Misconceptions & Reasoning
📋 What it is
Common traps: telling instead of showing, flat characters, resolving conflict too fast.
🗣️ Coach says
Knowing the traps sharpens your craft. "Telling" ("she was sad") is weaker than "showing" (tears). Flat characters bore readers. Solving the problem too quickly kills tension. Spotting these fixes them.
🧠 Memory hook
Show, don't tell. Give characters flaws. Don't solve the problem too fast — let tension build.
😂 Giggle
Why did the sci-fi setting feel alienated?
Nobody understood its advanced concepts!
😲 Whoa!
The most common note editors give new writers is "show, don't tell" — turning statements into scenes.
✅ Quick check: Which is "showing" not "telling": "he was nervous" or "his hands trembled as he reached for the door"?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
The second — it shows nervousness through action instead of stating it.
Showing dramatises emotion; telling just labels it.
🪄 Trick question: Is solving the story's conflict on page one a good idea?
Careful — think it through, then reveal.
No — it removes the tension that keeps readers reading.
Conflict resolved too early leaves no reason to turn the page.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Rewrite "she was excited" as a "showing" sentence with an action or detail.