Yuku free message boards

Use the words you need to tell the story. Only worry about combinations like "it was" and "there was", because both indicate passive writing, and are better replaced with nice active verbs practically every time.

The show vs tell rule is too often misunderstood. There is such a thing as 'good tell', just as much as there is such a thing as 'bad show'. If one line of engaging tell replaces half a page of boring show, I know which I would rather read every time. If your story reads like an essay, then there's too much tell. Likewise if it lacks dramatic tension. Don't get hung up on the show/tell dichotomy, though. It's not worth worrying about at all until the editing phase anyway.