Show, Don't Tell~ oh no, another TL;DR essay. D:

"Show, don't tell". I heard this advice several times when I started writing, but I have never had any writing classes, and I'm not a native English speaker. So it took a long time to parse. "Yeah, that's... er. Nice, I guess. I suppose so... But HOW?"

Show, don't tell. You're writing; you're telling a story. How can you convey anything if you don't tell it? That's what I thought, the first time I heard that advice. I really didn't get it.

( therein lies writing babble that makes it look like the Asuka knows what she's talking about, but really, not so much, but hopefully it will be a little helpful anyway. Also contains redundant things straight from the department of redundancies department. )

So there you have it. Show, don't tell, as translated into Asuka-babble-fu: it's always more effective to say "she was shaking with the need to wring his sorry neck" than "she was very, very angry," always more effective to say "her hands trembled as she touched her brother's cheek, and when she met his eyes, her breath hitched," than "she was deeply moved by the fact that her brother had awakened from his coma."