Welcome to the creative presence, a show that’s dedicated to expanding your creative self expression. And at the same time getting your projects done. And I’m your host, Joshua Townshend

In grade school, I remember we had a time when we did show Intel, and show Intel was when you showed something, and then you told about it. And it was a way for us to get comfortable talking in front of the group, and to improve our verbal skills and all those good things that they thought it was going to be doing. And take some pressure off, right, because now you have an object and something hopefully you can tell about your personal life or your personal story. And as we develop and we grow, we move into the entertainment industry, and one of the notes that are pretty consistent, which is show me Don’t tell me, right, so we move away from this thing of show and tell, to basically just showing. So what does that mean, though, because I’ve heard that, you know, my whole life, and I’m like, show me Don’t tell me, it’s, it’s a cliche, and I don’t find it to be very helpful, or very impactful in terms of giving me a lead into what I do need to do. So let’s go through an example. So you can actually hear it. And then hopefully, it’ll become self evident. And you’ll start to move in that direction. In terms of your creative process. If I were to tell you that I’m cold, and I feel separate from the whole world, so I’m going to tell you, I feel cold, and I feel separate from the whole world, that would be telling you something. So I’m doing, I’m sharing some information, but I’m not actually seeing it. And more importantly, it’s harder for me to engage in a feeling with you, because you’re just telling me, I’m 85 years old, I have a body temperature of 98 degrees. It’s 67 degrees outside information, but it doesn’t move me. And I also feel like it’s shorthand. It’s like, yes, the character is cold. Yes, the character feels separate from the entire world. That’s, that’s what I’m driving towards. That’s what I want to communicate. Now, how can I say it so that other people can feel it, the audience can feel it, the other character in the scene can feel it, it becomes relatable. So that’s the, that’s the, the task at hand, that’s the thing to address. It’s 100%, okay to say the characters cold and feel separate from the world. Like, that’s okay. Because that’s the shorthand. That’s what I want to end up with, I want to end up with a character that’s cold and feels alienated from the entire world. Great. Now how the other way of doing it would be to describe a situation where the character is is sitting on a beach. And it’s, it’s a cold in bleak day, completely overcast, it looks like rain is coming. And this characters is shivering in the cold because there’s a breeze coming off the ocean. And the waves are choppy, and they’re wearing like a very light sort of sweater, which you know, would hardly make anyone warm at all. And they’re wearing ill fitting shorts that kind of look awkward, and they’re in the foreground or the background, and there’s a lot of busyness all around them. So they’re the only thing that stationary and everything else around them is moving very quickly. Like they have purpose. They have something to do. They have a high contrast, like they’re all wearing different kinds of clothing that’s very sharp and elegant. And maybe they’re wearing a lot of big heavy jackets, so they look warm and comfortable. There’s people high fiving each other so you have high contrast. Yeah, high contrast, you have more points of contact, more points of reference. There’s different speeds going on and breaking it down technically. And that that person is they’re sitting there holding like a little Styrofoam cup of what used to be cold hot tea, and now it’s cold and they could put their finger in it. It’s so cold, you know, and then we reveal that you know, it’s it’s Santa Monica, California near the pier, you know where everything is  supposed to be warm. Again, more contrast. And here, this is here, this person is freezing cold in a winter day. A in Santa Monica, feeling incredibly alienated from the world and cold. So I did the very thing that you want to do, right, which is to communicate the characters cold, and feels alienated from the world. But instead of just saying it, I built a world around it

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that spoke of the high contrast between what they’re experiencing what they’re feeling, and, and in a way actually exaggerating or amplifying it by putting in the opposite that goes around them. So that is just one example of show don’t tell and how opening or starting your project with Well, this is what I want to tell about, and then finding your way to showing it. I really hope this helps. I hope this makes it more concrete and most of all, more fun in terms of actually executing on your idea. And seeing how you can make the atmosphere the perspective the point of view, the character state of being how you can share it with your audience in a very compelling and exciting and maybe even new and different way. So, hope you enjoyed this episode. Keep listening to more there’s one or two more coming out every week. Thank you for listening. If you love what you’re listening to please subscribe and then share with fellow creatives. For more, go to JoshuaTownshend.com

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

cold,  creative writing, writing, screenplay, creative impulse, character, warm, wearing, high contrast, creative self expression, feeling, feel, terms, santa monica, share, ill fitting, contrast,  thought, relatable, listening, points, verbal skills, sound and movement, fun,  creative flow, air, fire, water, earth