cameron (00:51:28):
And then I show three versions of the scene.

Sam Cameron (00:51:30):
The first one is there's just exterior, no interior.

Sam Cameron (00:51:34):
The second version is telling.

Sam Cameron (00:51:37):
I just state the character's emotions.

Sam Cameron (00:51:39):
And then the third version is what the author actually wrote.

Sam Cameron (00:51:42):
And what I inevitably find is that when we get to what the writer actually wrote,

Sam Cameron (00:51:47):
which is a really good example of showing,

Sam Cameron (00:51:50):
the emotions are much more specific because the author gets very specific into the

Sam Cameron (00:51:55):
behaviors of the narrator,

Sam Cameron (00:51:58):
into the behaviors of the person they're talking about.

Sam Cameron (00:52:00):
And so there's actually more nuanced emotion than when those emotions are just named.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:05):
Well, that's actually absolutely true.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:07):
And one of the things,

Suzy Vadori (00:52:08):
if you haven't gotten Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's Emotion Thesaurus and its

Suzy Vadori (00:52:16):
sequels,

Suzy Vadori (00:52:17):
it's an amazing resource.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:19):
And what it is, is basically a thesaurus.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:21):
So if I want to say happy, it's like 10 pages of how to describe happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:26):
you're gonna use it in your own way and extrapolate from that but it's a really

Suzy Vadori (00:52:31):
cool resource because what you just said Sam there are nuances and so sometimes if

Suzy Vadori (00:52:37):
I want to say angry and I'm not sure how to say it then I go and look at that

Suzy Vadori (00:52:44):
I go and look at the thesaurus and I read the 10 pages and I'm like, none of this is right.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:48):
And I'm like, oh, I was being really lazy.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:51):
I was being lazy,

Suzy Vadori (00:52:52):
saying angry,

Suzy Vadori (00:52:53):
but what I actually meant was overwhelmed or what I actually meant was scared or

Suzy Vadori (00:52:56):
what I actually meant was something else.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:59):
And that's the other thing is we can be really flippant when we try to categorize

Suzy Vadori (00:53:03):
it and name it.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:05):
It's like we're not getting into that nuance because there's more than just happy,

Suzy Vadori (00:53:11):
sad and angry in the world.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:13):
There are all these other like really subtle things that you can describe and it

Suzy Vadori (00:53:19):
becomes really crystal clear and I like to say this when I'm editing or providing

Suzy Vadori (00:53:24):
suggestions when I'm working with a writer I'm like hey I gotta be brave as an

Suzy Vadori (00:53:28):
editor and guess and sometimes I'm gonna be wrong but guess what if you love what I

Suzy Vadori (00:53:33):
made up because I'll put suggestions in the margin not in your text but I'll be

Suzy Vadori (00:53:38):
like hey

Suzy Vadori (00:53:39):
You know, maybe don't name this emotion.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:41):
Try this.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:42):
And then I guess.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:44):
And I'll give them a really original description usually.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:47):
And sometimes if they want it, they can use it.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:49):
I don't care.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:49):
As an editor, that's kind of the deal.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:52):
But if I'm wrong, sometimes that's even more helpful.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:55):
And you're like, oh my gosh, Susie, she wasn't angry.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:58):
She was overwhelmed.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:00):
Or that doesn't fit.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:00):
And I'm like, okay, what does fit, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:54:03):
And that reaction.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:04):
So I love using the thesaurus for that when I'm stuck because sometimes it actually

Suzy Vadori (00:54:09):
teaches me that I didn't have it right because my brain wasn't engaged,

Suzy Vadori (00:54:14):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:54:14):
I was just picking out of the sky, angry and moving forward.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:17):
Whereas if I actually had to internalize it and knew what my character was feeling,

Suzy Vadori (00:54:22):
I would realize it wasn't anger.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:23):
It was something way cooler.

Sam Cameron (00:54:26):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:54:27):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:54:27):
So getting specific

Suzy Vadori (00:54:29):
what else did we talk about I think you got an off screen infodumps and off screen

Suzy Vadori (00:54:35):
oh yeah I've got two more if I can do them quickly if you are describing a crowd or

Suzy Vadori (00:54:44):
many versus one try again it's related to the specificity rule and and zoom in so

Suzy Vadori (00:54:50):
to show a crowd rather than saying a crowd which is impossible for somebody to

Suzy Vadori (00:54:54):
actually imagine zoom in on

Suzy Vadori (00:54:56):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:55:00):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:55:04):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:55:09):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:55:20):
Oh and many verses one also has to do with remember I said earlier like in memoir

Suzy Vadori (00:55:24):
for example if you do something all the time rather than saying many times I went

Suzy Vadori (00:55:30):
to the river and fished right I can't picture many times I have nothing to actually

Suzy Vadori (00:55:35):
absorb versus you know one one of the days that you went to fish like bring us to a

Suzy Vadori (00:55:42):
moment don't just summarize that bring us to a moment so that we can imagine it and

Suzy Vadori (00:55:46):
then the other category is to be

Suzy Vadori (00:55:49):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:56:09):
The shelves were, there were no books on the shelf.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:12):
Okay, what is there?

