The Book on SHOW, DON'T TELL | How to Write More Visually

Motion

Bob walked there. Then he walked over there. Then he walked some more. Maybe he ran a bit, but then he walked because he got tired.

Gosh, that's a bit ... boring.

Over-using common words for human motion is very bland. Telling people how someone moved instead of showing them isn't remotely as engaging, nor exciting, as if you took them on a visual journey.

Disclaimer: We're going to be focusing a lot on walking and running in this chapter, for simplicity. Of course, there are all kinds of human motion - dancing, swimming, jumping or flying ... you should be able to apply this advice to any other type of motion. We'll cover action sequences specifically in a later chapter.

Breaking down human motion

In order to properly SHOW, not TELL, we need to first:

1) Visualise what the action looks like
2) Write what we see in our minds

If you picture someone walking, they're doing so much more than just 'walking' from point A to point B. In fact, describing someone "walking" from a place to place actually tells us very little. Sure, it's efficient, but it lacks information.

This is because even a simple act like walking is a whole-of-body experience, and each component tells us a story. In your mind, break that image down. What is actually happening?

Speed: Their walking speed tells us a bit about their emotional state. Someone walking slowly may not be in any great hurry. Someone walking quickly could be having an emergency.

Gait: Someone's gait is their manner of walking. Think about their walk other than the speed - is it rigid? Casual or laid back? Heavy foot steps? Light? Deliberate footsteps? Lumbering and tired or exhausted? Are they dragging their feet? Is there a spring in their step?

Rest of body: People move with their whole bodies, even if they are primarily using one set of limbs. The rest of their body tells us more visual information - think about someone who is straight-backed versus hunched over. Think about someone with big swinging arms, or someone trying to run while carrying a precarious object.

Environment: How we move also impacts the environment around us. We create thuds, we create wind, we create noise, we impact other people. So are our heavy footsteps making a big racket? Are we swishing past curtains and making them billow? Are we loud? Soft? Reckless? Clumsy, banging into stuff? Pushing past people? Walking deliberately around objects?

EXAMPLE:

Let's look at the same action four times, one where we keep it simple and three where we explore a little bit more about the visual image.

1) Bob walked into the kitchen.
2) Bob stomped into the kitchen, heavy footsteps rattling the cuttlery.
3) Bob staggered into the kitchen, leaning on the doorframe for support.
4) Bob crept into the kitchen, taking care to place each step silently so as to not make the floorboards creak.

In each of the above examples, Bob entered the kitchen. But in examples 2, 3 and 4 we learned a lot more about Bob's current state in just one short sentence! We didn't spend a whole paragraph on Bob entering a room, but we took a moment to SHOW the reader Bob's motion, which helped us understand what he was doing in the scene.

Finding more interesting words

The other part about writing motion more visually is finding more interesting words to use than just the common 'walk' or 'run'.

You'll notice in the above examples, we swapped 'walk' for related verbs which were a bit more accurate to Bob's motion. Stomping, staggering and creeping were more visually rich than 'walk'. Even if we removed the rest of the sentence, we'd still have painted a much better picture than if we had stuck to 'walk'.

Another thing you may notice is we didn't really use any adverbs (except 'silently' in the final example). They just weren't necessary when we wrote Bob's motion visually! If the audience understands Bob's type of motion, adding an adverb is unnecessary. We don't need to know that Bob stomped 'angrily', because the act of him stomping and rattling cuttlery shows us the same information.

Of course, we could have used adverbs if we wanted to add something else to the scene. Check out the Adverbs chapter of this book for more guidance here.

Some more interesting visual words instead of 'walk' or 'run' include:

Stagger
Creep
Stomp
Trudge
Sprint
Lurch
Charge
Lope
Swagger
Stroll
Saunter
Meander
Sneak
Bounce
Bound
Lumber
Limp
Spring

Of course, you can probably find more if you open your trusty thesaurus.

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Got questions? Remember you can always ask me in the comments.