Reminders that I like to use in writing:
- From Show, don't tell. (2023, August 22). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show,_don%27t_tell
Show, don't tell is a technique often employed by writers to enable the reader to experience the story through action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author's exposition, summarization, and description. The goal is not to drown the reader in heavy-handed adjectives, but rather to allow readers to experience the author's ideas by interpreting significant, well-chosen textual details. - Your writing should evoke an emotion from your reader, whether it's happiness, anger, sadness, joy, etc.
- Continuity:
- Consistent Character Traits: A character's personality, skills, motivations, injuries, and knowledge must stay true to what has already been shown.
- Dangling Details: If a detail is described with some depth or emotion, do not forget about it in the end. For example, in the 1975 disaster film, The Hindenburg, an Alsatian is boarded into a customized kennel in the freight section. At the end of the movie, when displaying thumbnails of survivors, the dog's photo is shown at the end.
- Timeline and Chronology: Events and the passage of time must form a logical sequence, whether a day, week, or year.
- World-Building Rules: The physical laws created in the fictional universe cannot bend or break randomly.