THE SHOW DON'T TELL COURSE

Learn The Techniques That Will Make Your Writing Come Alive

Do You Want To Take Your Writing To The Next Level?

Learn the top techniques for writing emotionally engaging fiction and watch your skills skyrocket.

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CONTENTS

Look At Everything You're Going To Learn!

(Psst! These lessons are jam-full of professional techniques, actionable material, and steps to apply everything taught to your own writing.)

Lesson #1 – Emotion Telling

In this lesson, you will learn the differences between showing and telling and why showing will add depth and emotion to your novel. You will also learn how to identify one of the most noxious forms of telling: emotion telling.

Lesson #2 – Body Language

In this lesson, you will learn how to use body language in your writing to eliminate telling and make your characters come alive!

Lesson #3 – Mood-setting Descriptions

In this lesson, you will learn how to create the perfect setting for any scene and how setting descriptions have an often-overlooked power to be one of the most effective emotion-building techniques in the writer’s toolbox.

Lesson #4 – Sensations

In this lesson, you will learn the difference between internal and external sensations and how they can both be used to show your characters’ emotions in powerful ways.

Lesson #1 – Overview Telling

In this lesson, you will learn how overviews sap life out of stories and how to spot overview telling in your own writing. You will also learn how to overcome overview telling.

Lesson #2 – Live Scenes

In this lesson, you will come to grasp on a deep level exactly how to write a live scene (the opposite of overview telling).

Lesson #3 – Point Of View Telling

In this lesson, you will learn how easy it is to use your character’s point of view (aka their internal monologue) as a platform for telling. This is one of the worst plagues in modern literature, but you are going to learn how to avoid it and use your character’s point of view as a platform for showing instead.

Lesson #4 – Moralist Telling

In this lesson, you will learn how to spot when you are using telling to make a moral or philosophical point.

Lesson #5 – A Crash Course In Theme

In this lesson, you will learn all the fundamentals of theme. This will help you write powerful stories that convict, probe, and inspire, all the while entertaining your reader. With these tools, you will no longer have to rely on the unproductive and unartistic technique of moralist telling.

Lesson #6 – Generalization Telling

In this lesson, you will learn how generalization can creep into your writing in many ways and how this damages your prose. You will also learn how to combat this with solid details that bring your story to life.

Lesson #7 – Import Telling

In this lesson, you will learn how to avoid using telling to convey to your reader the import or significance of any detail in your story and how to use showing instead.

Lesson #1 – How, not What

In this lesson, you’ll explore the core of show don’t tell. The principle of “how, not what” will help showing become intuitive for you. It will also give you a deeper appreciation for the rest of this course.

Lesson #2 – Reaction and Interaction

Pick any story, and you’ll see it’s composed largely of reactions and interaction. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use these tools appropriately to create a maximum emotional experience for your reader. You’ll also learn how poor reactions can spoil dramatic scenes and how to avoid that.

Lesson #3 – How Show Don’t Tell Varies Between Deep 3rd, 1st Person, and Omniscient Point of Views

If you’ve ever wondered if the rules of show don’t tell are flexible, this lesson is for you. It turns out that show don’t tell applies differently to different kinds of stories, but there are important guidelines you need to follow to do it right.

Lesson #4 – Two Pitfalls with Body Language

Body language is one of the best ways authors can show and not tell. But watch out! Not all body language is created equal! In this lesson, you’ll learn what to watch out for.

Lesson #5 – The Contrast Principle

Contrast has the superpower of doubling your efforts to create a moving, emotional scene. In this lesson, you’ll cut past the guess work and learn exactly what it takes to suffuse your story with contrast.

Lesson #6 – Attention Correlates to Importance

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to write subtle, but engaging prose.

Lesson #7 – Diversity — It’s Only Natural

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to balance the many techniques taught in this course in a natural, smooth manner.

Lesson #8 – Using the Pathetic to be Dramatic

Be done with melodrama forever after taking this lesson. It turns out, a simple psychological trick can cure your over the top scenes, and add oomph wherever it’s needed. Take your story’s drama to the next level.

Lesson #9 – Showing Through Juxtaposition

Chances are, you’ve never heard of this trick before. Juxtaposition is an odd concept, but it nevertheless works extremely well to convey character motivation, moral messages, and all sorts of other information that’s normally quite hard to get across without telling.

