"Since engagement is exactly what a fiction writer wants to accomplish, you're well advised to rely heavily on immediate scenes to put your story across. You want to draw your readers into the world you've created, make them feel a part of it, make them forget where they are. And you can't do this effectively if you tell your readers about your world secondhand. You have to take them there." (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, p9)

Ross's Take: One of the best lessons I ever got on the value of this point came from Al Zuckerman at Writers House, who in response to a manuscript I had pitched to him helped me help one of our authors make one of the most dramatic leaps I have ever seen a writer take in the course of a single draft.

[The] tendency to describe a character's emotion may reflect a lack of confidence on the part of the writer. And more often than not, writers tell their readers things already shown by dialogue and action. It's as if they're repeating themselves to make sure their readers get the point. So when you come across an explanation of a character's emotion, simply cut the explanation. If the emotion is still shown, then the explanation wasn't needed. If the emotion isn't shown, rewrite the passage so that it is." (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, p17)

Kristi's take: This tip hits home for me. For years, I was guilty of hand-holding my readers and over-explaining everything.

The tip...(Still)...: "Broadly speaking, the more intimate the point of view, the better. One of the most vital and difficult tasks facing a writer is creating believable and engaging characters, and an intimate point of view is a terrific way to do this. When you use your characters' language in your descriptions, you not only convey the sights and sounds around them, you also convey their history, their education, and the culture they live in, without any additional effort." (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, p50)

The tip: “Broadly speaking, the more intimate the point of view, the better. One of the most vital and difficult tasks facing a writer is creating believable and engaging characters, and an intimate point of view is a terrific way to do this. When you use your characters’ language in your descriptions, you not only convey the sights and sounds around them, you also convey their history, their education, and the culture they live in, without any additional effort.” (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, p50)

"Even though immediate scenes are almost always more engaging than narrative summary, be careful not to convert all your narrative summary into scenes. Narrative summary has its uses, the main one being to vary the rhythm and texture of your writing. Scenes are immediate and engaging, but scene after scene without a break can become relentless and exhausting, especially if you tend to write brief, intense scenes. Every once in a while you will want to slow things down to give your readers a chance to catch their breath, and narrative summary can be a good way to do this." (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, p12)

"When you present your readers with already-arrived-at conclusions about your characters, you leave your readers with nothing to do, and passive readers are at best unengaged and at worst bored. You need to let your readers take an active role in the writer-reader partnership to draw them into your story." (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, p30)

Ross's Take: One thing that really made an impact on me early in my training with TED was the importance of leaving some things to readers' imaginations.

The tip: “When you define your characters the minute you introduce them, you may be setting boundary lines that your readers will use to interpret your characters’ actions through the rest of the book. But if you allow your readers to get to know your characters gradually, each reader will interpret them in his or her own way, thus getting a deeper sense of who your characters are than you could ever convey in a summary.” (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, p26)