The pretty girl with blue eyes twirled in front of me.

Can you see it? Sort of.

It’s easy to tell someone what happened, but a good writer can show the reader what happened. Showing an event gives it life, makes it real. Showing is the difference between a pretty girl and the petite girl with long white-blonde girls cascading to the middle of her back. Showing involves all five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Presenting these details takes the reader from a position of distant observer to engaged participant.

The sense most easily associated with showing is sight. Whether writing fiction or non, you want to describe the scene as thoroughly as possible. She’s not simply a girl with blue eyes, she has deep set, cerulean eyes. She’s not just twirling, she’s spinning recklessly, her hair flying around her head while the pleated skirt of her red dress flutters around her waist. See the difference? Be careful, though. You don’t want your writing to become a list of adjectives (the shiny, flowy, curly hair hung over her narrow, delicate, tanned shoulders).

It’s not possible to show every detail, nor do you want to – that would lead to pages of unnecessary description. Find the most important people, places, and situations in the scene and highlight those. The goal isn’t to describe every nuance of the scene, but to pull the reader into your world.

Read through some of your early articles and stories. Find the places where you incorporated imagery. Does it need more detail? Can you cut some periphery adjectives and better describe the subject of the scene? Don’t settle for telling me about the boy you saw – show him to me. Don’t be in a hurry. Like all aspects of writing, this technique takes practice.