Lesson #10 – Symbolism

This lesson uncovers the mystical subject of symbolism and explains it in easy-to-understand terms. You’ll learn how to easily invent symbols whenever you need them, how to use symbols to strengthen your theme, and how to use symbols to improve characterization.

Lesson #11 – A Few Final Lessons

In this last lesson of The Show Don’t Tell Course, I briefly overview a few more show don’t tell concepts I wasn’t able to get to due to time. While they’re only teasers, they’ll give you enough information to go and study them on your own.

Additional Features

Here's a break-down of the everything else that comes with parts 1-3 of this course.

  • Q&A - You can ask any question related to the course lessons and I'll answer it.
  • Previous Q&A section - See what previous students have asked and read the answers to their questions.
  • Homework - Each lesson comes with carefully crafted practice exercises to make sure you MASTER the techniques taught in this course. Answers are included to check your work against.

Are You Serious About Your Writing?

Some courses tell you how to be a good writer. Others show you how to be a good writer. In Show Don't Tell, Daeus not only clearly explains the difference between telling and showing, but he also follows his own advice by showing students practical examples of what this difference looks like. Each lesson breaks one aspect of showing down into multiple, easy-to-follow steps and sheds clarity on what can be a confusing topic for many writers. If you want to tell more compelling, engaging stories, you need to check this out.
*A testimonial of parts 1-2. Full testimonial for the entire course coming soon.

Josiah DeGraaf
Josiah DeGraaf Chairman of Storyembers.org

This course is for anyone trying to develop a ‘showing’ mindset. Not only is it full of useful tips and tricks to strengthen your writing, it also helps you develop good habits of thinking that will help showing come naturally. A very practical exploration of a concept that can be harder to apply than it sounds.

Kate Flournoy
Kate Flournoy Author of The World Turned Upside Down
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  • q-iconHow are you qualified to teach this course?

    Frankly, no one is qualified to teach about the show don’t tell rule. The more I learn about it, the more I realize how vast a subject it is. However, this course has received many enthusiastic reviews and zero negative ones so far. I’m also a published author, I’ve authored over a dozen in-depth articles on writing, and worked on two well-received writing courses besides this one.

  • q-iconSome people think telling is okay. What's your opinion?

    If you write in the omniscient POV, then, yes, telling is actually acceptable if you know how to do it right. (I touch on how in part 3 of this course.) Even with omniscient though, showing is still extremely important, and if you write in any other POV, then it’s vital.

  • q-iconWhat if this course doesn't meet my expectations?

    I offer a 30 day, full money back guarantee. I wouldn’t offer you anything less, though, frankly, I doubt you’ll ever want to take advantage of that offer.

  • q-iconWhat if this course is too advanced for me?

    This course is designed to be approachable and beneficial for all skill levels, though it will definitely make it easier if you have some writing experience already. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the material, I am always available to answer your questions as long as they are related to the course material.

  • q-iconDo I have to take all three parts of the course?

    Not necessarily. Each part can be taken by itself, but they do build upon each other to some degree so it’s best to take them all together.

  • q-iconHow long will I have access to this course?

    As long as you live!

  • q-iconCan I take this course at my own pace?

    Yes. But don’t procrastinate! Your book needs you to take this course. 😀

  • q-iconHow long is the course?

    Each video lesson is very compact with clear, actionable material. The entire course comprises about 3hrs of video content. Included with each lesson is a homework pdf. The time required to finish the homework will vary widely between students, but I would guess it would take 6hrs to do well.

Still not sure?

I get it. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to click a button until I'm sure I'm ready.
Maybe one of these things is holding you back:
1. You're not sure you need this training.
2. You don't know if you have the time.
3. You're not sure you have the money.
4. You have a question that isn't answered here.
If you've got an unanswered question, contact me any time at daeus(at)thescratchingquill.com.
If you're struggling with 1-3, let me ask you something.
Are you sure you have show don't tell mastered?
Because I've never met anyone who truly had this concept down.
Even don't have it mastered. In fact, sometimes I have to return to this course to remind myself what good writing looks like. 😛
(That doesn't mean I'm not capable of teaching this course.
It just means that you and I both need to be constantly improving in this area.)
Professional writers don't even have this completely down. It's hard stuff!
But to master show don't tell is practically to have mastered good writing style in general.
Is your writing style important to you?
If it is, isn't taking a course on show don't tell something you should do?
And if this course is truly important, then I'm sure you can find a way to make it happen.

I can't wait to see you inside!

Save $48 And Get The Entire Course For Only $99