Show Don't Tell

Show don’t tell is a phrase familiar to all writers. What does this mean? Telling happens when authors simply tell readers what’s happening instead of inviting them in to experience the story by showing them what happens through the characters’ thoughts, feelings and actions.

Why does that matter?

Because we often tell ourselves all kinds of crap. Sometimes it’s true, often it’s not. Lots and lots of words flow through our brains at any given moment and it often feels out of our control. One way to slow things down and break us free from the swarm of thoughts invading our brains at any given moment in time is to intentionally show ourselves what we’re actually experiencing. We can even choose the experience.

I suggest choosing love.

To show yourself some love, pick an action—something small and simple you can do that you can enjoy in its own right. Then infuse the action with some positive emotions (gratitude is always a great go-to). If thoughts arise (often taking the form of advising you of all the other things you should or could be doing) just send them away and return to the experience of showing yourself kindness and love. Make a cup of delicious tea or coffee and allow yourself to truly be in the moment enjoying your brew. Take a hot bath. Cozy up with a book and some uninterrupted reading time. Do whatever feels like love to you.

Showing yourself a little love makes it harder for those negative thoughts to persist. The world didn’t end because you stepped out of its orbit for ten minutes. You feel better. Then invite your thoughts back into the game. What else might be fun? When can you show yourself some love again? If your thoughts can behave, they can stay. If they start to try and control the reality show that resembles your life again, then they’ll have to have another time out.

Showing invites you to experience your life in the moment it’s actually happening instead of thinking about the past or wondering about the future. Life happens here, now. Not sure? Don’t take my word for it—I’m just telling you. Go show yourself.

Right vs. Wrong

When writing a story, authors very deliberately make lots of “wrong” or “bad” things happen to their main characters and often have their character make lots of horrible decisions along the way. Why? Because we want the reader to feel something—to root for the MC, to want the enemy defeated, to prevail against injustice, etc. The character arc of a story measures how the main character changes throughout the story because of all the things that happen to him (what happens is the plot). When things are “good” or “right,” characters are not very motivated to change (and readers don’t feel much except for maybe boredom). Authors heap all kinds of trouble onto our protagonists but we don’t call all that trouble bad; we call it good writing. Let’s take out the good and call it writing that sells books that people want to read.


Do you need more tension in the story that is your life?


Doubt it. For most of us, we either have tension or we create it. Either way, that tension manifests as negative thoughts—worry about the future, sadness about the past, conjecture about what others may be thinking about us, and on and on and on.


One of the most annoying thing I can say to a coaching client facing hardship is to describe the ordeal as an AFGO—Another F*ing Growth Opportunity. Annoying but true. And transformative. If you think about your role as the author of your life, imagine that some higher version of yourself created this situation as an invitation for you to experience something, to grow, to make a different choice. As yourself, “what growth opportunities are presenting themselves to me as the main character of my own story? How could I approach this situation so that it shows up on my own character arc?” The answers may surprise you. Ironically, once we learn and grow from an experience and accept it for what it is, the AFGO tends to resolve itself or fails to bother us in the same way. Then we move on to a different AFGO… A new chapter or a new volume of our life.


So how can you cause character growth? The first step is to eliminate the words good, bad, right and wrong from your vocabulary as much as possible. What’s considered bad or wrong can’t be that at all because it already is. That’s esoterical and circular but, well, it is what it is. The best choice is to simply accept what is, even embrace it if you can. It’s amazingly powerful how accepting something as is moves you from the realm of reaction to creation. When you can accept something as is, you can think more broadly and more creatively about the situation and, most importantly, you are then in charge of your own experience. You are once again the creator, the author, of your own story.You decide what the experience means for you and, most importantly, how you choose to feel about the experience. Because in life, as in stories, creating a feeling about a set of circumstances is always the end goal.


Think about this: why do you want the new car, boyfriend, girlfriend, house, watch, new job? Because of how you imagine you will feel when you have it.


So let’s cut out the middle man (or woman): own the experience, own the feeling.


Have you known or heard about someone who has recovered from cancer say that getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her? It wasn’t the cancer itself that was fantastic but the way that having to face death caused her to feel differently about living life.


