Sam Cameron (00:00:03):
Welcome to Truant Pen, a podcast of actionable advice for stuck writers.

Sam Cameron (00:00:08):
I'm your host Sam Cameron and today I am joined by Susie Vidori.

Sam Cameron (00:00:14):
Susie is Calgary best-selling author of The Fountain series.

Sam Cameron (00:00:19):
This fantastical series has received three Aurora nominations for Best Young Adult Novel.

Sam Cameron (00:00:23):
She's represented by Naomi Davis of Bookends Literary Agency.

Sam Cameron (00:00:28):
Susie is also the founder of the Inspired Writing Community,

Sam Cameron (00:00:31):
a resident writing coach for writers helping writers,

Sam Cameron (00:00:34):
a touring member of the Young Alberta Book Society,

Sam Cameron (00:00:37):
and a former program manager for When Words Collide,

Sam Cameron (00:00:40):
a festival for readers and writers.

Sam Cameron (00:00:42):
Susie specializes in breaking down complex writing concepts for newer writers into

Sam Cameron (00:00:47):
manageable steps to get the book idea exploding in their minds onto the page in a

Sam Cameron (00:00:52):
way that will make readers take notice.

Sam Cameron (00:00:55):
Susie, welcome.

Sam Cameron (00:00:56):
Thank you for coming.

Suzy Vadori (00:00:57):
Oh, thanks for having me, Sam.

Suzy Vadori (00:00:59):
It's awesome to be here.

Sam Cameron (00:01:01):
So Susie is here today to talk about her favorite subject,

Sam Cameron (00:01:06):
which is show don't tell a piece of writing advice that I think every writer has

Sam Cameron (00:01:11):
heard at some point.

Sam Cameron (00:01:14):
And when Susie pitched this idea,

Sam Cameron (00:01:16):
she said,

Sam Cameron (00:01:16):
unless you think it's too basic,

Sam Cameron (00:01:18):
except I don't talk about it in a basic way.

Sam Cameron (00:01:20):
So we're going to talk about show don't tell in a non basic way.

Suzy Vadori (00:01:23):
Yeah, I think it's so much more than just this tired old phrase.

Suzy Vadori (00:01:27):
So before you tune out and skip to the next episode,

Suzy Vadori (00:01:30):
I promise you're going to learn something regardless of your skill level.

Sam Cameron (00:01:35):
Nice.

Sam Cameron (00:01:36):
So let's start by talking about what does this actually mean?

Sam Cameron (00:01:43):
Because I think a lot of people interpret this advice in different ways.

Sam Cameron (00:01:48):
So what does it mean to you?

Sam Cameron (00:01:49):
Oh my gosh, how long do we have?

Sam Cameron (00:01:51):
I could talk about this all day long.

Suzy Vadori (00:01:53):
All right, so Show Don't Tell in its basic format, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:01:57):
I said I wasn't going to talk basic,

Suzy Vadori (00:01:58):
but we're going to start there,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:00):
is sort of how you immerse readers in your writing.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:04):
So we want readers to not just listen to or watch them from the sidelines.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:10):
We want them to actually be in your characters' bodies,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:12):
experiencing what's going on around them,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:14):
because we know that

Suzy Vadori (00:02:15):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:02:38):
It's so that you can learn about other people's,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:40):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:02:41):
or something that's set in a different place on earth.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:44):
It's so that you can learn about other people's lives, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:02:47):
Or from a point of view that isn't your own.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:51):
So there's lots of things.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:53):
that we can do.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:53):
I mean, this is like at its crux.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:57):
That's what show don't tell means.

Suzy Vadori (00:02:59):
And so what it means for writing is that there are real and technical skills that

Suzy Vadori (00:03:04):
you can learn to make this happen in your reader's minds.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:07):
And there's a lot of them.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:08):
So I'm not going to go into them just yet.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:09):
We're going to get through it.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:11):
But you're going to learn some things.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:12):
Some of them you've probably heard of.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:14):
And some of them I can almost guarantee unless you've been following me for a long time.

Suzy Vadori (00:03:18):
You haven't.

Sam Cameron (00:03:20):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:03:21):
So for those of you who don't know,

Sam Cameron (00:03:22):
I didn't mention this in the intro,

Sam Cameron (00:03:23):
but Susie actually has her own podcast,

Sam Cameron (00:03:25):
which is the Show Don't Tell podcast.

Sam Cameron (00:03:27):
And that's what she talks about over there.

Sam Cameron (00:03:31):
So what you were just describing, Susie, about how this is the way that you immerse

Sam Cameron (00:03:35):
Bruce your reader in the experience of the character.

Sam Cameron (00:03:39):
I think that's a really important point because that is a large part of what

Sam Cameron (00:03:43):
separates written fiction or even narrative nonfiction or memoir from other mediums

Sam Cameron (00:03:51):
or media of storytelling.

Sam Cameron (00:03:53):
So I don't know if you've experienced this with any of the writers you've worked

Sam Cameron (00:03:56):
with,

Sam Cameron (00:03:56):
but I very commonly will see the issue where I'm reading a scene and

Sam Cameron (00:04:03):
and it is like the author the narrator is like a camera describing what is visible

Sam Cameron (00:04:11):
and the author is doing that because they've been told show don't tell and they

Sam Cameron (00:04:15):
interpret that to mean they should only show what is externally visible but that

Sam Cameron (00:04:20):
loses out on what a novel can do that a television show for example can't do

Suzy Vadori (00:04:28):
Absolutely.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:28):
So I love that you use the example of a camera because I use that a lot when I talk

Suzy Vadori (00:04:33):
about showing and telling.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:34):
And by the way, telling is allowed.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:36):
So for those before you put hateful comments saying telling is sometimes required.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:41):
Absolutely.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:42):
But I can tell you that most writers that I work with initially don't show enough.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:47):
So that's why we focus on that.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:49):
There comes a point like I've been working with a writer for six months or

Suzy Vadori (00:04:52):
something when I'm like,

Suzy Vadori (00:04:53):
OK,

Suzy Vadori (00:04:53):
now you're over showing.

Suzy Vadori (00:04:55):
but you're right Sam when we think we're doing it what we do oftentimes is we have

Suzy Vadori (00:04:59):
a character walk into a room and stop and look around and observe everything we

Suzy Vadori (00:05:04):
don't that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about show don't tell in in the

Suzy Vadori (00:05:08):
way that is effective we want to have your character interacting with the setting

Suzy Vadori (00:05:13):
and actually experiencing that and we want your readers to feel like they're

Suzy Vadori (00:05:17):
actually in your character's

Suzy Vadori (00:05:19):
And so the thing that you're talking about that we can do as writers,

Suzy Vadori (00:05:23):
which is why I think that reading and writing is never going away,

Suzy Vadori (00:05:25):
by the way,

Suzy Vadori (00:05:26):
that we can't do in film and movies is we have that interiority,

Suzy Vadori (00:05:30):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:05:30):
So we've got two things at our disposal or three, really.

Suzy Vadori (00:05:34):
We have inner thoughts, which is your character's thoughts, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:05:38):
And typically in today's market that we're talking either

Suzy Vadori (00:05:43):
First person point of view or third person close, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:05:46):
You may use omniscient as well.

Suzy Vadori (00:05:47):
It's pretty rare these days unless you have a really good reason for using it within your book.

Suzy Vadori (00:05:53):
It like somehow serves the story and there's no other way to tell it.

Suzy Vadori (00:05:57):
Don't just pick them willy nilly because in grade 12,

Suzy Vadori (00:06:00):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:06:01):
or your high school English teacher who may have been Sam Cam,

Suzy Vadori (00:06:03):
I don't know.

Suzy Vadori (00:06:04):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:06:19):
writing or don't remember your English teachers words omniscient means that you can

Suzy Vadori (00:06:24):
hear multiple characters thoughts it can be really hard to do well but inner

Suzy Vadori (00:06:29):
thoughts is something that we have the other two things that we have in writing

Suzy Vadori (00:06:32):
that we don't have anywhere else I mean you do have inner thoughts in movies before

Suzy Vadori (00:06:36):
you put in the comments oh what about voiceovers yeah but you can do them they're

Suzy Vadori (00:06:40):
distracting they're difficult and you can't do them to the extent that you can

Suzy Vadori (00:06:45):
We still feel like somebody's narrating the story.

Suzy Vadori (00:06:47):
We never feel like when we're watching the movie we are the person, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:06:51):
Even if you've got that voiceover.

Suzy Vadori (00:06:53):
And then you've got reactions or sort of visceral reactions that happen in their body.

Suzy Vadori (00:06:59):
And then we also have reactions, which sometimes can be internal as well.

Suzy Vadori (00:07:03):
So you're reacting to the world around you.

Suzy Vadori (00:07:06):
You're reacting to the setting.

