How to Show, Not Tell

Yesterday, the Anna Karenina movie people released eight new posters for the film and I immediately clicked over to check them out. And I was so, so bummed.

At first, I couldn't figure out why--the sumptuous costuming and overall aesthetic are right up my romantic alley and JUDE LAW. The posters are ostensibly "exploring love" in all its types but...something about it felt cheesy to me.

Then it hit me. On each poster, you've got a caption over top that's all "ADJECTIVE Love." The problem is that the images themselves say so much more than any single adjective ever could. If they'd just put LOVE on each one, it would have been so much more sophisticated.

Is there a lesson here for writers?

Here are the rest.

And here are a series of UNCAPTIONED pictures of the cast that I think say a lot more than these tell-y posters.

Great Post from Veronica Roth on Author Intent

Check it:

http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-project-runway-taught-me-about.html

How to Read Your Beta Readers

Yesterday, I wrote a post about when to query your manuscript.

But astute #AskAgent participant pointed out something else: It's hard to incorporate advice when all the beta readers say different things.

This is true! And agents face this all the time, too. When subbing a client's book to editors, we frequently get completely conflicting feedback from the different editors: I LOVED the worldbuilding! The worldbuilding just wasn't there...what do you believe?

The truth is it's good when everyone is saying different things. It means that there's nothing glaring that you're missing. And, if all of the feedback is generally very positive, it means the book is probably pretty ready to go.

Beware, though, that you don't try to make consistent feedback into divergent feedback. If all of the critiques coming back are character related (the voice isn't right, they feel flat, they annoy me, she doesn't feel real--all technically "different things"), it means that character is NOT working. It might mean it's up to you to put your finger on exactly why, but your Betas are telling you something useful.

Look for trends in your beta feedback in the following major areas:

• Character
• Worldbuilding
• Pace
• Plot
• Tone