Show Don't Tell: When a Story Preaches Unintentionally

It happens in the revision.

You're reading back through a scene you wrote weeks ago and you stop at a line of dialogue that feels a little too on-the-nose, a character observation that reads more like an essay than a thought, a moment where the story pauses and your intention becomes visible underneath it like a watermark.

The story is preaching. And you didn't mean for it to do that.

This is one of the more uncomfortable moments in the writing process, because you have to honestly face your own instincts. The impulse to make sure the reader understands the point is understandable. You care about the truth you're carrying in this story, and you don't want the reader to miss it. But caring too much, holding the message too tightly, has a way of working against itself. The reader feels the grip and pulls back.

The fix is almost always the same: trust the scene to do the work without the explanation. Cut the line that names what the scene is already showing. You know, the famous, "Show, don't tell," command. Let the character feel the thing without narrating why it matters. Return the story to experience and let the meaning live inside the experience rather than beside it.

This is easier to describe than to do. It takes a great deal of authorial restraint that goes against the instinct to make sure the reader gets it. But readers are rather perceptive. They get it. Give them the benefit of the doubt. They get it more fully, in fact, when the story trusts them to see it.

The best message is the one the reader finds without being shown where to look.

Have you ever noticed a story trying too hard to make its point? Did it pull you out of the experience? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

How I Name My Characters (And Why It Matters)

Names have weight.

I don't think most people realize how much until they try to change one that has already settled into place. There's a particular kind of wrongness that happens when a character's name doesn't fit. A low-grade friction that follows you through every scene, every line of dialogue, every moment where you type that name and something in the back of your mind quietly objects.

When the name is right, you don't notice it at all. It just disappears into the character, the way a good pair of glasses disappears when you're actually looking at the world through them rather than at them. That's the aim of every author.

Getting there, though, is its own process.

Where the Search Begins

I rarely arrive at a character's name quickly. Oh, I might start with a name to get the story rolling, but those names often change before the book comes to an end. Usually the character exists for a while before the name does. I might even throw in a placeholder of sorts while the rest flows. A presence, a voice, a set of tendencies and wounds and desires that feel real before they have anything to be called.

During that nameless stretch I pay attention differently. Noticing names the way you notice a color when you're trying to decide whether it belongs in a room. A name will catch my attention in a completely unrelated context. It might be a historical record, a passing conversation, or even the credits rolling at the end of a film. Yes, I'm one of those who sits until the very end. But something will shift.

That's not how it always happens, though. Sometimes, a name will land and I'll know immediately that it belongs to the person I've been trying to find.

Other times I go looking deliberately. I keep a list of names I've encountered and liked but haven't yet used. I research naming conventions for the time period and region or contemporary setting I'm usingn to write the story, because a name that belongs to a character's world matters as much as one that belongs to their personality. A woman living on the Virginia coast in the early twentieth century is not going to be named something that sounds like it belongs in a contemporary Manhattan apartment, and if she is, there needs to be a specific reason. And the story needs to earn it.

What a Name Has to Do

A character's name is doing more work than you might think.

It's the first impression a reader has of a person before they know anything else about them. It carries sound and rhythm that affect how a reader experiences every scene where that character appears. It can signal something about the origin of a character, what era they inhabit, what kind of family shaped them. And in dialogue especially, the way other characters use a name becomes a tool for showing relationship and tension without having to explain either one directly. Whether they shorten it, avoid it, or use it pointedly in a moment of conflict 

Names also sometimes unlock something about a character I hadn't consciously known. There have been moments where I tried three or four names that were all technically fine. Then, I landed on the right one and suddenly understood something about the character I hadn't been able to articulate before. As if the name was the last piece that gave everything else clarity.

That probably sounds strange. It makes complete sense to me.

The Names That Didn't Work

I've changed character names mid-manuscript more times than I care to admit. Usually it happens when I realize somewhere around chapter four or five that the name I chose in the planning stage was just who I hoped the character would be rather than who they actually turned out to be once the story started breathing.

Characters have a way of becoming themselves despite your best intentions, and sometimes the name you gave them at the beginning no longer fits the person who showed up on the page. When that happens, there's nothing to do but change it and do a thorough find-and-replace and hope you didn't miss any. Which reminds me, I have a comical story (now) about this:

In one of my earlier book series, I reached the Net Galley phase of the editing process. This is the time to find any overlooked spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. It's not for major substantial edits. Well, in my review, I realized I had 2 completely different very minor characters in similar roles who had the same name.

So, I made note of the pages where the 2nd character appeared at the end of the novel. That, along with a couple other spelling catches went to my publisher for final changes. I specifically stated what needed to happen for that character. Isolate those exact pages, and change the name "Mary" to "Laura." Simple enough. Right?

Obviously not. And I had no idea of the mistake until I received reader email and letters asking what "prilaura" was.