Suzy Vadori (00:07:07):
You're reacting to what's happening,

Suzy Vadori (00:07:10):
what other characters are doing to you,

Suzy Vadori (00:07:12):
around you,

Suzy Vadori (00:07:13):
near you.

Sam Cameron (00:07:15):
Yeah and actually I was recorded an episode with Susie on her podcast about writing

Sam Cameron (00:07:21):
for young adults and one of the things we talked about was how interiority is

Sam Cameron (00:07:26):
really really popular these days and so if you are kind of looking at older models

Sam Cameron (00:07:34):
you may not see it as much as if you're looking at newer models so it's important

Sam Cameron (00:07:38):
to stay kind of up to date on what's trendy and I think part of why

Sam Cameron (00:07:44):
High levels of interiority are so popular right now is exactly because it's what

Sam Cameron (00:07:50):
separates written written works from visual.

Sam Cameron (00:07:56):
And so it's what we can't get from these other media.

Sam Cameron (00:08:01):
And so we want more of it in books.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:03):
Yeah.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:04):
And I think, you know, as I mean, talk about other things in, you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:08:09):
Other mediums,

Suzy Vadori (00:08:10):
even including social media or things that you can consume on the internet,

Suzy Vadori (00:08:14):
which are competing with reading.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:17):
And that...

Suzy Vadori (00:08:20):
Sort of ability to climb into somebody's shoes is something that people expect now.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:25):
It's because we've cracked it, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:08:27):
Like there's a lot of research.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:29):
I mean, think about social media.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:30):
You are the product, by the way, on social media.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:33):
They know exactly how to get your brain engaged.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:36):
But we can learn from some of those things in writing as well.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:39):
We can learn from all of the advances that have been made in understanding what holds attention.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:48):
And we can do that by immersing your reader in the showing.

Suzy Vadori (00:08:53):
I want to say one other thing Sam about that camera metaphor because I use that

Suzy Vadori (00:08:57):
metaphor a lot when talking about when to show and when to tell.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:01):
So if you would imagine for a moment that you are a movie director when you're

Suzy Vadori (00:09:05):
okay,

Suzy Vadori (00:09:05):
we're going to manifest this for everybody listening right now.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:08):
When your book series becomes a movie or a Netflix,

Suzy Vadori (00:09:12):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:09:13):
series or whatever it is that you're going to end up being it's going to be on the

Suzy Vadori (00:09:16):
screen.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:16):
Let's just manifest that we'll state it that way.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:19):
When it happens, there will be choices to make.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:22):
And that is your role as the writer.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:25):
So there's your story and there's your plot and you can write it straight forward.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:29):
But you have choices to make along the way.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:31):
You're the director.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:32):
As the writer, you're the director.

Suzy Vadori (00:09:33):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:10:00):
Two people walk across a bridge.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:02):
That's what's in the outline.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:04):
That's what's in the plot.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:05):
It has to happen.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:06):
They have to walk across the bridge.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:08):
But you need to decide as the writer,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:11):
When to show and zoom in and hear what they say while they're crossing the bridge

Suzy Vadori (00:10:16):
and all the details that happen and slow it down.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:20):
Right.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:20):
And be on that bridge with them and walk across the bridge.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:23):
Is that conversation important?

Suzy Vadori (00:10:25):
That is your decision.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:26):
That is your job as the director of your book, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:10:29):
You're the writer.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:29):
That's your job.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:30):
You have to decide.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:31):
If it's not important and they just have to get to the other side,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:34):
like the chicken crossing the road,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:36):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:10:37):
If that's all you need to do,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:39):
zoom out,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:40):
play the music,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:41):
not really in a book,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:41):
but imagine that you're playing the music,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:43):
you have them hold hands,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:45):
skip across the bridge,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:46):
and they're done,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:47):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:10:47):
We don't hear what happens.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:49):
We don't know,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:50):
or you could summarize,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:51):
they talked about the chicken crossing the road the whole time that they walked

Suzy Vadori (00:10:55):
across the bridge.

Suzy Vadori (00:10:55):
I mean, it's not a really good example, but I'm kind of, you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:10:59):
under the gun here to get an example.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:02):
But yeah, you can tell that as well.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:04):
And so think, yeah, that movie camera or that camera lens is a really important one.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:09):
And just know that you have choices.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:12):
And when you are showing something,

Suzy Vadori (00:11:17):
we don't want to hear everything all the time and start every single day of your

Suzy Vadori (00:11:22):
character's life with them waking up

Suzy Vadori (00:11:24):
and yawning and reaching for their glasses and then putting their feet down on the floor.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:28):
And then, I mean, it can be really, really boring, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:11:32):
So use it sparingly and make your choices.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:35):
But where are the places that we need it?

Suzy Vadori (00:11:37):
And by the way,

Suzy Vadori (00:11:38):
waking up in a book,

Suzy Vadori (00:11:40):
one of those things that's super cliche,

Suzy Vadori (00:11:42):
could earn you an instant rejection from an agent if you open your book that way.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:47):
Many other agents will accept it, but look for why it's different or how it's different.

Suzy Vadori (00:11:53):
but yeah I mean we assume that people in the world wake up every single day and

Suzy Vadori (00:11:57):
probably eat and probably use the bathroom right unless there's something

Suzy Vadori (00:12:01):
interesting about it or it has to do with the story you don't need to tell us yeah

Sam Cameron (00:12:05):
so that actually that last bit sort of answers one of the questions I was going to

Sam Cameron (00:12:08):
ask you which was so to recap the showing a shown scene is one where you zoom in

Sam Cameron (00:12:17):
and the audience hears the dialogue word for word

Sam Cameron (00:12:22):
We get the internal processing,

Sam Cameron (00:12:25):
we get the internal reactions,

Sam Cameron (00:12:26):
we get the physical reactions,

Sam Cameron (00:12:29):
and we get all up close and personal with that business.

Sam Cameron (00:12:32):
And then something that is told is like you are summarizing.

Sam Cameron (00:12:35):
You're not in the weeds with the character.

Sam Cameron (00:12:38):
As they're experiencing it, it's sort of like you're telling your spouse what happened

Sam Cameron (00:12:44):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Sam Cameron (00:12:47):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:13:05):
it's a lot more interesting okay I could tell you this story about this guy that I

Suzy Vadori (00:13:09):
actually saw outside my house today and he was walking along stopped at my little

Suzy Vadori (00:13:13):
free library and then he walked along some more and then there was a banana peel on

Suzy Vadori (00:13:17):
the ground and he went up into the air and his arms were flailing and everything by

Suzy Vadori (00:13:21):
now I am laughing by the way I lie for a living so this didn't actually happen I am

Suzy Vadori (00:13:25):
a fiction writer

Suzy Vadori (00:13:26):
And so by this time, I'm laughing hysterically.

Suzy Vadori (00:13:29):
I'm telling this story and you're looking at me going like, Susie, what are you talking about?

Suzy Vadori (00:13:34):
And I say, oh, you had to be there, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:13:37):
So one of the things that we want to do is let your reader be there because we

Suzy Vadori (00:13:40):
don't want them to hear the story.

Suzy Vadori (00:13:41):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:14:10):
Just on this sort of movie metaphor,

Suzy Vadori (00:14:13):
there's many writers and readers will say that when they read a book,

Suzy Vadori (00:14:19):
it actually creates images or it kind of plays in their mind like a movie.

Suzy Vadori (00:14:23):
That's very common.

Suzy Vadori (00:14:25):
By the way, if you can't do that, that's okay.

Suzy Vadori (00:14:27):
There's about 2% of the population who doesn't actually

Suzy Vadori (00:14:30):
Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:14:58):
You know picture an apple in your mind and you might think I mean metaphorically

Suzy Vadori (00:15:02):
and then I asked you the color somebody with aphantasia,

Suzy Vadori (00:15:05):
which is the opposite right that 2% cannot tell you the color because they didn't

Suzy Vadori (00:15:09):
actually generate an image.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:11):
So for those writers,

Suzy Vadori (00:15:13):
you need to learn you need to actually pay special attention to this because you

Suzy Vadori (00:15:17):
don't want to write for 2% of the population.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:20):
What's funny is I've actually worked with a number of aphantasic writers and a

Suzy Vadori (00:15:24):
number of my colleagues are also aphantasic book coaches because they've had to

Suzy Vadori (00:15:29):
learn how to construct this for other people and how to make this fantasia happen.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:34):
I happen to be on the other,

Suzy Vadori (00:15:35):
it's a continuum,

Suzy Vadori (00:15:37):
I happen to be on the other end of the extreme where I can hear and smell and taste

Suzy Vadori (00:15:41):
and all the things and I'm trying to learn more about that because I'm fascinated

Suzy Vadori (00:15:44):
by brain science and how show don't tell in your writing and how the techniques are

Suzy Vadori (00:15:48):
actually can make this thing happen in people's minds.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:51):
It's pretty cool.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:53):
But yeah, that's why you want to be giving readers details.

