08/27/2026
โ๏ธ WRITING LESSON: Donโt Explain What Your Reader Can See
One of the easiest ways to strengthen a scene is to stop explaining an emotion after youโve already shown it.
For example:
โ โGet out,โ Sarah snapped, slamming the door. She was angry.
We already know Sarah is angry. The dialogue and action showed us.
Try:
โ
โGet out.โ Sarah slammed the door hard enough to rattle the picture frames.
Now the reader gets to experience her anger instead of being told how to interpret it.
This works with fear, excitement, jealousy, embarrassment, grief, and almost every other emotion.
๐ Try this today: Find one emotional moment in your manuscript. Remove the sentence explaining how your character feels and see whether their dialogue, actions, and body language can do the work instead.
Good writing doesn't always tell readers what to feel.
It gives them enough to feel it themselves.
๐ Want to make your characters' conversations even stronger?
Our Boshers Academy course Writing Dialogue That Sounds Real teaches practical techniques for creating believable conversations, distinctive character voices, conflict, subtext, dialogue tags, action beats, and more.
Visit BoshersPublishing.com to explore the course and continue building your writing skills.
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