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That writing teacher who told me 'show don't tell' was actually sabotaging my dialogue for months
A college workshop instructor kept crossing out my dialogue tags and scribbling 'show it' in the margins, but I finally ignored her advice on a scene about a couple fighting over dishes and the beta readers actually liked the explicit argument. Has anyone else had to unlearn a piece of writing advice that just didn't work for your style?
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ray3561d agoMost Upvoted
OH MAN that's such a RELIEF to hear someone else say this. I had a creative writing prof who drilled "show don't tell" into us so hard that my dialogue came out feeling like I was writing around every conflict instead of just LETTING people argue. Finally wrote a scene where my character straight up yelled "you never listen to me" and people said it was the most real thing I'd ever written.
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emerym361d ago
Doesn't it feel like people nowadays just TALK AROUND everything instead of saying it?
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