So live your life by accept what is, choosing better feelings with more positive thoughts, and take control of the only thing you really can control: your thoughts, feelings and actions. You get to write the story of your life. Make it epic.

Love vs. Fear

In all great stories, the main character makes a series of choices. Those choices can lead to epic failures, fairy tale endings and everything in between. The bottom line: every choice is based on love or fear. When a character choose love, she wins; when she chooses fear, she loses. Of course, what constitutes winning and losing depends on the character and the story. Katniss impetuously volunteering as Tribute in The Hunger Games was a choice made out of love even though she was fearful for her life.

The overriding intention behind that choice was love and the desire to protect her sister. Over the course of a story, main characters who make key decisions based on love and aligned with an overall goal will achieve their desire or sometimes even more than what they dared to wish for. In stories where the main character consistently chooses fear, she will not get what she wished for or, if she does, it does not end up binging her the happiness she thought it would.

There is no hero’s journey without love and fear.

The same is true for the saga that is your life.

 Every single choice we make is based on love or fear. What’s tricky, however, is that it’s not the choice itself that decides whether it’s love or fear, it’s the intention behind it and how it aligns with who you are and the ending you want to write for this chapter or volume of the story that is your life. 

How does this play out? Let’s say Darla wants to become a novelist but she’s busy with work, family, and other commitments. It’s Friday morning and she has a busy weekend planned ahead. Does she take the time she set aside on Saturday morning to go grocery shopping to get some writing done since it’s the only unscheduled window of time in her entire weekend? To determine what choice would be love-based Darla needs to skip ahead to Saturday afternoon and imagine herself having completed each task. How would she feel if she made the choice to get groceries? Darla believes she would feel like she accomplished something that needed doing and tired and a little sad and frustrated that she didn’t get to write; she feels stuck. How would she feel after spending two hours writing? Darla knows she would feel energized and excited and also a little frustrated that she now still has to get groceries. But now she expands her thinking a bit because she really wants to get to that feeling place of energized and excited from writing: she decides to order some groceries online and do a quick shop on her way home from work for a few essentials until the groceries are delivered. Maybe she has to ask for some help getting her kids picked up in order to make the stop for groceries and this triggers a different fear in her—she’s uncomfortable asking for help. Again, she can choose to face this fear with love. Let’s say she chooses love and asks a friend for help. Now she has even more to be grateful for—the friend who helped you out, time to write, and increasing confidence from facing her fears and choosing love. How could choosing love with seemingly small, simple choices change her life over the course of a year, two years, ten years. How would prioritizing writing time affected her thoughts, feelings and actions as a writer? Is she spiraling up or down? Can you feeling the love in Darla’s choices?

Each and every one of our thoughts and actions is a choice. We can choose love or we can choose fear. Loving thoughts include the side effects of acceptance, gratitude, joy, and open up doorways to creativity and inspiration. Fearful thoughts include the side effects of resistance, judgment, shame, blame, and can be fueled by inertia and what has kept us stuck. Which one sounds better to you? 

Choosing love often requires that you make changes and change often brings up … more fear. Fear shows up as an unwanted and uninvited guest but never shows up empty-handed. Every time fear knocks on your door, you have the opportunity to make a choice. Choosing love over fear on a consistent basis leads to your wishes becoming fulfilled. Visit your past to take an inventory of when you’ve chosen love over fear, when you’ve chosen fear over love, and notice how that’s played out in your life. Then travel to the future to imagine how the practice of consistently choosing love will make your dreams a reality you enjoy both today and tomorrow.

Are you willing to volunteer as tribute? Katniss won the Hunger Games (and freedom from oppression for her country) by consistently choosing love over fear.

Love won.

And so can you.

(Re) Write Your Life

When I began writing fiction almost four years ago, I dove into learning how to write for a young adult audience. I read books on writing, I took classes, I joined two critique groups, I attended conferences and, most importantly, I wrote and revised, revised, revised. What became really clear to me was how much story structure resembled life coaching. It's the hero's journey and we're all on it whether we know it or not. The good news? When we recognize our life path as a hero's journey, we can rewrite not just the end but the beginning and middle, too.