Suzy Vadori (00:15:57):
Now they're going to fill some of it in.

Suzy Vadori (00:16:00):
If you're aphantasic,

Suzy Vadori (00:16:01):
you actually need the details as well because you will still experience it.

Suzy Vadori (00:16:05):
Aphantasic people have extremely well-developed imaginations and they tend to be

Suzy Vadori (00:16:13):
really good in scientific fields.

Suzy Vadori (00:16:15):
Truant Truant Truant

Sam Cameron (00:16:33):
Having aphantasia does not at all make it so you can't be a writer So if you just

Sam Cameron (00:16:38):
realize that you have aphantasia from that little experiment John Green has

Sam Cameron (00:16:43):
aphantasia He's an incredibly successful author So there's no reason that you can't

Sam Cameron (00:16:48):
learn to do this And there's probably things that you've found meaningful about

Sam Cameron (00:16:53):
reading as an experience Even if you have aphantasia

Sam Cameron (00:16:57):
um I actually have a critique partner who I don't know if she's all the way at the

Sam Cameron (00:17:00):
aphantasia end of the spectrum but she's in that side yeah it's actually really

Sam Cameron (00:17:05):
helpful for like me because I'm somewhere in the middle I think like I don't have

Sam Cameron (00:17:10):
the hyperphantasia but I'm not a aphantasia um and it's actually kind of helpful

Sam Cameron (00:17:15):
for me to be writing for someone who

Sam Cameron (00:17:19):
who's more towards that aphantasia side of the spectrum because she will make it

Sam Cameron (00:17:24):
very obvious to me if I haven't described enough because she's like I can't

Sam Cameron (00:17:30):
visualize this at all right because she's not going to fill in the blanks the way

Sam Cameron (00:17:33):
that I fill in the blanks but at the same time I can kind of do the same thing for

Sam Cameron (00:17:39):
her

Sam Cameron (00:17:40):
Because when she's writing, there's a lot of stuff that she's not visualizing.

Sam Cameron (00:17:45):
And so she kind of relies on me to say, like, wait a second, this doesn't make any sense.

Suzy Vadori (00:17:51):
Yeah, exactly.

Suzy Vadori (00:17:52):
And so it's about how, like, there is a continuum of brains out there.

Suzy Vadori (00:17:57):
And, and

Suzy Vadori (00:17:59):
It's great to be aware of where you are on that spectrum so that you can be really

Suzy Vadori (00:18:03):
aware and see it in your own writing and be able to compensate whether you're on

Suzy Vadori (00:18:08):
one end or the other,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:09):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:18:09):
Like, again, they're all ranges of normal.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:13):
It's not a disability if you can or can't do it.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:17):
So it's just good to know.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:19):
And so one of the things that happens in show...

Suzy Vadori (00:18:22):
So one of the things that makes show don't tell one of the most difficult...

Suzy Vadori (00:18:29):
techniques to learn is that this ability to fill it in or however your brain

Suzy Vadori (00:18:35):
constructs things,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:36):
whether it's with images or whether it's not,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:39):
whether it's with details and facts,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:43):
you are doing that as you're writing.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:45):
And so when you write,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:48):
you are imagining this whole scenario and then whatever gets on the page gets on

Suzy Vadori (00:18:53):
the page.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:54):
It's not going to be everything.

Suzy Vadori (00:18:55):
We're going to talk about that in a minute because we don't want, you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:18:59):
eight pages of purple prose describing everything that's not what show don't tell

Suzy Vadori (00:19:03):
means again you need to be judicious you need to know how much I'm going to share

Suzy Vadori (00:19:07):
some of that but what happens is as you write you've got this beautiful world in

Suzy Vadori (00:19:14):
your mind whether that's visual or not and then you write it down what you want

Suzy Vadori (00:19:19):
your writing is almost like a game of telephone so I'm sure you've all played the

Suzy Vadori (00:19:22):
game of telephone Sam did you play the game of telephone as a kid

Suzy Vadori (00:19:25):
And basically what it is, if you have never played it, you sit in a circle or a line.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:31):
and you think of a phrase or a word.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:34):
It's usually a phrase or a sentence.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:35):
And one of the kids whispers it to the next kid and whispers it to the next kid and

Suzy Vadori (00:19:40):
whispers it to the next kid.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:41):
And the goal,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:42):
theoretically,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:43):
of the game is to get it to the end of the line with it being attacked.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:48):
But what usually happens,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:49):
especially if you're a writer and you lie for a living,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:52):
like fiction writers do,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:54):
you were probably that kid that if it got to the end of the line,

Suzy Vadori (00:19:56):
it made too much sense.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:57):
You said something else.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:58):
That was me.

Suzy Vadori (00:19:59):
I don't know if it was you or me.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:01):
Yeah,

Suzy Vadori (00:20:01):
no,

Sam Cameron (00:20:01):
there was always there was always some kid who would make up something wildly

Sam Cameron (00:20:04):
different just to like throw off the whole game.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:07):
Yeah, exactly.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:08):
Because that's part of the fun is that it doesn't actually translate.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:10):
And so but your goal as a writer is to get your writing to the end of the line so

Suzy Vadori (00:20:16):
that they read it and they actually get what you were trying to say.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:20):
That's where showing comes in and being very, very clear, because here's the problem.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:25):
When you read your own work back to yourself,

Suzy Vadori (00:20:28):
your brain is really,

Suzy Vadori (00:20:29):
really smart and it fills in the gaps.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:31):
And so whether or not you got it on the page,

Suzy Vadori (00:20:34):
you will have no idea because you still see your beautiful picture and your

Suzy Vadori (00:20:39):
beautiful world.

Suzy Vadori (00:20:40):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:21:05):
and you're mad because you think that they don't like your idea,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:08):
but they never even saw it,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:09):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:21:10):
They only saw like this,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:12):
like I use the imagery of,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:14):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:15):
if I was learning to draw,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:16):
I mean,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:18):
I'm a terrible drawer,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:20):
by the way,

Suzy Vadori (00:21:20):
and please don't offer to give me art lessons because lots of people offer to give

Suzy Vadori (00:21:24):
me art lessons.

Suzy Vadori (00:21:25):
I'm like one day in my life that will be a priority, but I have a lot on my plate right now.

Suzy Vadori (00:21:29):
So I draw stick figures.

Suzy Vadori (00:21:31):
Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:21:46):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:22:14):
you know kind of lukewarm review you probably haven't paid enough attention on how

Suzy Vadori (00:22:20):
to actually construct that in your reader's mind and you have to practice that it's

Suzy Vadori (00:22:24):
not something that you can do just like I can't paint the Mona Lisa without taking

Suzy Vadori (00:22:29):
art lessons I assume that if I spent 10,000 hours which is what it takes to master

Suzy Vadori (00:22:34):
a skill I'd be able to paint the Mona Lisa I assume that's true probably and I was

Sam Cameron (00:22:41):
thinking about maybe not as you were I don't know

Sam Cameron (00:22:44):
Um,

Sam Cameron (00:22:44):
I was thinking as you were saying this,

Sam Cameron (00:22:46):
that there's also an element of showing which is not visual.

Sam Cameron (00:22:52):
Um,

Sam Cameron (00:22:52):
so like on the one hand,

Sam Cameron (00:22:53):
it is about creating an image in the mind of your reader so they can visualize it,

Sam Cameron (00:22:57):
but it's also about creating emotion in your reader.

Sam Cameron (00:23:00):
And I was reminded as you were talking about a scene that I wrote for one of my books.

Sam Cameron (00:23:05):
where there's an argument between these two siblings one of the siblings has ADHD

Sam Cameron (00:23:11):
and she's had a moment where her ADHD has kind of derailed a thing she was supposed

Sam Cameron (00:23:16):
to do and her brother swoops in to save her and then she's really mad about it

Sam Cameron (00:23:19):
because of the way that he swooped in to save her was really patronizing and when I

Sam Cameron (00:23:25):
gave this scene to readers the readers who had ADHD understood this experience and

Sam Cameron (00:23:32):
so they got the emotions of the character right away

Sam Cameron (00:23:35):
But the readers who didn't have that context were like, I don't understand why she's back.

Sam Cameron (00:23:40):
Her brother helped her.

Sam Cameron (00:23:42):
And so I needed to then do more in that scene to contextualize that experience so

Sam Cameron (00:23:51):
that it was clear

Suzy Vadori (00:23:52):
Yeah,

Suzy Vadori (00:23:54):
and sometimes we can lean on shared experiences and we can kind of tell or like

Suzy Vadori (00:24:00):
mention it quickly.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:01):
But you're absolutely right.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:02):
If your reader doesn't have that in their memory bank and can't call on it,

Suzy Vadori (00:24:08):
then you're going to have to show it to them.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:11):
Okay so I love that you brought up emotions because I want to talk about how okay

Suzy Vadori (00:24:14):
so I just told you that you're writing stick figures maybe and you don't know how

Suzy Vadori (00:24:19):
so how could you actually find like I'm not saying that you always have to go

Suzy Vadori (00:24:23):
externally yes getting a reader to help you or

Suzy Vadori (00:24:25):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:24:48):
And sometimes this is where it ends, this conversation, is about emotion.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:52):
And because, and we talk about don't name emotion.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:56):
So that's like a sort of rule that's thrown out there.

