Mulligan
Response #3
Anyone who’s taken an English course in High School or previous grades has heard the phrase “don’t tell, but show”. As a writer, I know I have found this phrase to be rather frustrating. I have always struggled with knowing what exactly “showing but not telling” means. I also find myself actually telling when I think I’m showing. While telling can be found to be useful at moments, most writers don’t realized how important “showing” is to an effective essay. Actually showing the moment in your writing allows the readers to really get a sense of what the author is feeling and experiences. But I think using the right balance of showing and telling makes your writing more intriguing and appealing to its audience.
After reading this first passage, I began to think to myself how am I supposed to go about really showing my readers what I’m trying to say? I found the most important skill to use to stimulate that sense of showing is through description. As the passage states, we all respond in a strong way to sensory stimulation. And without any sensory simulation, we loose the draw that readers search for. But what I realized is that your description needs to be expressed in a vivid language that appeals to the five senses- evoking to sight, smell, sound, textures, and tastes in such a way that readers are able to become one with the writers thoughts and world. In order to be successfully descriptive, you must use figurative language. For example, the sentence “He sits on the couch holding his guitar.” literally is just telling you basic information. But the sentence “His eyes are closed, leg propped up, and he’s cradling the guitar in his arms like a rockstar. It’s as if he were performing at a concert.” The second sentence transforms that first sentence that was such basic information and transforms it by using figurative language to really SHOW the reader what the scene actually looks like.
In conclusion, I now am going to use this knowledge about showing not telling to my advantage. I am going to write my essays as I would normally, then look back over revise them and go through each sentence and ask myself Is this showing or telling? If telling, how can I amp this sentence to really show my reader what I’m trying to say? I feel I will be able to be very successful with my writing if I am able to evaluate my writing and correct my weaknesses.