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![]() ![]() I then learned that the things that happened to me, the things in the scenes, were my only material. I came into writing nonfiction already believing that my thoughts were messy, convoluted, and not worth much. And we need to just stop saying it to another generation of writers. But that sentence-that command-doesn’t say that. ![]() “Show, don’t tell” isn’t a way of reframing William Carlos Williams’ “so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow,” or that brilliant phrase “no ideas but in things” from his poem, “Paterson.” I know the real goal of “show, don’t tell” is to force a discipline that encourages the writer to see subjectivity emerging through those details. In many ways, the practice of writing is a practice of learning to re-see the world. The details are divine, and we should caress them, as Nabokov instructed. And details-pancakes, clenched fists, rainfall-were all I ever wanted, all I ever hoped for as a writer. Chicken soup and a broken figurine of a ceramic goose-there, they make a second life happen, built on images. I had no idea how much damage those three words would do after I’d depended on them for too long.ĭetail makes the mimesis machine start. The directive countered a school-based tendency toward abstraction and vagueness. And sure, it was good for me, in the way training wheels help in learning to ride a bike. When I learned “show, don’t tell,” I thought I’d discovered a guide that would never fail me. ![]()
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