As writers, we are aware of the dictum “Show, don’t tell,” but sometimes what we think of as showing turns out to be only another way of telling and avoiding showing. On this subject, I often quote fiction writer Ron Carlson’s words in his book, Ron Carlson Writes a Story:

Outer story, the physical world, is also its own effect, its own reaction, its own comment. Outer story shows us things, and as the outer story grows and gathers, we can begin to see the constellations of our meanings. There is no need to comment on each facet of a scene. The sunset went from yellow to purple in a moment, and Jonathan took a step back, stunned. (Cut stunned.) The sunset went from yellow to purple in a moment, and I thought it was fabulous. (You know what to cut.) I’ve heard people talk about this by quoting Sergeant Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am.” This is apt, but there’s more for the writer: this frees us from having to interpret. Our mission is to write the physical scene as closely as we can, knowing that our intentions lie just beyond our knowing. Write, don’t think .

For practice with this, he suggests writing a scene in which one person washes a car. You have to, he says, stay with the physical action and things in the scene, and must not relate any of the characters’ thoughts:

The character should emerge through the constellation of her/his actions–his/her code. You will feel the pull of history/exposition: how/when those bugs got on the windshield; the empty beer cans in the backseat, the rip in the upholstery, the origin of the three gold coins, the rusty knife, etc.

The point of the exercise is to “learn just how much a writer can leave out and how powerful what you include actually is.”

This isn’t only good advice for fiction. In writing about personal experience, writing from what is tangible is a must for relating experience that others can enter. Where you were and what was happening to you must come through your ears, nose, tongue, skin, and eyes. That way your readers and you share experience and thus embody conclusions. What you select, I think Ron Carlson would agree, moves you as writer beyond whatever cerebral intention you may have had when you sat down to write and into the territory of discovery where “intentions lie just beyond our knowing.”

Writing that phrase makes me eager to try creating a fictional scene the Ron Carlson way. I believe the exercise will open a vein of fresh material for me as a writer.

Carlson suggests writing a 400-word scene, but 400 words of staying with only the physical and tangible intimidates me. So I write in shorter spurts and work to introduce the how/when of selected objects and actions. I start with the situation, not of a man washing a car, but of a woman sitting at a desk, since I am familiar with that location. Then I think about actions that can happen there:

As Caroline pulled the plate with her tuna salad sandwich closer to her, she noticed a blob of tuna on one of the forms she had to turn in later, just over the company logo. She grabbed a napkin and quickly snatched the tuna away, but she saw it was too late — the oil from the tuna had already spread. She hoped the circle it left wouldn’t be obvious when she faxed the forms.

Now to Ron Carlsonize this after I notice the phrases I think he would suggest I edit out, the places where I say she noticed and hoped:

As Caroline pulled the plate with her tuna salad sandwich closer to her, a blob of tuna fell on one of the forms she had just filled in. She grabbed a napkin and snatched the tuna away. A circle of oil darkened over the company logo.

Next, I add something that indicates a history for a physical object:

She loved tuna on rye, and she couldn’t stop making her sandwiches with so much mayonnaise that the insides squished over the bread’s boundaries, a glacier, a lava flow or white soap bubbles over the top of a pan.

And now for the Carlson treatment:

She had slathered her tuna salad on the bread, having made it so mayonnaisy it squished out from between the slices, a glacier, a lava flow, white soap bubbles over the top of a pan.

I focus next on another action/object interaction:

Her cat jumped onto her desk, the wheels on her chair clattering as she rolled away from his long black tail. In their mutual surprise, they scattered the forms over the floor. The one with its circle of oil and nine others lay out of order, reminding her of the pats of butter she spilled onto to the table at her friend’s the night before when she and Rex where there for dinner.Ten pages to finish filling in and faxing before the end of the business day.

And the editing treatment again:

Her cat jumped onto her desk, the wheels on her chair clattering as she rolled away from his long black tail. In their mutual surprise, they scattered the forms.The one with its circle of oil and nine others lay out of order on the floor, like the pats of butter she had spilled off the serving plate at her friend’s house the night before when she and Rex where there for dinner. Ten pages to fill out before the end of the business day.

And then I find another action to include in the scene:

Rex’s ring tone chimed from the phone in her pocket. She didn’t answer. She skipped listening to Rex’s voice mail message; she didn’t read his text, either. She’d lost the baby. She wasn’t able to lose her pregnancy weight. All she could think about was fish and butter and mayonnaise, of eating her way to having the soft fetus back, swimming again in her womb. She thought about the calamari and Manhattan’s at Hell of a Good Time Tavern, the place right next to her insurance agency’s office. She’d go there in person instead of faxing. She’d apologize for the oil stain, say she was sorry to Rex, too, much later when he was upset about not knowing where she was.

And then the editing process again:

Rex’s ring tone chimed from the phone in her pocket. She didn’t answer. She didn’t listen to his voice mail message. She deleted his text. She’d lost their baby. Her cheeks and neck and stomach remained full enough for people to ask when her baby was due. All she could think about was fish and butter and mayonnaise, of eating her way to having the soft fetus back, swimming again in her womb. She’d bring those forms in person. The Hell of a Good Time Tavern was on the same street as the agency, its happy hour calamari and Manhattans good and very cheap. She’d apologize to the clerk for the oil stain, say she was sorry to Rex, too, whenever it was she got home.

****

Tuna fish? Health forms? Cats? Slow moving glaciers and lava? My imagination fills in details that come from my life at my desk and from recent ideas, commitments and conversations: The tuna salad sandwich I’d been craving, health forms I helped my mother complete, photos of lava on the Big Island of Hawaii close to where my friend lives. Each time I feel stuck, I return to the physical, to objects and actions available to put right there at Caroline’s desk or as images, not thoughts, in her mind–soap bubbles in the pans I’d washed; pats of butter that might make a meal fancy. It clicks that I have to have an idea about why Caroline is enjoying eating fish. How do fish and butter seem to go together in the scene? What action will she take as a result of her desire? Eventually, concentrating on her actions and physical objects, I discover a character in particular turmoil. Still, I lapse into inner thoughts and that keeps me from the physical. It is work to fix that, but it is a delight when the scene becomes stronger after I practice what Carlson advises.

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Your Turn

Put yourself or one of your characters in a specific place during a mundane moment: washing a deck or the dishes, sweeping a floor, staring out a window, taking something out of a closet.

Write the scene you choose in short spurts that come to you as you pay attention to images and small actions. Write one or two lines and then another one or two. Stay specifically physical as long as you can and avoid writing inner thoughts, though your writing will seem to insist that you need to involve  a comment or a question or an idea or conscious behavior. It may become necessary but not until something rises up as an “intention just beyond knowing.”