Suzy Vadori (00:24:58):
And like I said,

Suzy Vadori (00:24:59):
you're going to hear some that are tired or typical,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:02):
and you're going to hear some other ones that are new.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:04):
And kind of my own thing.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:06):
But

Suzy Vadori (00:25:07):
Not naming emotions is something that you've probably been instructed to do before.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:11):
And what I mean is say,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:12):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:12):
not that she's happy,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:14):
but that she had a wide grin on her face,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:17):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:25:17):
Which implies that she's happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:19):
And so I want to show you why.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:22):
Because people say, oh, yeah, yeah, I can do that.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:25):
But they think that it's like this snobby literary rule that makes,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:29):
quote unquote,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:30):
you can't see me doing air quotes,

Suzy Vadori (00:25:31):
but I'm doing air quotes.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:33):
That makes good writing.

Suzy Vadori (00:25:34):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:37):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:40):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:43):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:46):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:49):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:52):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:55):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:57):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:25:59):
Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:26:02):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:26:06):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:26:09):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:26:17):
Maybe your brain can hold a lot of facts at once.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:20):
But when we read, we need more than that.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:22):
And so our brains actually go to sleep when you give us too many facts because it's

Suzy Vadori (00:26:26):
already interpreted for us.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:27):
She's happy, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:26:29):
If you tell me that she had a wide grin on her face,

Suzy Vadori (00:26:34):
I have to do something with that as the reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:37):
And in fact, my brain has to wake up a little bit and say she had a wide grid on her face.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:41):
And then my neural pathways have to associate that with being happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:44):
Oh, she's happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:45):
Right.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:46):
You can see I actually my brain woke up and went didn't hold that fact.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:50):
She's happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:51):
Thanks for interpreting it for me, Susie.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:53):
Right.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:54):
And told me something that I had to do myself and I got the reader involved.

Suzy Vadori (00:26:58):
And because of that, it's more interesting to them.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:01):
It keeps them awake.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:02):
Okay, so that's a very simple example.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:04):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:27:06):
Yeah, go ahead.

Sam Cameron (00:27:07):
And I can see how that actually like imitates that.

Sam Cameron (00:27:09):
I can see how that imitates for our brains,

Sam Cameron (00:27:12):
the experience of living in the real world,

Sam Cameron (00:27:14):
because in the real world,

Sam Cameron (00:27:16):
we encounter stimuli all the time.

Sam Cameron (00:27:18):
And so if instead of someone narrating to us their experience of whatever happened,

Sam Cameron (00:27:27):
right,

Sam Cameron (00:27:27):
or just saying like,

Sam Cameron (00:27:28):
oh,

Sam Cameron (00:27:28):
she's happy.

Sam Cameron (00:27:30):
If that person is instead narrating

Sam Cameron (00:27:34):
What our brain would be taking in visually or auditorially or olfactory or whatever

Sam Cameron (00:27:42):
senses you want to use.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:44):
Yes.

Suzy Vadori (00:27:44):
If we're being given that information,

Sam Cameron (00:27:47):
then it's more similar to like walking around in the world and like you're

Sam Cameron (00:27:50):
interacting with a person and subconsciously or possibly consciously for some

Sam Cameron (00:27:54):
people.

Sam Cameron (00:27:56):
you're looking at people's faces and interpreting their body language and their

Sam Cameron (00:27:59):
tone of voice yes exactly bringing in that information and so so if you're using

Sam Cameron (00:28:06):
those kinds of imitating that experience for the reader it gives you your brain a

Sam Cameron (00:28:12):
closer experience to like living life

Suzy Vadori (00:28:16):
Absolutely.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:16):
And so, yeah, we don't walk around saying, I think I'm happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:21):
We just walk around with that feeling.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:23):
And so we want people to feel the feeling.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:25):
And brains are cool.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:26):
Back to brain science.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:28):
There's also research out there that shows that when we read something that does

Suzy Vadori (00:28:33):
this well,

Suzy Vadori (00:28:35):
the actual brain waves and activity that happens are as if we're really there.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:40):
So if we're in a scary situation,

Suzy Vadori (00:28:43):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:28:43):
our heart might actually pound as we're reading,

Suzy Vadori (00:28:45):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:28:45):
Like these things are actually happening within our body.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:48):
So we want to engage the reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:49):
This is like how we get you involved, right?

Sam Cameron (00:28:53):
We don't want to drink so much water when I was reading The Hunger Games for the

Sam Cameron (00:28:56):
first time because she's so thirsty for so much of the book.

Suzy Vadori (00:28:59):
Oh my gosh, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:29:01):
Yeah.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:01):
And so that's what we want.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:02):
And that's because it's done well in that book, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:29:06):
And it's not just like, oh, I'm thirsty again.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:10):
it's like oh my throat is so dry I can't get the words out like you're actually

Suzy Vadori (00:29:14):
describing I don't know what I don't know how it's actually just I don't remember

Sam Cameron (00:29:17):
what words she used but I remember being so thirsty and like it was such a tension

Sam Cameron (00:29:23):
for myself because I I did not want to put that book down but I had to keep leaving

Sam Cameron (00:29:28):
my room to go refill my water cup because I was drinking so much water oh my gosh

Suzy Vadori (00:29:33):
Sam why did you not just have a cup oh you had to leave it I'm like I thought you

Suzy Vadori (00:29:37):
meant to get the water okay don't refill it

Sam Cameron (00:29:40):
I have a vivid memory of like being in my childhood bedroom and walking to the

Sam Cameron (00:29:44):
bathroom that I shared with my brothers to like refill my cup in the sink very

Sam Cameron (00:29:49):
frequently while I was reading that book.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:52):
I love that.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:53):
And I mean,

Suzy Vadori (00:29:54):
I'll date myself here,

Suzy Vadori (00:29:55):
but I was not still in my parents home when I met Hunger Games came out.

Suzy Vadori (00:29:59):
So okay, but that's good.

Suzy Vadori (00:30:02):
So that's emotions, but it's also leading into something else, this whole concept.

Suzy Vadori (00:30:07):
And you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:30:07):
the more I study show don't tell,

Suzy Vadori (00:30:09):
the more it kind of bleeds into every other thing in writing,

Suzy Vadori (00:30:14):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:30:14):
Like, I feel like it's the umbrella

Suzy Vadori (00:30:16):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:30:21):
Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:30:30):
so I'm going to talk about another one that you may have heard because it's very

Suzy Vadori (00:30:33):
typical and these are the two like there's actually three that are like super

Suzy Vadori (00:30:37):
typical the next one is don't use ly adverbs right and I'll explain that for a

Suzy Vadori (00:30:43):
second right adverbs because that's what people think show don't tell is don't name

Suzy Vadori (00:30:47):
emotions and don't use ly adverbs but again I'm going to explain why and then I'm

Suzy Vadori (00:30:50):
going to extrapolate how that works in all of your writing and not just these two

Suzy Vadori (00:30:55):
simple rules

Suzy Vadori (00:30:57):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:31:01):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:31:12):
Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:31:42):
She strode to the corner, her heels clicking, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:31:46):
She's walking quickly.

Suzy Vadori (00:31:47):
Way more interesting.

Suzy Vadori (00:31:48):
That one happens to be longer, but it doesn't necessarily have to be longer, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:31:53):
So just take that extra beat.

Suzy Vadori (00:31:55):
It's one thing that you can look for in your own writing where you're always telling.

Suzy Vadori (00:31:58):
Now, does that mean that you have to get rid of 100%?

Suzy Vadori (00:32:01):
100%, you don't.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:03):
But try and get rid of a lot.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:05):
If you've got that littered all over your opening pages...

Suzy Vadori (00:32:09):
An agent or a reader is going to pass.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:12):
They may not know why, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:32:14):
And this is the other thing is when I teach techniques,

Suzy Vadori (00:32:16):
I like to tell writers,

Suzy Vadori (00:32:18):
people are going to like your writing more.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:21):
They may have no idea why.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:23):
Even an agent or an editor may not know why when you do these things,

Suzy Vadori (00:32:27):
they like your writing more.

Suzy Vadori (00:32:29):
In fact, a lot of my clients come back and say to me, the agent's like,

Suzy Vadori (00:32:33):
this just jumped off the slush pile or whatever right like like that that kind of

Suzy Vadori (00:32:38):
language because we're working on things we're engaging them we're using techniques

Suzy Vadori (00:32:43):
that they may not notice and we don't want them to notice what we're doing right

Suzy Vadori (00:32:47):
like that's not the point um the point is to engage the reader okay yeah I like

Sam Cameron (00:32:52):
that you're explaining why to do these things because I think

Sam Cameron (00:32:57):
A lot of writers have heard, oh, don't name emotions, don't use L-Y adverbs.

