“Show don’t tell,” is maybe one of the most ubiquitous writing rules. There is nuance to this, like all things, but for the purposes of this post, we’re going to look at some of the signposts that we’re not just showing things happen; we’re telling the reader they happened. With each CTRL+F suggestion, I’ve included some show don’t tell examples with a fix or two to create a more compelling statement.

Using a reverse outline can assist in the big picture editing of first drafts by giving you some space from the text itself. When we’re editing the text it’s easy to be distracted by the prose when we actually want to look at the narrative elements.

No first draft is perfect. The next step is the first of many editing rounds. With your first draft it will be important to avoid getting too into the nitty-gritty of grammar, or even style, because you should be considering big changes. There’s no point in wrangling your commas if you might not even keep that sentence, scene or chapter! So… where do you begin?