It took me a few minutes to process, but thankfully, one of my readers cited the page number. Anxiously flipping to the page, I found the error. But sadly, it wasn't just that one. My book also had the odd words of "custolaura" and the scent of "roselaura."

Ugh! Instead of limiting the find/replace command to the 7 specified pages of a single chapter at the end of the book, the person who oversaw the galley changes had done a global search & replace and also forgot to capitalize the names. So, anywhere the string of letters m-a-r-y appeared in any word or name, they were replaced with l-a-u-r-a. And there were over 20,000 copies that went to print like this!

After notifying my publisher and replying to that handful of early readers, then sitting in anguish over this glaring mistake that couldn't be fixed, I realized I could get angry, or I could find the fun in it. I chose the fun.

So, I sent out a newsletter challenging readers to find the mistakes and report back. Each one who did was entered into a drawing for 1 of 5 different prize baskets containing not only a copy of this "rare" book, but also a copy of the other 2 books in the series, some herbal tea, a coffee cup, bookmark, and a magnifying glass to honor the sleuths.

If you'd like to join the fun, pick up a copy of Bound by Grace anywhere you can find it and look for yourself. :)

I never mind the extra work. A name that fits is worth the trouble of finding it.

Do you have a name that you've always thought sounded like it belonged in a story? Maybe your own, or someone close to you. I'd love to hear it in the comments.

The Detail That Changes Everything

I keep a notebook with me almost everywhere I go.

Not a fancy one. It's usually something small enough to fit in a bag without taking up much space, with a pen clipped to the cover that I will inevitably lose and replace three or four times before the notebook itself is full. The system is imperfect, but it works.

What do I put in that notebook? Details. Small, specific, sensory details that catch my attention in the moment and would be gone entirely by the time I got home if I didn't write them down.

The sound a screen door makes in a house that's been standing for fifty years. The way late afternoon light falls differently on water than it does on land. The particular smell of a marina at low tide. The faded lettering on the side of a boat that someone painted by hand, decades ago, and never repainted.

None of those things feel important when I'm writing them down. They feel like simple observations. But months later, when I'm sitting in front of a manuscript and trying to make a scene feel real, I open that notebook and suddenly I'm not inventing anymore. I'm remembering.

Why Being Specific Works

It's tempting, when writing a setting or a sensory moment, to reach for the general. The water was beautiful. The old building had character. The town felt like a place where everyone knew each other. Those sentences aren't wrong, exactly. They just don't do much work. These days, they're often considered "cliche" because of overuse.

A reader's imagination needs something to grip. The green of water that's shifting from morning gray to afternoon blue as the sun climbs, the crack in the plaster above the door that someone patched and painted over but never quite fixed. Give it something specific, and suddenly the imagination has traction. It can build around that detail. It can inhabit the space.

The specific detail does something else, too. It shows and proves the author has actually been somewhere, seen something, paid attention. It builds a kind of trust. And once a reader trusts you, they'll follow you almost anywhere.

The Details You Don't Plan

Some of the most useful details I've ever worked into a scene weren't ones I went looking for. They were ones that showed up unexpectedly during a research trip or an ordinary afternoon and lodged themselves somewhere in my memory before I fully understood why.

On my trip to Chincoteague, I remember standing on a dock early one morning before most of the island was awake. The boats rocked in the harbor and the rigging tapped against the masts in a rhythm that was almost musical. I wrote it down without knowing which story it belonged to. I just knew it was the kind of thing that belonged somewhere.

It found its place eventually. Details like that usually do. They wait.

That's one of the things I've come to love about keeping the notebook. It's a collection of moments that haven't found their story yet. Some of them will. Some of them will sit in there indefinitely, and that's fine too. The act of noticing them and writing them down keeps the observational part of my brain active in a way that benefits everything I write, whether or not any specific detail ever makes it onto a published page.

I also transfer those notes to files on my computer to make them much easier to find when I need them. Otherwise, I'd be flipping through that notebook and wasting precious writing time.

The Detail as a Window Into Character

Here's one more thing I've learned about specific details: they don't just build setting. They reveal character.

What a person notices in a room tells you something about who they are. A character who walks into an unfamiliar kitchen and immediately clocks the stack of unopened mail on the counter is different from one who notices the handwritten recipe card taped inside the cabinet door. Same kitchen. Completely different people. The detail becomes a lens, and what a character sees through that lens tells the reader something they couldn't learn from backstory alone.

That's when a small, specific observation stops being atmosphere and becomes story. And that's when I know I've found the right detail. It goes beyond making the scene feel real and makes it mean something.

Is there a small, specific detail from your own life (a smell, a sound, a sight) that you've never been able to forget? Something that takes you right back to a particular moment or place? I'd love to hear it in the comments.