On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [58]
Don't let your point-of-view character react before you tell the readers what she's reacting to—as I've done in this example:
Jane's stomach jolted. She couldn't believe what he'd just said. Had she really heard him say that Edward had married Helen?
Notice that I've put Jane's gut reaction first, then a more reasoned reaction, and then finally the comment that caused the reaction. The result will probably make the readers go back and read the paragraph over again to figure out what happened when.
But when you share events in the order in which they happen, the readers are right there watching, as in this example from Susan Elizabeth Phillips' First Lady, when her hero, Mat, is driving Lucy and her baby sister to a lab for blood tests to prove he's not their father:
After a couple of tries, the engine sputtered to life. [Mat] shook his head in disgust.
"This thing is a piece of crap." ... He glanced into [the Winnebago's] side mirror and backed out. "You know, don't you, that I'm not really your father."
"Like I'd want you."
So much for the worry he'd been harboring that [Lucy] might have built up some kind of sentimental fantasy about him. ... "Here are the facts, smart mouth. Your mother put my name on both your birth certificates, so we need to straighten that out, and the only way we can do it is with three blood tests." ...
They drove the rest of the way to the lab in silence, except for the Demon Baby, who'd started to scream again. He pulled up in front of a two-story medical building and looked over at Lucy. She was staring rigidly at the doors as if she were looking at the gates of hell.
"I'll give you twenty bucks to take the test," he said quickly.
She shook her head. "No needles. I hate needles. Even thinking about them makes me sick."
He was just beginning to contemplate how he could carry two screaming children into the lab when he had his first piece of luck all day.
Lucy got out of the Winnebago before she threw up.
Phillips gives us enough details to picture the scene as it's unfolding, and it's important to note what she doesn't tell us: how many miles it is to the lab; how many red lights they stop for; how many dents the Winnebago has; whether the lab building is brick, frame, or stone. Instead, she focuses on the events that are important at this point in the story: Mat starts up the mobile home with difficulty, drives to the lab, and parks; Lucy gets out and throws up. Showing the sequence of events in neat chronological order actually builds suspense, because during the drive to the lab, our suspicions are growing that this can't possibly go as smoothly as Mat hopes it will.
Narrating the events in order automatically limits the amount of information the readers get. When you're telling about events and people, it's easy to tell too much. But when the readers see and hear what's going on for themselves, they have some limitations—and they become more involved with the story as they try to figure out what's going on.
Exposition and Summary
Story-showing has limits. Not every event is important enough to be worth the time and space required in order to show every instant of the action. Not every movement or thought is crucial to the readers' comprehension. Many episodes can be made clearer with a single summing-up sentence than with pages of descriptive detail. Summary and exposition are the tools you use when you need to let readers know something but using story-showing details would only slow things down.
Summary is a concise statement of facts or the order of events; it's straight telling, without using dialogue or action. Summary is "just the facts, ma'am."
Exposition is summary with a twist—it tells what happened, but it also explains why. Exposition doesn't simply show the action and allow readers to make their own judgments; it tells