Sam Cameron (00:33:01):
And so what they do is they take those things out of their work,

Sam Cameron (00:33:05):
but they don't realize that they need to replace them with something else to get

Sam Cameron (00:33:10):
across the meaning that those words were trying to do.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:14):
Exactly.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:15):
And to light up the reader's brains in the process.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:17):
So there are technical ways that you can do that.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:20):
And then the third really typical one, which I won't spend a lot of time on, is info dumps.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:24):
If we're info dumping,

Suzy Vadori (00:33:25):
like if you're giving me three pages of description of your world building before

Suzy Vadori (00:33:30):
you get to the story,

Suzy Vadori (00:33:32):
it's too much.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:32):
Take it out.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:34):
I like to say, give us a detail or two.

Suzy Vadori (00:33:37):
Right and sprinkle them throughout so you may need that information if you're

Suzy Vadori (00:33:42):
writing fantasy in particular where the world is not on earth and it's something

Suzy Vadori (00:33:46):
completely new you need that information so go ahead write it but know that don't

Suzy Vadori (00:33:51):
count it to your word count right and then sprinkle in a few things it's often

Suzy Vadori (00:33:55):
enough to give us a few really specific things that's one that I would say um if

Suzy Vadori (00:34:01):
you are

Suzy Vadori (00:34:02):
Being vague, I can't picture anything.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:05):
I can't remember anything, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:34:08):
There's nothing to remember because you haven't given me anything, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:34:12):
So if you're using words like objects or something or someone, be specific.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:18):
Be as specific as you can.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:20):
And that doesn't, again, I don't need a paragraph.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:23):
Use a word from your world.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:25):
She picked up something.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:26):
Give me something that she picked up that means something in your world, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:34:31):
Because

Suzy Vadori (00:34:32):
and this is the one the vague versus specific rule.

Suzy Vadori (00:34:36):
This is the one where I can tell you if I read your manuscript and I'm seeing a lot of vagary

Suzy Vadori (00:34:43):
I know that you haven't made a decision somewhere along the line you haven't

Suzy Vadori (00:34:46):
decided yet and there's a lot of advice out there that will say push through don't

Suzy Vadori (00:34:50):
stop and that might be true except in this case if you haven't decided something

Suzy Vadori (00:34:56):
decide if you haven't decided how your magic works if you haven't decided who the

Suzy Vadori (00:35:01):
killer is if you haven't decided something in your book you are going to have

Suzy Vadori (00:35:05):
passages that are so vague because you don't know the answer that

Suzy Vadori (00:35:13):
It's really hard to go back and fix them later because there's nothing to fix.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:17):
There's no grammatical issue, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:35:20):
But search on these words because you're going to have to rewrite that whole

Suzy Vadori (00:35:23):
section to layer in something else when you make that decision.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:27):
So I like to get writers to stop and make a decision.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:31):
Writers often say, how do you do that?

Suzy Vadori (00:35:33):
How do you know that I haven't decided who she marries yet or who she chooses in

Suzy Vadori (00:35:38):
the love triangle?

Suzy Vadori (00:35:39):
I'm like, oh, I can tell.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:41):
and doesn't mean give it away.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:42):
It just means that you use some really vague language.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:46):
It's like something that you do as a protection to leave all your options open.

Suzy Vadori (00:35:51):
If you know the answer, you can still obscure it if it's not time to make the big reveal yet.

Sam Cameron (00:35:56):
Yeah,

Sam Cameron (00:35:57):
I think it's Lisa Krohn who talks about,

Sam Cameron (00:35:59):
and I forget which one of her books she says this in.

Sam Cameron (00:36:00):
She says,

Sam Cameron (00:36:01):
decisions beget decisions,

Sam Cameron (00:36:04):
which is,

Sam Cameron (00:36:04):
or like specifics beget specifics might be what she says.

Sam Cameron (00:36:08):
Which is the idea that like once,

Sam Cameron (00:36:11):
You make the decision.

Sam Cameron (00:36:12):
I say this as someone who loves using placeholders when I'm drafting for things I don't know.

Sam Cameron (00:36:18):
But I also know very clearly when I'm writing something.

Sam Cameron (00:36:22):
So I was drafting something the other day.

Sam Cameron (00:36:24):
I knew that these characters were going back to their hometown.

Sam Cameron (00:36:27):
I had not decided where their hometown was or anything to do with their hometown.

Sam Cameron (00:36:31):
And so I was like, well, we got to decide something.

Sam Cameron (00:36:32):
So I decided they came from a place that had a lot of dairy farms.

Sam Cameron (00:36:35):
And that one detail, like,

Sam Cameron (00:36:38):
Exploded the whole rest of everything Like I had so much more I could write about

Suzy Vadori (00:36:43):
Yeah and you're not sort of just marking the scene and getting through it you can

Suzy Vadori (00:36:47):
be specific yeah you don't have to decide everything but sometimes you're going to

Suzy Vadori (00:36:50):
come to these decisions and you have to and you know as a coach and I'm sure you do

Suzy Vadori (00:36:54):
this with your writers as well Sam but as a coach I like to warn writers up front I

Suzy Vadori (00:36:59):
am going to force you to make decisions now I will not hold your feet to the fire

Suzy Vadori (00:37:04):
you can change your mind

Suzy Vadori (00:37:06):
Now,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:06):
if we're changing your mind every single week,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:07):
we're going to have a very different conversation and we're going to figure out why

Suzy Vadori (00:37:11):
we're doing that because we're never going to make any progress.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:13):
But here's the thing, because again, back to brains.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:17):
If you've ever experienced overwhelm or what you would describe as overwhelm,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:20):
you probably have at some point in your life,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:22):
but overwhelm is a real phenomenon that happens to your brain where your brain

Suzy Vadori (00:37:26):
actually shuts off,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:27):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:37:28):
And the reason that it happens is because it's like if you were coming up to a fork

Suzy Vadori (00:37:33):
in a road and you could go left or your right and you don't make a decision and so

Suzy Vadori (00:37:37):
you stand at that fork in the road,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:38):
that's what your brain does.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:40):
You haven't given me information so I can't do anything.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:43):
Right.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:44):
And so people don't often recognize overwhelm.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:47):
They think that it's because they have, you know, too much going on.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:51):
And it is.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:52):
But if they just made,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:54):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:37:54):
if they would just make those decisions and they could start to move forward.

Suzy Vadori (00:37:58):
And so what I do with writers is we say, well, we came to a fork in a road, pick left or right.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:03):
If we go down the left fork in the road and the trees are all dead and,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:08):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:08):
like it's spooky and scary and you want to turn back,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:12):
turn back.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:13):
But you know what?

Suzy Vadori (00:38:14):
We can do that pretty quickly.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:16):
We can start writing.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:17):
Like you said,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:18):
if you'd picked,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:19):
it was in the area with dairy farms and then it got distracting or didn't fit,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:24):
you could always go back to that scene and say,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:26):
okay,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:26):
it's not dairy farms.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:27):
Actually,

Suzy Vadori (00:38:28):
it would be more helpful if they were fields of soy or cornfields because I want

Suzy Vadori (00:38:34):
the spooky element of being children of the corn or something.

Suzy Vadori (00:38:38):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:38:56):
write a book for a decade or several decades because you're out there I'm sure

Suzy Vadori (00:38:59):
you're listening to this podcast some of you or if you've you know been writing and

Suzy Vadori (00:39:04):
putting in these sort of vagary scenes that you're maybe never going to be able to

Suzy Vadori (00:39:08):
fix because you don't know that they're there but they're going to your reader's

Suzy Vadori (00:39:12):
going to be like what is this I have no nothing's happening in my brain here

Suzy Vadori (00:39:16):
because you're giving me nothing to work with yeah so you're always further ahead

Suzy Vadori (00:39:21):
if you make those decisions than if you just stand at the fork in the road

Sam Cameron (00:39:26):
Yeah,

Sam Cameron (00:39:26):
I think a lot of writers are scared of they want to make sure they're making the

Sam Cameron (00:39:31):
right decision or the quote unquote right decision or the,

Sam Cameron (00:39:35):
you know,

Sam Cameron (00:39:35):
writing their book the quote unquote right way.

Sam Cameron (00:39:38):
And I like to say that the right way to do it is the way that results in a done book.

Sam Cameron (00:39:43):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:39:43):
And like Susie said, you can change your mind.

