Other wordly

It's been a week now, which seems like a long time, but it's really only seven days, and what's seven days in the grand scheme of life anyway?

If you've visited this space for the short while of its existence, thank you. But then you know that I just got a Master's degree from Nova Southeastern University. What you might not know are all the details that go into that, but we'll get to that sooner or later. Anyway, a group of my friends from that program - Carol, Brandon, Veronica, and me - trekked to St. Augustine, FL. for the Other Words literary conference in which we presented a panel on showing versus telling in fiction writing.

The uninitiated might not care that much. But if you're in an MFA program, an MA program, or even a cool writer's group, then you've probably heard the criticism that you are doing too much telling and not enough showing in your story. Our panel was called "Tell Me About It," and it dared to suggest that maybe, just maybe, telling was ok.. Holy, shit! This is blasphemy!

(For the record, I am both in a cool writer's group - the Alley - and an MFA program at Converse College. More on both later, since the MFA thing is a life unto itself).

This concept - that telling might be ok in a fiction piece- is such heresy that Brandon suggested that there might be picketers outside the Markland House, the historic building on the historic campus of Flagler College where the conference was held. We got some mileage out of this amongst ourselves as well as in front of the 23 - yes, friends, 23 - that showed up. This was an SRO crowd by the way, as we scored a very cozy, very historic little room to do our thing).

After lunch in the dining hall, where the four of us, plus my amazing wife Marta met and ate lunch (if you've dined at Flagler, you've run into Agnes at the cash-only check out counter. But, shit, $6.99 for all you can eat, ain't bad, and there was a good vegetarian option. Again, I digress).

So at 2:45, we're on. Well, no, we weren't, because the group before us ran long. So maybe 2:55 or 3 we took over with our subversive rhetoric. I was thrilled that we had three lovely young women waiting for us. I wasn't so thrilled when I used a piece of art to pick my nose and realized these three lovely young women were there for us. So it goes.

Pix to follow.

As a poet- and I can't stress enough how I've held off using that term to describe me - the concept of showing and telling in fiction doesn't apply. I concluded, through extensive Internet research totaling nearly an hour, that there were three instances where telling was absolutely necessary in poetry:

1. Clarity: Sometimes, we have to let the readers see the world we want them to see exactly as we see it. To me, this is where the reader and the writer really connect. Also, in terms of temporal changes and time shifts, narration keeps things clear for the reader.

2. Brevity: Honestly, it takes longer and a lot more words to show than it does to tell. And poetry is all about trimming unnecessary words;

3. Emotional detachment: Showing is more emotion evoking; telling is more concrete. Additionally, sometimes, you just want an objective response from the reader so you can save the emotional responses for when you really want them.

Also, in terms of telling in poetry, ballads and dramatic monologues are important, but you could probably make a good argument that there is a good amount of showing in these forms as well.

Whatever. We presented a panel at a real literary conference. One of the attendees friended me on Goodreads. A couple of them found us wandering around St. Augustine and told us they thought we were great. It was pretty cool to be a rock star for a weekend.

And now back to reality.

Until next time. Show don't tell. But don't be afraid to tell. Just do it well.

Whatever.