HEARTICLES: Articles with Heart

I'm sure I'm not the only one whose editor has said, "This is telling. SHOW your reader . . . ". Here's an example — Telling: Mary showered before dressing. Showing: Mary stepped from the steaming shower and wrapped herself in a thick white terrycloth towel. Her hair was bound to keep it dry, but now she let it down. She watched the coppery curls fall about her bare shoulders in the foggy mirror, her reflection an apparition in the haze. In the showing example, the reader is in the bathroom with Mary. While her actual features are blurred in the foggy mirror, we know she has coppery hair and it's long enough that if falls about her shoulders. Here's another one — Telling: John played the guitar. Showing: The sound was as gentle as a pleasured woman’s moan yet seemed almost too big for the tiny room. John closed his eyes, enjoying the erotic sensation of the hum of the cords reverberating through his belly. He let his fingers slide over th...

Writer's Block - n. Psychological inability to begin or continue work on a piece of writing. Imagine this scenario — You're at your desk. You've been in a writing frenzy; the words are pouring out of you like water. Suddenly you're sweating, struggling to find the right words, then story comes to a blinding halt. You sit back and think about it for a while. What happens next? You check your email to see if anyone wants to talk to you, because obviously, your characters don't want to. You check Facebook. Check your crops at Farmville. You might even make a few phone calls. They're just little things, right? Back at your story, you reread the last page or two to catch up. You're ready to write again, but when you come to the last thing you wrote two hours ago you suffer the same problem. What happens next? You've gotta think about it for a while, so you get up and vacuum the floor. Back at your desk, you look at the screen before you. The cursor is blinki...