Editor Pet Peeves: Lazy Emotions

Caleb Stephens
The Writing Cooperative
3 min readFeb 17, 2018

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Show, Don’t Tell

You hear it a lot as a writer: show, don’t tell. It’s one of the first things you learn. It sounds easy. It sounds straightforward, right?

It’s not.

There are nuances with our old friend, Show, Don’t Tell. He’s actually kind of a bastard. He’s hard to get to know. Hard to figure out. You have to spend a lot of time up on the porch listening to him ramble on and on when you’d much rather be hanging out by the fence with Cool Plot or Brooding (but deeply layered and loveably flawed) Protagonist.

There are a million-and-one ways you can show instead of tell when writing, but today I want to focus on one of the more obvious (and impactful) show, don’t tell applications. One you can immediately use to strengthen your writing.

Lazy Emotions

Straight out stating an emotion weakens your writing and, worse, it’s boring. There’s no life to it. It’s like chewing cardboard. No flavor.

Here’s an example.

Ed broke into the bedroom and froze, anger filling his chest and rage coating his face at the sight of Julie in bed with Adam. Julie jumped and snatched the sheet up, her eyes widening in surprise.

Emotions are opportunities just begging for a fresh take, a chance to separate your writing from the rest of the dull-eyed prose floating around the interweb. Sure, anyone can state an emotion, we all know what they are, but effectively showing an emotion, well — that’s something different now, isn’t it? Something that, if done right, will sock a reader right in the gut and leave them gasping for more.

So, let’s try this again, this time with some showing sprinkled in.

Ed broke into the bedroom and froze, his heart detonating in his chest at the sight of Julie in bed with Adam. His fingers curled into trembling fists and his eardrums hammered with each whoosh of blood, acid inching up his throat and coating his tongue. Julie jumped and snatched the sheet up, her eyebrows climbing her forehead, her eyes flaring out at him from across the room like icy-blue solar flares.

Which example is more interesting to read? Which has more impact? Which one do you feel more as you read it?

I’m hoping it’s the second.

So, take those emotions by the throat when they slip into your writing and give them a good shake. See what drops out when you do. I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider tossing me a few claps. Also, feel free to follow me on Medium and Twitter @cstephensauthor or check out my work at www.calebstephensauthor.com.

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Dark fiction author. Short collection If Only a Heart and Other Tales of Terror available now! www.calebstephensauthor.com