Show, Don't Tell

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Sun, 10 Apr 1994 18:35:02 JST

Situation: Your character, a writer, (would-be? blocked? pick your persona...) has begun driving the information superhighway, and stumbled into a crack in the road where other characters have gathered, all expressing interest in that peculiar craft/art/addiction. However, as your character explores the odd pit where these electronic souls wail, there may be certain missing elements, or certain overdone areas, or other difficulties and perplexities.

The goal: Your character has several options open. E.g., simply skip the whole mess and roar out on the superhighway looking for other adventures (sometimes known as running away to play another day), sit back and enjoy the stewing milieu (sometimes known as couching potatoes), or attempt to address, redress, and otherwise fill in the missing parts (sometimes known as battling windmills).

The assignment: What do they find? What problems do they see? Why do they stick around? What methods do they use to make things better and how do the other members react?

Show, don't tell, how your character acts to make the electronics crossroads truly an intellectual marketplace, laden with goods for everyone, accepting the casual visitor and the long-term resident, making cursors leap and fingers tap around the world, bringing submissions to the desks of editors and contracts to the scattered writers...

The plot's the thing wherein we'll catch the conscience?

[join in the long-running series! bit players needed!]