Sam Cameron (00:39:47):
about anything sure you can at any point you know so it's just important to make a

Sam Cameron (00:39:52):
decision so that you can have the specifics to come up with more specifics you know

Sam Cameron (00:39:57):
and and make your way to the end um and then if you realize that that one decision

Sam Cameron (00:40:03):
didn't work you can undo it and make a decision exactly and our mentor Jenny Nash

Suzy Vadori (00:40:08):
actually of Author Accelerator I don't know if you read this one Sam

Suzy Vadori (00:40:12):
kind of blindsiding you here.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:13):
But she sent out a newsletter in January that I haven't had a chance to talk to her about yet.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:17):
But I'm excited about it and I keep quoting it.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:19):
So maybe one of those is going to cross her mind.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:22):
And Jenny, if you're listening to this, I want to talk about it.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:24):
Okay,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:25):
so she put into chat GPT because we're trying to find,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:28):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:28):
ethical and interesting uses of AI in the writing world,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:33):
which isn't to write your book,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:34):
by the way,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:34):
because it'll be full of that vagary.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:35):
That's how I know that something is AI written.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:38):
Actually, it's because it can't generate anything new.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:42):
It just kind of,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:44):
it looks for the common denominator in successful writing and then makes an average

Suzy Vadori (00:40:49):
of everything,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:50):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:40:50):
So it's never specific.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:53):
But anyways, that's totally not what I was going to talk about.

Suzy Vadori (00:40:56):
So in Jenny's newsletter,

Suzy Vadori (00:40:57):
she actually shared that she asked it,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:00):
asked her chat,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:02):
how many decisions does a writer make while writing a fiction novel?

Suzy Vadori (00:41:07):
And it came back with somewhere between 250,000 to 1 million.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:12):
And she said, it kind of blew my mind, but then I thought about it.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:14):
And I mean, we're talking about bigger decisions, but decisions on everything.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:18):
And this is where I want to lead into one of the next things that you can look for

Suzy Vadori (00:41:21):
in your own writing,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:23):
where you are absolutely telling us.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:25):
And this one's one that people miss.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:28):
And it is when you are reporting about something,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:32):
and I talked about this already a little bit,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:33):
but I'm going to bring it into your scenes,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:35):
reporting something off screen.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:37):
Right?

Suzy Vadori (00:41:38):
So when you make a decision, okay, you look at your outline, hopefully you outline.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:43):
I love to outline.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:45):
If you don't outline, that's okay.

Suzy Vadori (00:41:47):
When you come up with an idea for a scene or something has to happen,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:50):
a plot point has to happen,

Suzy Vadori (00:41:51):
you know that they need to

Suzy Vadori (00:41:52):
Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:42:21):
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Suzy Vadori (00:42:47):
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Suzy Vadori (00:43:02):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:43:23):
You know,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:24):
in that case,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:25):
it might be somebody comes home,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:27):
but you skip ahead to the soldier coming home from the fight scene,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:31):
and then he tells his spouse about the fight scene,

Suzy Vadori (00:43:33):
and that's how we hear about it.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:34):
It's like my story with the banana peel that I talked about earlier, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:43:38):
You had to be there.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:40):
Bring us there and do the work.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:42):
Don't be stingy with the reader because you don't feel like writing a fight scene.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:48):
Do the work.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:49):
Immerse us.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:50):
So watch for scenes like that where a character is telling another character about

Suzy Vadori (00:43:54):
something that happened that we aren't present for.

Suzy Vadori (00:43:56):
And if it happened in the past, drop us into a flashback.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:00):
Let us be there.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:02):
Because if we're not there,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:03):
we care about it a lot less and we're going to retain it a lot less.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:07):
We're not as interested in it.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:09):
This also shows up in manuscripts.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:12):
If you have, I call them recap scenes.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:15):
So a lot of times,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:16):
a few times,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:17):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:18):
publishers will contact or tell their writer,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:20):
go work with Susie,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:21):
your manuscript's too long,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:22):
let's find places to cut your manuscript.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:24):
Because this happens in publishing, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:44:27):
They might have a cap in terms of word count.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:30):
And

Suzy Vadori (00:44:31):
if a manuscript's too long.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:32):
And the writer tells me, I don't want to cut anything.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:35):
I'm not willing to cut any of my scenes.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:37):
And I go, well, let's just look, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:44:40):
Because I promise you I can find places where you can cut your word count without

Suzy Vadori (00:44:45):
changing anything that happens.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:47):
I promise it's true.

Suzy Vadori (00:44:49):
And so one of the biggest places that I can find a lot of word count in many,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:53):
many books,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:54):
especially like epic sized books,

Suzy Vadori (00:44:57):
like long science fiction or

Suzy Vadori (00:45:00):
historical fiction is when we're recapping scenes so it looks kind of like this you

Suzy Vadori (00:45:06):
did the work you took us to the battle and you brought us to the moment where the

Suzy Vadori (00:45:11):
soldier's best friend dies in his arms and we're just got it you did a great job by

Suzy Vadori (00:45:16):
the way Ryder good job you did a great job on the scene and then the next scene the

Suzy Vadori (00:45:21):
soldier is walking to the house of his best friend's widow and he tells him all of

Suzy Vadori (00:45:27):
that again and we watch the widow

Suzy Vadori (00:45:29):
and we go through her reaction again.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:32):
Here's the problem.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:34):
I just went through as a reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:36):
Okay, you did a good job.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:37):
You showed me I was gutted.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:40):
I maybe put the book down for a beat and went and,

Suzy Vadori (00:45:42):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:45:43):
got a glass of water or something a little stronger to get through that.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:47):
And the issue is, I'm not going to do that arc again.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:52):
And I already saw it.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:53):
So don't lose sight of your reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:55):
Everything that you write needs to be focused on your reader.

Suzy Vadori (00:45:58):
Does the reader have the information already?

Suzy Vadori (00:46:00):
This is also true for info dumps.

Suzy Vadori (00:46:03):
Does your reader need the information?

Suzy Vadori (00:46:04):
Does your reader have the information?

Suzy Vadori (00:46:06):
And writers will say to me, but the widow needs to know.

Suzy Vadori (00:46:09):
Okay, cool.

Suzy Vadori (00:46:12):
So that's where you slip into telling.

Suzy Vadori (00:46:14):
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Suzy Vadori (00:46:17):
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Suzy Vadori (00:46:21):
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Suzy Vadori (00:46:24):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:26):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:28):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:31):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:34):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:37):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:39):
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Sam Cameron (00:46:41):
you would like have the death scene with the dramatic music and everything and then

Sam Cameron (00:46:47):
the director would probably have like a silent shot of the soldier of the widow's

Sam Cameron (00:46:55):
sobbing without us actually hearing any of the words right and that that's

Suzy Vadori (00:46:59):
essentially accomplishing the same thing yeah because we we can't go yeah but think

Suzy Vadori (00:47:03):
about your reader you don't want them to have to go through that emotional arc

Suzy Vadori (00:47:06):
again

Suzy Vadori (00:47:07):
and also it's boring because we already know what happens it loses its punch now if

Suzy Vadori (00:47:14):
you must repeat a scene if you must bring something up again because I can hear it

Suzy Vadori (00:47:20):
already but Susie I have to you can but just remember when you do that keep it as

Suzy Vadori (00:47:27):
short as possible and also give us something new so this actually comes up a lot of

Suzy Vadori (00:47:33):
times when we're writing book two

Suzy Vadori (00:47:36):
And writers contact me,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:39):
book one,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:39):
I actually went through this recently,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:41):
one of my writers,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:42):
she wrote a book and it became a USA Today bestseller and she's writing book two

Suzy Vadori (00:47:47):
and she's like,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:48):
oh my gosh,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:48):
I'm just rewriting book one and then I have to blow it up.

Suzy Vadori (00:47:52):
Because the problem is,

Suzy Vadori (00:47:53):
and people think it's going to be easier because they already created the

Suzy Vadori (00:47:55):
characters in the world.

Suzy Vadori (00:47:56):
But the problem is, you've already created the characters in the world.

Suzy Vadori (00:47:59):
So what the heck do you talk about?

Suzy Vadori (00:48:01):
And how much do you need to recap?

Suzy Vadori (00:48:04):
And how much can you kind of move on?

Suzy Vadori (00:48:07):
And I like to say keep it fresh and give the reader new information.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:11):
So the way that this shows up is,

Suzy Vadori (00:48:12):
sure,

Suzy Vadori (00:48:12):
you might have to recap what happened at the battle in book one because we need the

Suzy Vadori (00:48:17):
information or the book doesn't make any sense.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:19):
But maybe the character is 10 years older and has a different perspective on it.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:24):
And instead of being gutted by it, he sees it in a different lens.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:29):
Give us new information.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:32):
Or he found out later that the battle should have never happened because the

Suzy Vadori (00:48:36):
captain was corrupt and they weren't supposed to be there.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:39):
Like, give us something.

Suzy Vadori (00:48:40):
But yeah, give us something different.

