Hot take: those "show don't tell" writing rules kill gritty first drafts

I spend 4 hours on my last prompt submission trying to SHOW every emotion instead of just writing the story, and it came out flat as cardboard. Back in 2019 I would just blast out raw scenes with simple tags like "he felt angry" and people actually liked them better. Does anyone else think the emphasis on showing has made us overthink natural dialogue and pacing?

3 comments

3 Comments

kelly6386d ago

Miss the days when "he felt sad" actually let me finish a scene in under an hour. Now I'm stuck describing a raindrop sliding down a windowpane for three paragraphs trying to hint at his mood. My old writing group used to tear apart my raw drafts for being too blunt, but those same stories got way more engagement on forums. Sometimes telling just gets the job done faster, especially for a first pass.

corablack6d ago

Got a beta reader once who complained a character wasn't "breathing right" because I wrote "he sighed" instead of describing the air leaving his lungs like a dying balloon. Made me think maybe we overthink this stuff. First drafts should be fast and dirty, pretty stuff comes later or not at all.

nancyn695d ago

Tell em first drafts are supposed to be ugly. Pretty comes later.