Anthology: "Show Don't Tell"
This selection is part of Meryl Franzos’ Anthology Collection—it is an essay previously on the Mrs. Franzos Blog that remains a personal favorite of its author. “Show Don’t Tell,” was first published on February 16, 2018.
photo: Joshua Franzos
Do you remember the first time you told someone you loved them and how the butterflies tickled your stomach? Did you feel your heart grow a hundredfold if they returned your love? Did you feel your brain shrink and recoil in horror if they didn't? Maybe you said nothing and your pining heart bled for keeping such a feeling quiet. What a risk, love, and putting yourself out there is.
As for things I love, writing is one of them. It is my most tempestuous love, but still, I've created a fictional world within approximately 422-450 pages (depending on how it's formatted). I love it like a parent loves a child. It has made me laugh and cry and think and empathize with the human condition more than I ever thought possible. It has also made me beat my head against countless walls and white hairs sprout from my scalp. We've been together, my manuscript and I, just the two of us, for so long now. Five years exactly, and like real love, all I saw were its merits and none of its flaws. So it was time to kick it out of the nest and have someone else read it. I conscripted two beta readers that I knew would be tough with me and show me where to make it better.
Prevailing wisdom says a writer should forget about a manuscript while it's in other hands and start writing something new. I do have another story I'm kicking around. But I don't want to dive headlong into that. I want to finish this story that I've taken from nothing to something and I just can't let go. I think I'm afraid the creative fire will die out if the thread that connects us is dropped.
So instead, I'm a pacer, a picker, a bloody hang-nail flicker. I have demons in my head and anxiety pumping through my veins. Of the two Beta readers, one didn't like the story. One loved it. One ripped me a new one on what it takes to get published, (it actually doesn't look good for anyone). The notes on getting published were so discouraging, I'm actually depressed and questioning all my life choices. Both beta readers say the precious book baby I've coddled into existence needs work. I knew it would, revisions are part of the process, but my hands are still tied because I don't even have all of their notes yet. So while I hurry up and wait, I absentmindedly pace up and down halls. I pick at my dry cuticles, and my brain pick-pick-picks at the possible flaws of my story. I forgot to kill that one character who knows something! Should I add more internal dialogue...or would the story be even more powerful if I change the narration's point of view to first person? How many more years will the re-writing take? How do I pull this off? From where did I summon the hubris to attempt to do any of this? And where is that hubris now? My brain also worries about getting published. Will I really only get rejected by literary agents and publishers after I invest at least five, but probably more like seven years of blood, sweat, tears, sanity, and countless dollars into this story? Did I really leave my professional career off the hook for the starry-eyed chance of something that may never even happen? What have I done? Where am I going?
“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”
―Leo Buscaglia
I'm pretty indifferent about many things, but when I do fall, I fall hard. Joshua was no exception. Early on in our relationship, I told Joshua that I loved him. He thanked me, but he did not reciprocate with those three words I desperately wanted to hear. It didn't sit well with me, and I felt like I'd just stamped an expiration date on our relationship. How long can an 'I Love You' hang out there all unprotected and unrequited before it goes sour? I picked and poked at what was unsaid like a sore on the inside of my cheek.The bottom line was he wasn't ready to say it. I had no reason to think he didn't love me, but he took a stance and I fixated. I pressed further, I mean, if he didn't love me, what the hell? The female neuroses came out whole hog. What am I doing? Where is this going? Poke, pick, prod. Joshua, thoroughly exasperated with me at this point, yelled because I clearly wasn't hearing him,"What do my actions toward you indicate? Have you ever stopped to think about what they say?"
I sat there, stunned. I'd never thought of it that way. I traced all of Josh's actions toward me on a macro level - over the course of our relationship, and on a micro level -through the course of a typical day for us. Everything he did, he did for me, for us. Even though his lips were still sealed like a vault to those three words, he was constantly showing his love, respect, and devotion to/for me through his actions. Every single day. I immediately thought of my last failed relationship where those three words were said more times per hour than I could count, but they were never followed through with action. I set everything I thought I knew to be true about love and relationships aside and examined it. I learned all that I knew from failed relationships. So I suppose if I wanted to continue failing at them I could stick to my guns. Or, I could take a leap of faith, wait, and in the meantime try out a different love language.Prevailing wisdom in writing says you're supposed to show not tell, perhaps the same was true for love? I threw my expectations out the window. I followed the intuition in my gut and had faith. I followed the optimism in my head and hoped. Instead of saying what was in my heart, I showed that it was love. And, yes dear reader, yes, of course, he did eventually say what I wanted to hear and it was also awesome, but by then it was backed with so much evidence I almost didn't need to hear it.
There's probably some ancient wisdom in a big, old book about having faith, hope, and love. But instead of drawing you into some religious allegory, maybe I should just stop a pick-pick-picking and apply my hard won revelations about love to my own novel. Continue loving the writing journey even though it hasn't told me what I want to hear. Continue hoping that my writing will one day be good enough to be published, and have faith that one day it will be. Faith, Hope, and Love. May it all fulfill us and forever inspire our actions on this romantic day and all our days.
To view the original post on Mrs. Franzos Blog click here.