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Warning: That writing prompt about 'show don't tell' nearly ruined my story
Last month a guy in this very forum told me to follow a specific prompt about showing emotions through weather descriptions. He said it was a game changer for character depth. So I spent 3 days rewriting a scene where rain, fog, and sun all represnted my main character's feelings. When I submitted it to my critique group, five people said it felt like a bad nature documentary. Nobody could tell what the character actually felt because I was too busy describing the sky. The prompt pushed me to bury every internal thought under metaphors. I finally had to scrap 2,000 words and just write what the character said out loud. Has anyone else had a writing tip backfire this badly? What prompts do you avoid now?
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schmidt.blake1d ago
That rain-fog-sun metaphor thing is exactly the trap "show don't tell" sets for new writers. What I want to know is, did you catch yourself adding more weather descriptions as you read back through the bad version, or did it take the critique group to make you see how ridiculous it got? Because for me, the moment I started describing a character's anger as "a thunderstorm brewing in his chest" I knew I was way off track, but I kept going anyway just because the prompt said to show.
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