Writer Wednesday has a bone to pick with Show vs. Tell.

About a year ago I had a serious chat with myself.  If I wanted to get published I'd have to actually, well, write.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm pretty good at doing anything other than writing.

Rearranging the arts and crafts closet?  Sure.
Organizing the bookmarks on my laptop?  Check.
Fatal Attractions marathon?  Why not? (The chimpanzee episode freaked me out so much I think I have a mild chimp phobia now.)

If I wanted to get published I'd also have to study up on the craft. Over the years I've read a lot of books on writing poetry and screenplays, but I'd never read a single one on novel writing.

I'd also never read any writer blogs, but it didn't take long to find some amazing ones.  (See Kristen Lamb's blog for evidence.)

Show vs. tell is a writer rule that I come across often on blogs.  Maybe more than any other rule, but it could just seem that way because I have a bit of a bone to pick with showing versus telling.

Here's a confession.  I enjoy exposition.  I love backstory.  I love internal dialogue.  All that plot-dragging stuff.  But that's not why I have an issue with showing versus telling.  Well, maybe a little.

The main problem I have with it is that some people tend to take it too far.  I've seen fellow writers suggest changing every single spot in a WIP where there is telling instead of showing.  Say what?  Wouldn't literary fiction completely disappear if a writer couldn't ever tell? If I took all the telling out of the 130 pages of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay that I've read so far I'd be left with about 6.  All right, maybe a few more than that, but seriously...

I realize that show vs. tell exists for a good reason and some writers just don't know how to show, but I think there is a danger of sucking the life out of a story if a writer fixates too much on showing.

Maybe that's just me though.

I was starting to wonder if that was the case until I read this AWESOME post on Jody Hedlund's blog.

It's not just me!  I'm not a new writer--I've been writing since I was a small child--but I am new at this writer blog-following, craft-studying fiction business so I second guess myself often.  I haven't yet learned when to trust my instincts and when to follow "the rules".

I'm not saying that I plan to ignore Show or that Tell and I are going to run off and get hitched, but it's nice to know that I'm not entirely alone in my thinking.