Suzy Vadori (00:56:13):
The shelves were bare with a thick layer of dust.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:16):
I can see that there's no books there, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:56:18):
So flip that negativity into a positive to give your reader something to focus on

Suzy Vadori (00:56:24):
and not something to not focus on.

Sam Cameron (00:56:27):
Oh, that's a really interesting one.

Sam Cameron (00:56:28):
Because I,

Sam Cameron (00:56:30):
I actually,

Sam Cameron (00:56:30):
that's a piece of advice I get from one of my critique partners all the time is I

Sam Cameron (00:56:33):
have a tendency to like expect a character expects a reaction from someone.

Sam Cameron (00:56:38):
And the character doesn't have that reaction.

Sam Cameron (00:56:40):
It's like, they didn't say anything.

Sam Cameron (00:56:42):
And she's like, don't tell me what they didn't do.

Sam Cameron (00:56:44):
Tell me what they did do.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:45):
Yes, thank you.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:46):
Yes, exactly.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:47):
And that's the one.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:48):
Yeah.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:49):
And these are just different ways to look at

Suzy Vadori (00:56:52):
Things that are probably covered by other writing advice but if you group them all

Suzy Vadori (00:56:56):
into this and do them as a pass of your writing and look specifically for these

Suzy Vadori (00:57:00):
moments when you're telling and then decide well that one I don't think you ever

Suzy Vadori (00:57:06):
want to tell it but decide am I zooming in or zooming out is that okay is this a

Suzy Vadori (00:57:13):
moment because because showing is always slower

Suzy Vadori (00:57:16):
it's slowing it down and a lot of times especially YA writers right Sam we're

Suzy Vadori (00:57:21):
always talking about pacing and making it faster faster faster faster but there are

Suzy Vadori (00:57:27):
moments right there's that really gut punch moment where you can slow it down and

Suzy Vadori (00:57:34):
make sure like don't bury he died in the middle of a long paragraph right draw it

Suzy Vadori (00:57:41):
out it's important or readers will miss it

Sam Cameron (00:57:44):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:57:44):
And actually, I was on Susie's podcast to talk about tension and like building tension.

Sam Cameron (00:57:48):
And that was one of the things we talked about was that you actually can increase

Sam Cameron (00:57:53):
tension by slowing things down.

Sam Cameron (00:57:55):
So one of the choices is to increase you can increase the reader emotional

Sam Cameron (00:58:02):
investment and increase the tension by showing more and slowing things down.

Sam Cameron (00:58:07):
And you sort of create more distance and like less engagement and less tension when

Sam Cameron (00:58:11):
you tell more.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:13):
yeah and so but use it judiciously and decide that's your job as the director of

Suzy Vadori (00:58:18):
your book as the writer um you know I like to say and another one just because you

Suzy Vadori (00:58:23):
know we're both YA and we like fantasy and all the things but um

Suzy Vadori (00:58:29):
If you're writing about magic, it's one place where, you know, don't be shy.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:34):
Make it big.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:35):
Make it weird, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:58:38):
Don't make it so subtle because you're shy that readers could think that it was

Suzy Vadori (00:58:44):
just something in regular life that some woo person just interpreted as magic.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:49):
Like, make it obvious.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:51):
And I say that lovingly, by the way.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:54):
I aspire to be a woo person.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:55):
I'm trying.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:56):
I'm trying.

Sam Cameron (00:58:57):
I'm trying to learn.

Sam Cameron (00:59:00):
yeah so I guess the I guess in closing so you've given us a lot of really great

Sam Cameron (00:59:07):
advice about ways to you know that ultimately you have to decide when you're

Sam Cameron (00:59:13):
showing when you're telling and that you have all these tools at your disposal for

Sam Cameron (00:59:18):
how you can look in your manuscript to figure out if you're showing if you're

Sam Cameron (00:59:22):
telling right obviously you'll need other people to weigh into but you've given

Sam Cameron (00:59:26):
people some like very specific like

Sam Cameron (00:59:29):
things they can look for in their manuscript that will put them in at what point in

Sam Cameron (00:59:35):
the process in the writing process should writers be thinking about and figuring

Sam Cameron (00:59:42):
out this stuff

Suzy Vadori (00:59:45):
Oh my goodness.

Suzy Vadori (00:59:45):
Well,

Suzy Vadori (00:59:45):
that's a really good question because don't let like the fear of showing on a first

Suzy Vadori (00:59:50):
draft stop you from getting that first draft down.

