Does “show, don’t tell” lead to worse, rather than better, fiction?
I tell my students “Show and tell,” and yet even in 2019 I am disturbed by how often they come into my class, having taking fiction first, telling each other in workshop, “Show, don’t tell.” This is in the water of creative writing pedagogy, and we need to end it, because it leaks between genres and becomes a mantra, the easiest and therefore seemingly the most clear, most unquestionable.
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