Hot take: most people are using "show don't tell" wrong in their prompts

I see it all the time in writing prompt posts where someone talks about "show don't tell" and then gives a prompt that is basically a summary of a scene. Like yesterday I read one that said "show a character being sad without saying they're sad" and the whole prompt was just describing someone crying in their car. That is still telling the reader what to see instead of leaving room for interpretation. The real trick is to set up a situation where the emotion comes from what happens next, not just from describing tears. I figured this out after I ran a small writing group for six months at my local library in Cleveland. We had this one prompt about a locked box and everyone wrote something totally different because the prompt did not spell out the feelings. Has anyone else noticed that prompts which give too much direction actually kill creativity instead of helping it?

2 comments

2 Comments

joelthomas20d ago

Nah, detailed prompts help beginners learn the actual craft.

oliver_ward1420d ago

Is it just me or is that kind of how everything works now? Like you can't learn to cook without a recipe that lists every ingredient and step, you can't fix a leaky faucet without a YouTube video showing each turn of the wrench. Back in the day people just watched someone do it a few times and figured it out, but now we want the full manual upfront so we don't mess up. I think it changes how we learn, makes us less willing to just try stuff and rely on our own instincts.