Hemingway on Writing
We are told by our writing teachers to “show don’t tell.” For example: “He sat nervously” tells us what is going on. (and uses a dreaded ly word!) By contrast: “He bit at this thumb nail and kept glancing at his watch” shows us he is nervous. Where do you get that detail?
Hemingway never wrote a book about writing but he wrote a lot about writing through his characters and letters. You can find most of it in Larry Phillips’ Ernest Hemingway on Writing (Scribner). One thing Hemingway says is to become an observer of people. You can’t write what he likes to call “one true sentence” if it isn’t something you have actually seen or felt.
Hemingway says you can write that true sentence if you will observe and record what you see. People act according to their emotions and personalities even in simple things. He suggests a simple exercise. “When you are in town, stand outside the theater and see how the people differ in getting out of taxis and motor cars. There are a thousand ways to practice.” How does the confident man get out as opposed to the nervous one? How does the confident woman respond to the two types of men. How does the nervous one?
Poker players read other players by looking for “tells”, little nervous habits or twitches that “tell” when they are bluffing or not. Find tells for your characters. Look for drumming fingers, blinking eyes, tones of voice, licking lips. Find those traits and let those tells show us who we are reading about.
