Genre writing, show don't tell, and what actually sellsComments
Moonside OP wrote
It was the suppliest of days, it was the demandest of days. Savings hardly seemed equal to investments anymore after Larry's wife left him. Divorce was so sudden to him - hadn't he studied enough game theory to foresee the possibility?
Dogmantra wrote
Interesting take! I'm not sure I'd 100% agree that the quoted passage is telling and not showing though. Clearly it is telling us a lot about what the character is thinking, but I think for example it also shows us their emotional state super effectively through the long, scattered, run-on sentences, repetition and so on. You can't just show! You have to tell some things to show others, and there is absolutely a depth to the quoted passage.
Moonside OP wrote
My personal experience has been that a lot of what passes for "show, don't tell" ends up making people write more like movies are shot. Film can't show interiority like prose can, but a lot of middling genre and fan fiction has reaction shots written in prose.
Dogmantra wrote
Can't disagree with you on that. I imagine something else that contributes is that video is super predominant now yet the most accessible way to create is to write prose - I am imagining there's a lot of backfeeding with people writing as if they were writing a film but as prose.
voxpoplar wrote
I'm going to write the first economics fiction novel.