Rami Ungar The Writer

In one of my previous posts, I talked about struggling with showing vs. telling in my stories. At the end of the post, I asked for advice, as I was about to tackle “The Autopsy Kid and Doctor Sarah,” the longest story in my upcoming collection Hannah and Other Stories.

Well, I’m not sure if I’m getting any better. But between the advice everyone was giving me in that previous post and the practice I’ve been getting in, I feel like I’m improving.

Since talking about my issues with showing vs. telling, I’ve started on that story. And while it’s been agonizingly slow at times, I feel like I am recognizing the right moments to expand on and include more detail (showing). In fact, just a couple days ago, I started on a new section of the story and the entire first paragraph was the most summarized thing ever! I was almost ashamed that I wrote it!

Anyway, that led to a pleasant hour of expanding that paragraph into an actual scene so that it was more interesting for the reader. I made extra special effort to describe the character’s experiences through their five senses, as well as their feelings. And I think that not only did I get a much better scene out of it, but I think I was able to emphasize how twisted my antagonist is even more.

That being said, I’m the only one who’s looked at my efforts so far. For all I know, my efforts and changes may still be rather messy attempts at “showing more, telling only when it’s necessary.” But how else do writers improve? We read, we write, and we keep practicing and letting people help us so that we can become better at our craft.

So even if my efforts here still require some work, they’ll at least be the foundations upon which I get better. And that’s never a bad thing.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got a busy week ahead of me, but I hope I’ll be able to announce some good news very soon. And no, I’m not retiring to write full time, starting a breakaway Jewish sect revolving around Lovecraftian entities, and magical girls, or pregnant. If any of you guessed that, you’re way off the mark.

Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!