Showing posts with label don't tell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label don't tell. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Implying Culture

Finished Ch. 43; 76,620 word count
broke 400 pages and 75K Hurray!

Writing Tip: Part of developing a world is establishing the culture of the society there. You could say, visiting with this dragon would require certain protocol. Because of his age and position among his fellow dragons, your character needs to dress well, speak in very polite terms, don't whistle, don't hiccup and giggle at the same time, for this is considered to be very rude.
That is telling, not showing.
So how do you imply what is correct behavior?
In this chapter, I had Fenworth instructing Hollee on how to behave while she was talking about something all together different. Other times you might have an outsider watching and reporting the ceremony. You could have someone do everything wrong and another person constantly correcting the first. make it fun instead of an information dump.