Showing+vs.+Telling

Writing is emotionally powerful when it engages the reader. Rather than classify and list all the emotions that you felt, use specific details that **give the reader a reason to feel** the emotions you want to express.
 * [[image:http://jerz.setonhill.edu/images/no.gif width="39" height="18" caption="No"]] || **I'll never forget how I felt after Fido died. I was miserable.** ||
 * || Simply naming the feelings that you experienced (//telling// your reader what you felt) is not enough to create interest in the reader. You need to find a way to generate, in your reader, the same feelings that you experiended. ||
 * [[image:http://jerz.setonhill.edu/images/maybe.gif width="39" height="18" caption="Maybe"]] || **//If I live for a thousand years,// I'll never forget how //utterly and terribly alone// I felt after Fido died. I was //so// miserable //that I thought I would die//. Months and months went by, and it seemed that every little thing reminded me of him and made me wish things could be different. I don't know whether I am ever going to get over his death.** ||
 * || While the author has //added details//, those details merely //assist the telling// -- they don't actually give the reader a reason to love Fido//,// and to suffer along with the writer. ||
 * [[image:http://jerz.setonhill.edu/images/yes.gif width="39" height="18" caption="Yes"]] || **Whenever puppies in the pet store window distracted me from the serious business of taking him for his walk, Fido growled, his little ears flattened against his scruffy head. Yet he always forgave me. Even after his hearing and sight faded, when he felt the leash click on his collar and smelled fresh air, he still tried to caper. He's been dead for three months now. This morning I filled his water bowl all the way to the top --just the way he likes it -- before I remembered.** ||
 * || The author does not need to //tell// the reader "I loved Fido and I still haven't come to terms with his death," because the paragraph contains specific details that //show// the depths of the relationship. ||