Suzy Vadori (00:59:53):
Definitely not.

Suzy Vadori (00:59:54):
It will start to be more natural as you go.

Suzy Vadori (00:59:57):
I would say,

Suzy Vadori (00:59:58):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:59:58):
the one about deciding things,

Suzy Vadori (01:00:00):
probably you're going to look at that as early as you can.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:03):
But yeah, this is second draft, third draft stuff.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:07):
and that's why I'm giving you specifics to look for in your manuscript right these

Suzy Vadori (01:00:11):
are the places if you're doing this you're telling go and revise it it's a

Suzy Vadori (01:00:15):
revisionary skill to go in because I mean and I think I think it's Lisa Cron who

Suzy Vadori (01:00:19):
said this as well might have been Jenny or both of them but your first draft is

Suzy Vadori (01:00:24):
just

Suzy Vadori (01:00:25):
Telling yourself the story for the first time.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:27):
And so don't stress about it.

Sam Cameron (01:00:29):
Telling yourself the story, not showing yourself the story.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:31):
Yeah, so don't stress about it.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:32):
If you're trying to make every,

Suzy Vadori (01:00:33):
I mean,

Suzy Vadori (01:00:34):
I'm somebody who revises as I go because I don't want to do as many passes.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:38):
It doesn't always work out that way.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:40):
But

Suzy Vadori (01:00:42):
and I enjoy that I enjoy revising much more than and then drafting but if you are

Suzy Vadori (01:00:47):
somebody who really benefits from just writing through to the end because you need

Suzy Vadori (01:00:51):
to figure out all the nuances do that and don't worry about this until your second

Suzy Vadori (01:00:55):
draft and if you're working with a coach like myself and I'm sure Sam you're the

Suzy Vadori (01:00:59):
same

Suzy Vadori (01:01:00):
Don't worry if I'm flagging it and you're like oh my gosh I didn't get this because

Suzy Vadori (01:01:04):
we're going to help right like that's that's the the nice thing about having a

Suzy Vadori (01:01:08):
really skilled critique partner and or coach but yeah if you don't have that luxury

Suzy Vadori (01:01:14):
then you got to learn how to figure this out yourself and how to find it in your

Suzy Vadori (01:01:17):
drafts and that's what the tips on this podcast will help you do.

Sam Cameron (01:01:20):
Yeah,

Sam Cameron (01:01:20):
because like when I'm reading pages from one of my writers,

Sam Cameron (01:01:23):
and I'm flagging something like that,

Sam Cameron (01:01:25):
and they're drafting,

Sam Cameron (01:01:25):
I usually do just tell them I was like,

Sam Cameron (01:01:27):
I'm,

Sam Cameron (01:01:28):
I'm highlighting this for you.

Sam Cameron (01:01:29):
So you know, I don't want you to fix it in this scene right now.

Sam Cameron (01:01:33):
I want you to start developing an instinct for it and start practicing it in the

Sam Cameron (01:01:39):
scenes that you draft forward.

Sam Cameron (01:01:41):
because you'll start to be able to like naturally without thinking about it layer

Sam Cameron (01:01:45):
in more of these skills but you have to have them like pointed out to you first but

Sam Cameron (01:01:48):
otherwise yes I would agree it's more of a thing to look at in in revision yeah

Suzy Vadori (01:01:53):
let's turn those stick figures into the Mona Lisa right like that's that's the idea

Sam Cameron (01:01:56):
I mean Mona Lisa started as a stick figure I'm sure like underneath all of that

Sam Cameron (01:02:00):
maybe you know maybe there's like a circle there's an oval for her face

Sam Cameron (01:02:05):
Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (01:02:30):
It's the opposite of standing at the fork in the road.

Suzy Vadori (01:02:33):
The decision's made.

Suzy Vadori (01:02:34):
It's small.

Suzy Vadori (01:02:35):
It's there and you're there and there's no decision.

Sam Cameron (01:02:37):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (01:02:38):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (01:02:40):
Well,

Sam Cameron (01:02:41):
if folks want to learn more about how to show versus tell,

Sam Cameron (01:02:46):
Susie does have an excellent podcast called the Show Don't Tell podcast.

Sam Cameron (01:02:50):
Susie, where else can people hear from you, learn from you?

Suzy Vadori (01:02:55):
Yeah, come find me on my website, suzyvidori.com.

Suzy Vadori (01:02:58):
I send out a weekly newsletter with tons of fun tips.

Suzy Vadori (01:03:01):
I've been doing it for a lot of years.

Suzy Vadori (01:03:04):
And I would love to have you over there in my community.

Suzy Vadori (01:03:07):
And yeah, come find me on the podcast.

Sam Cameron (01:03:10):
All right.

Sam Cameron (01:03:10):
Well, Susie, thank you so much for coming.

Suzy Vadori (01:03:13):
Thanks for having me.