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Unpopular opinion: the 'show don't tell' rule ruined more stories than it saved
I used to follow it religiously for 2 years until a beta reader in Seattle pointed out my 80k word draft had zero interiority. We went from snappy action beats to numb paragraphs of describing every damn facial twitch. Has anyone else ditched that rule for a hybrid approach?
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jackson.jenny29d agoMost Upvoted
I hit that exact wall too after three drafts straight of nothing but action lines. Somewhere around chapter four I realized my main character had zero thoughts in her head and I had to rewrite the whole thing with these tiny internal beats mixed in. Hybrid is the only way that's worked for me since.
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