Sam Cameron (00:48:43):
Yeah,

Sam Cameron (00:48:43):
I'm thinking about,

Sam Cameron (00:48:44):
as you were saying that,

Sam Cameron (00:48:45):
like dual POV romances,

Sam Cameron (00:48:48):
where one of the challenges for that writing in that genre is you kind of need to

Sam Cameron (00:48:54):
have both characters hit certain emotional beats.

Sam Cameron (00:48:58):
But like, for example, you don't want to write a whole scene

Sam Cameron (00:49:01):
Like let's say it's the first sex scene.

Sam Cameron (00:49:03):
You don't want to write the whole sex scene from character A's point of view and

Sam Cameron (00:49:07):
then rehash the entire same scene from character B's point of view.

Sam Cameron (00:49:11):
Like that would be really boring.

Sam Cameron (00:49:12):
You want to pass the baton.

Sam Cameron (00:49:14):
So that might be like the sex scene is from character A's point of view up until a

Sam Cameron (00:49:19):
point and then it switches to character B or character A gets all of the sex scene

Sam Cameron (00:49:25):
and character B

Sam Cameron (00:49:26):
Picks up with the next morning.

Sam Cameron (00:49:30):
Those are the things that you don't want to rehash the same scene,

Sam Cameron (00:49:33):
even if you have multiple POV characters.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:35):
Well, yes.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:37):
And I will say that many writers will come back and say, but I saw that in a book.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:41):
And if you actually study what they did,

Suzy Vadori (00:49:43):
there may be some overlap,

Suzy Vadori (00:49:46):
but they're bringing something new,

Suzy Vadori (00:49:48):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:49:48):
Or something that we missed, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:49:50):
So if there's an overlap, you don't want to rehash the whole scene.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:53):
Certainly not the same way.

Suzy Vadori (00:49:55):
um but if there's overlap and you're showing an event again uh because you started

Suzy Vadori (00:50:01):
you know maybe they have completely different interpretations of what yes yeah but

Suzy Vadori (00:50:07):
use it sparingly because it is it's boring um okay so I don't know how many more we

Sam Cameron (00:50:13):
can go through like I said I can talk about this I mean all day we I could talk

Sam Cameron (00:50:17):
about it all day too so what where have we been so far I usually like to try to

Sam Cameron (00:50:22):
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Sam Cameron (00:50:25):
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Sam Cameron (00:50:30):
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Sam Cameron (00:50:39):
You have various tools at your disposal, like interiority or internal thoughts.

Sam Cameron (00:50:47):
We have things like body language, physical reactions.

Sam Cameron (00:50:52):
Those are all tools that we have.

Sam Cameron (00:50:55):
We've talked about

Sam Cameron (00:50:57):
We don't name emotions.

Sam Cameron (00:50:59):
We don't use ly adverbs because you're going to replace those things with more

Sam Cameron (00:51:05):
active things that tickle our brains.

Sam Cameron (00:51:07):
Yeah, more active things that tickle our brains.

Sam Cameron (00:51:10):
We talked about being specific,

Sam Cameron (00:51:13):
which kind of relates back to the not using the adverbs and not use naming the

Sam Cameron (00:51:18):
emotions.

Sam Cameron (00:51:20):
There's an example I like to use when I'm teaching where I took this scene and

Sam Cameron (00:51:25):
And I took out all of the interiority.

Sam Cameron (00:51:28):
And then I show three versions of the scene.

Sam Cameron (00:51:30):
The first one is there's just exterior, no interior.

Sam Cameron (00:51:34):
The second version is telling.

Sam Cameron (00:51:37):
I just state the character's emotions.

Sam Cameron (00:51:39):
And then the third version is what the author actually wrote.

Sam Cameron (00:51:42):
And what I inevitably find is that when we get to what the writer actually wrote,

Sam Cameron (00:51:47):
which is a really good example of showing,

Sam Cameron (00:51:50):
the emotions are much more specific because the author gets very specific into the

Sam Cameron (00:51:55):
behaviors of the narrator,

Sam Cameron (00:51:58):
into the behaviors of the person they're talking about.

Sam Cameron (00:52:00):
And so there's actually more nuanced emotion than when those emotions are just named.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:05):
Well, that's actually absolutely true.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:07):
And one of the things,

Suzy Vadori (00:52:08):
if you haven't gotten Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's Emotion Thesaurus and its

Suzy Vadori (00:52:16):
sequels,

Suzy Vadori (00:52:17):
it's an amazing resource.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:19):
And what it is, is basically a thesaurus.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:21):
So if I want to say happy, it's like 10 pages of how to describe happy.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:26):
you're gonna use it in your own way and extrapolate from that but it's a really

Suzy Vadori (00:52:31):
cool resource because what you just said Sam there are nuances and so sometimes if

Suzy Vadori (00:52:37):
I want to say angry and I'm not sure how to say it then I go and look at that

Suzy Vadori (00:52:44):
I go and look at the thesaurus and I read the 10 pages and I'm like, none of this is right.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:48):
And I'm like, oh, I was being really lazy.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:51):
I was being lazy,

Suzy Vadori (00:52:52):
saying angry,

Suzy Vadori (00:52:53):
but what I actually meant was overwhelmed or what I actually meant was scared or

Suzy Vadori (00:52:56):
what I actually meant was something else.

Suzy Vadori (00:52:59):
And that's the other thing is we can be really flippant when we try to categorize

Suzy Vadori (00:53:03):
it and name it.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:05):
It's like we're not getting into that nuance because there's more than just happy,

Suzy Vadori (00:53:11):
sad and angry in the world.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:13):
There are all these other like really subtle things that you can describe and it

Suzy Vadori (00:53:19):
becomes really crystal clear and I like to say this when I'm editing or providing

Suzy Vadori (00:53:24):
suggestions when I'm working with a writer I'm like hey I gotta be brave as an

Suzy Vadori (00:53:28):
editor and guess and sometimes I'm gonna be wrong but guess what if you love what I

Suzy Vadori (00:53:33):
made up because I'll put suggestions in the margin not in your text but I'll be

Suzy Vadori (00:53:38):
like hey

Suzy Vadori (00:53:39):
You know, maybe don't name this emotion.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:41):
Try this.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:42):
And then I guess.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:44):
And I'll give them a really original description usually.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:47):
And sometimes if they want it, they can use it.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:49):
I don't care.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:49):
As an editor, that's kind of the deal.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:52):
But if I'm wrong, sometimes that's even more helpful.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:55):
And you're like, oh my gosh, Susie, she wasn't angry.

Suzy Vadori (00:53:58):
She was overwhelmed.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:00):
Or that doesn't fit.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:00):
And I'm like, okay, what does fit, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:54:03):
And that reaction.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:04):
So I love using the thesaurus for that when I'm stuck because sometimes it actually

Suzy Vadori (00:54:09):
teaches me that I didn't have it right because my brain wasn't engaged,

Suzy Vadori (00:54:14):
right?

Suzy Vadori (00:54:14):
I was just picking out of the sky, angry and moving forward.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:17):
Whereas if I actually had to internalize it and knew what my character was feeling,

Suzy Vadori (00:54:22):
I would realize it wasn't anger.

Suzy Vadori (00:54:23):
It was something way cooler.

Sam Cameron (00:54:26):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:54:27):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:54:27):
So getting specific

Suzy Vadori (00:54:29):
what else did we talk about I think you got an off screen infodumps and off screen

Suzy Vadori (00:54:35):
oh yeah I've got two more if I can do them quickly if you are describing a crowd or

Suzy Vadori (00:54:44):
many versus one try again it's related to the specificity rule and and zoom in so

Suzy Vadori (00:54:50):
to show a crowd rather than saying a crowd which is impossible for somebody to

Suzy Vadori (00:54:54):
actually imagine zoom in on

Suzy Vadori (00:54:56):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:55:00):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:55:04):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:55:09):
Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:55:20):
Oh and many verses one also has to do with remember I said earlier like in memoir

Suzy Vadori (00:55:24):
for example if you do something all the time rather than saying many times I went

Suzy Vadori (00:55:30):
to the river and fished right I can't picture many times I have nothing to actually

Suzy Vadori (00:55:35):
absorb versus you know one one of the days that you went to fish like bring us to a

Suzy Vadori (00:55:42):
moment don't just summarize that bring us to a moment so that we can imagine it and

Suzy Vadori (00:55:46):
then the other category is to be

Suzy Vadori (00:55:49):
Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (00:56:09):
The shelves were, there were no books on the shelf.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:12):
Okay, what is there?

Suzy Vadori (00:56:13):
The shelves were bare with a thick layer of dust.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:16):
I can see that there's no books there, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:56:18):
So flip that negativity into a positive to give your reader something to focus on

Suzy Vadori (00:56:24):
and not something to not focus on.

Sam Cameron (00:56:27):
Oh, that's a really interesting one.

Sam Cameron (00:56:28):
Because I,

Sam Cameron (00:56:30):
I actually,

Sam Cameron (00:56:30):
that's a piece of advice I get from one of my critique partners all the time is I

Sam Cameron (00:56:33):
have a tendency to like expect a character expects a reaction from someone.

