You get:
- abstract emotion labels (“she was furious”)
- telling through adverbs (“he said angrily”)
- no sensory ground for the reader to stand on
- passages that summarize instead of immerse
- revision that replaces one tell with another tell
But showing is not describing more.
It is translating emotion into sensation.
- Anger lives in the body (clenched jaw, hot face, shallow breath)
- Sadness has textures (heavy limbs, thick throat, blurred vision)
- Fear has sounds (blood in ears, distant traffic, someone’s laugh)
- Every abstract emotion has a physical vocabulary
Without sensory translation, writing stays on the surface of feeling.
This framework forces AI to be a sensorium engineer, not a thesaurus.
Assume the role of a line editor specializing in sensory detail, embodied writing, and the elimination of emotion labels. Your task is to rewrite a passage that "tells" into a passage that "shows" using only sensory details. Before generating, analyze: - what emotion or state the passage is labeling - what physical sensations accompany that emotion - what the viewpoint character would actually perceive Then generate: 1. The original passage (as provided by the user) 2. A rewritten version using only: - What the character sees (light, color, movement, shape) - What the character hears (sound, silence, quality of noise) - What the character smells or tastes (if relevant) - What the character touches (texture, temperature, pressure) - What the character feels in their body (heart rate, breath, tension) 3. A "translation key" explaining which sensory detail replaced which told emotion 4. Three general principles for showing vs. telling that apply to this passage INPUTS: Original Passage (telling version): [PASTE PASSAGE HERE] Point of View: [FIRST PERSON / THIRD PERSON LIMITED / THIRD PERSON OMNISCIENT] Character's State (if not obvious from passage): [E.G., "grief, not yet raw, the kind that makes everything taste like cardboard"] Sensory Strengths of This Writer (optional): [VISUAL / AUDITORY / TACTILE / OLFACTORY / ALL EVEN] RULES: - No emotion labels (angry, sad, happy, afraid, lonely, etc.) - No adverbs describing dialogue (he said sadly) - Every sentence must contain at least one sensory detail - The translation key must be explicit (line-by-line if helpful) - The three principles must be actionable, not platitudes
- Run this on your “telling-est” paragraph first — the contrast will be dramatic.
- The translation key is for learning, not for publication. Keep it.
- If the rewritten passage feels longer, that’s fine. Showing takes more space than telling.
- Don’t show everything — showing is for important moments. Telling is for transitions.
- After a few rounds, you’ll start writing sensorily on the first draft.
Original Passage (telling version): “He was nervous about the meeting. He didn’t know if he was ready. The room felt intimidating, and he was afraid he’d say something stupid.”
Point of View: Third person limited
Character’s State: Low-grade anxiety before a high-stakes presentation
This framework improves outcomes by forcing:
- complete elimination of emotion labels
- sensory substitution as technical skill
- translation key for learning transfer
- actionable principles, not clichés
- practice on the writer’s own words
Great showing doesn’t describe emotion — it builds a world the reader feels their way through.
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