Moving From Telling to Showing in an Existing Novel, by R. Clint Peters

While I am waiting the two weeks to edit “Prerogatives, a Pendergast Brothers novel”, I have started reconstructing “The President’s Wife is Missing”, the second in the  Pendergast Brothers series.  Taking a novel from telling to showing has been very interesting.  Actually, it’s like writing a whole new book.

The most difficult problem I’ve been dealing with is how or where to introduce or flesh out the character, to give him or her dimension.  That problem has been closely followed by how to introduce emotions and viewpoint.

Yesterday, I spent several hours working on two scenes, one of which I would like to explore in this blog.

The scene is this:

The hero exits the tent he and the heroine had been sleeping in, walks to the fire ring of the previous evenings fire, and sits down.  A few minutes later, the heroine walks out of the tent and sits down beside him.

This scene is covered nicely in two or three paragraphs.  But, it is limited to telling.  There’s no showing.  There’s no attempt to define the characters, no attempt to introduce a viewpoint, and there are no emotions displayed.  Just two paragraphs of telling.

After a great deal of work, I arrived at the following:

John awoke at 5:00 AM, just as the sun was starting to peek through the screen on the window above his camp cot.  He looked at the lady sleeping next to him, and felt a wash of love.  And also a wash of sadness.  He had opened up some memories he had carefully hidden, or at least he had tried to keep them hidden.  After a few minutes, he stood, pulled on his jeans, socks, Stetson boots, and a western shirt, walked out to the previous evening’s fire ring, and sat down in one of the camp chairs.

As he was looking around the clearing, John felt arms wrap around his neck and a small voice said, “This has been really hard for you.  You kept calling out Jill’s name while you slept last night.  Is there anything I can do?”

After a quick kiss, she pulled a camp chair to his side and plopped down in it.  John carefully studied her movements.

Marge was dressed in a new western shirt, one of the three given her the previous morning.  She was also in the jeans, Stetson, and boots she’d worn on the trail.

She looks great, even without a shower. 

“There’re almost too many memories here for me to deal with,” John finally said sadly.  “Jill fell in love with Idaho when we honeymooned at the ranch.  The stream that flows from LakeVincent is the best natural trout stream in fifty miles.  She caught on to fly fishing the first day we were here. 

“She never saw this canyon, never fished in this lake, never heard the wind blowing through these pines, but I am sure she would have loved it.  Many of the buildings we’re going to build came from her dreams.  She had three legal pads filled with sketches.  I found an architect in Chicago and emailed eighty-three scanned images.”

As he sat with Marge’s hand firmly clasped in his, John could feel a tear slowly trickle down his cheek.

Does this scene qualify as showing?  I think so.  Do we get a glimpse of the emotions of the characters?  Certainly.  Are the characters cardboard cutouts or have they gained some depth?  I hope the reader can feel John’s agony.

I am at page 18.  There are many pages to go before I set the pages of “The President’s Wife is Missing” aside and declare the book is complete.

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