Sam Cameron (00:56:38):
And the character doesn't have that reaction.

Sam Cameron (00:56:40):
It's like, they didn't say anything.

Sam Cameron (00:56:42):
And she's like, don't tell me what they didn't do.

Sam Cameron (00:56:44):
Tell me what they did do.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:45):
Yes, thank you.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:46):
Yes, exactly.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:47):
And that's the one.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:48):
Yeah.

Suzy Vadori (00:56:49):
And these are just different ways to look at

Suzy Vadori (00:56:52):
Things that are probably covered by other writing advice but if you group them all

Suzy Vadori (00:56:56):
into this and do them as a pass of your writing and look specifically for these

Suzy Vadori (00:57:00):
moments when you're telling and then decide well that one I don't think you ever

Suzy Vadori (00:57:06):
want to tell it but decide am I zooming in or zooming out is that okay is this a

Suzy Vadori (00:57:13):
moment because because showing is always slower

Suzy Vadori (00:57:16):
it's slowing it down and a lot of times especially YA writers right Sam we're

Suzy Vadori (00:57:21):
always talking about pacing and making it faster faster faster faster but there are

Suzy Vadori (00:57:27):
moments right there's that really gut punch moment where you can slow it down and

Suzy Vadori (00:57:34):
make sure like don't bury he died in the middle of a long paragraph right draw it

Suzy Vadori (00:57:41):
out it's important or readers will miss it

Sam Cameron (00:57:44):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (00:57:44):
And actually, I was on Susie's podcast to talk about tension and like building tension.

Sam Cameron (00:57:48):
And that was one of the things we talked about was that you actually can increase

Sam Cameron (00:57:53):
tension by slowing things down.

Sam Cameron (00:57:55):
So one of the choices is to increase you can increase the reader emotional

Sam Cameron (00:58:02):
investment and increase the tension by showing more and slowing things down.

Sam Cameron (00:58:07):
And you sort of create more distance and like less engagement and less tension when

Sam Cameron (00:58:11):
you tell more.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:13):
yeah and so but use it judiciously and decide that's your job as the director of

Suzy Vadori (00:58:18):
your book as the writer um you know I like to say and another one just because you

Suzy Vadori (00:58:23):
know we're both YA and we like fantasy and all the things but um

Suzy Vadori (00:58:29):
If you're writing about magic, it's one place where, you know, don't be shy.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:34):
Make it big.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:35):
Make it weird, right?

Suzy Vadori (00:58:38):
Don't make it so subtle because you're shy that readers could think that it was

Suzy Vadori (00:58:44):
just something in regular life that some woo person just interpreted as magic.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:49):
Like, make it obvious.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:51):
And I say that lovingly, by the way.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:54):
I aspire to be a woo person.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:55):
I'm trying.

Suzy Vadori (00:58:56):
I'm trying.

Sam Cameron (00:58:57):
I'm trying to learn.

Sam Cameron (00:59:00):
yeah so I guess the I guess in closing so you've given us a lot of really great

Sam Cameron (00:59:07):
advice about ways to you know that ultimately you have to decide when you're

Sam Cameron (00:59:13):
showing when you're telling and that you have all these tools at your disposal for

Sam Cameron (00:59:18):
how you can look in your manuscript to figure out if you're showing if you're

Sam Cameron (00:59:22):
telling right obviously you'll need other people to weigh into but you've given

Sam Cameron (00:59:26):
people some like very specific like

Sam Cameron (00:59:29):
things they can look for in their manuscript that will put them in at what point in

Sam Cameron (00:59:35):
the process in the writing process should writers be thinking about and figuring

Sam Cameron (00:59:42):
out this stuff

Suzy Vadori (00:59:45):
Oh my goodness.

Suzy Vadori (00:59:45):
Well,

Suzy Vadori (00:59:45):
that's a really good question because don't let like the fear of showing on a first

Suzy Vadori (00:59:50):
draft stop you from getting that first draft down.

Suzy Vadori (00:59:53):
Definitely not.

Suzy Vadori (00:59:54):
It will start to be more natural as you go.

Suzy Vadori (00:59:57):
I would say,

Suzy Vadori (00:59:58):
you know,

Suzy Vadori (00:59:58):
the one about deciding things,

Suzy Vadori (01:00:00):
probably you're going to look at that as early as you can.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:03):
But yeah, this is second draft, third draft stuff.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:07):
and that's why I'm giving you specifics to look for in your manuscript right these

Suzy Vadori (01:00:11):
are the places if you're doing this you're telling go and revise it it's a

Suzy Vadori (01:00:15):
revisionary skill to go in because I mean and I think I think it's Lisa Cron who

Suzy Vadori (01:00:19):
said this as well might have been Jenny or both of them but your first draft is

Suzy Vadori (01:00:24):
just

Suzy Vadori (01:00:25):
Telling yourself the story for the first time.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:27):
And so don't stress about it.

Sam Cameron (01:00:29):
Telling yourself the story, not showing yourself the story.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:31):
Yeah, so don't stress about it.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:32):
If you're trying to make every,

Suzy Vadori (01:00:33):
I mean,

Suzy Vadori (01:00:34):
I'm somebody who revises as I go because I don't want to do as many passes.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:38):
It doesn't always work out that way.

Suzy Vadori (01:00:40):
But

Suzy Vadori (01:00:42):
and I enjoy that I enjoy revising much more than and then drafting but if you are

Suzy Vadori (01:00:47):
somebody who really benefits from just writing through to the end because you need

Suzy Vadori (01:00:51):
to figure out all the nuances do that and don't worry about this until your second

Suzy Vadori (01:00:55):
draft and if you're working with a coach like myself and I'm sure Sam you're the

Suzy Vadori (01:00:59):
same

Suzy Vadori (01:01:00):
Don't worry if I'm flagging it and you're like oh my gosh I didn't get this because

Suzy Vadori (01:01:04):
we're going to help right like that's that's the the nice thing about having a

Suzy Vadori (01:01:08):
really skilled critique partner and or coach but yeah if you don't have that luxury

Suzy Vadori (01:01:14):
then you got to learn how to figure this out yourself and how to find it in your

Suzy Vadori (01:01:17):
drafts and that's what the tips on this podcast will help you do.

Sam Cameron (01:01:20):
Yeah,

Sam Cameron (01:01:20):
because like when I'm reading pages from one of my writers,

Sam Cameron (01:01:23):
and I'm flagging something like that,

Sam Cameron (01:01:25):
and they're drafting,

Sam Cameron (01:01:25):
I usually do just tell them I was like,

Sam Cameron (01:01:27):
I'm,

Sam Cameron (01:01:28):
I'm highlighting this for you.

Sam Cameron (01:01:29):
So you know, I don't want you to fix it in this scene right now.

Sam Cameron (01:01:33):
I want you to start developing an instinct for it and start practicing it in the

Sam Cameron (01:01:39):
scenes that you draft forward.

Sam Cameron (01:01:41):
because you'll start to be able to like naturally without thinking about it layer

Sam Cameron (01:01:45):
in more of these skills but you have to have them like pointed out to you first but

Sam Cameron (01:01:48):
otherwise yes I would agree it's more of a thing to look at in in revision yeah

Suzy Vadori (01:01:53):
let's turn those stick figures into the Mona Lisa right like that's that's the idea

Sam Cameron (01:01:56):
I mean Mona Lisa started as a stick figure I'm sure like underneath all of that

Sam Cameron (01:02:00):
maybe you know maybe there's like a circle there's an oval for her face

Sam Cameron (01:02:05):
Truant Truant Truant Truant

Suzy Vadori (01:02:30):
It's the opposite of standing at the fork in the road.

Suzy Vadori (01:02:33):
The decision's made.

Suzy Vadori (01:02:34):
It's small.

Suzy Vadori (01:02:35):
It's there and you're there and there's no decision.

Sam Cameron (01:02:37):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (01:02:38):
Yeah.

Sam Cameron (01:02:40):
Well,

Sam Cameron (01:02:41):
if folks want to learn more about how to show versus tell,

Sam Cameron (01:02:46):
Susie does have an excellent podcast called the Show Don't Tell podcast.

Sam Cameron (01:02:50):
Susie, where else can people hear from you, learn from you?

Suzy Vadori (01:02:55):
Yeah, come find me on my website, suzyvidori.com.

Suzy Vadori (01:02:58):
I send out a weekly newsletter with tons of fun tips.

Suzy Vadori (01:03:01):
I've been doing it for a lot of years.

Suzy Vadori (01:03:04):
And I would love to have you over there in my community.

Suzy Vadori (01:03:07):
And yeah, come find me on the podcast.

Sam Cameron (01:03:10):
All right.

Sam Cameron (01:03:10):
Well, Susie, thank you so much for coming.

Suzy Vadori (01:03:13):
Thanks for having me.