You probably think I'm going to talk about how you should practice and never quit trying until you win. Nope. Though that is true. Instead, I'm going to illustrate what tension looks and feels like. My husband and I love watching the Olympics. We're not all that caught up in who wins. We genuinely want all the athletes to do well as they take their history-making runs. We sit on the couch to watch the skiers and snowboarders. My body tenses as they start off. I'm leaning forward, alert. I'm practically holding my breath as they defy gravity to make it down the hill. I fist pump when a move goes well. "Yes! Did you see that? Wow." I gasp and raise my hands to my lips when they fall. "Oh crap. Are they okay? That must suck." I exclaim when the judges, in my humble opinion, get it wrong. Irritation ignited a verbal response. "What the heck were they thinking?" "That other guy totally did better." "Th...

One of the hardest things to do, in writing as in life, is to not judge. In writing, every time you express your opinion or judgment, you are robbing your reader of theirs. Think about it. If you are describing climbing Mount Everest, you could accurately describe it as difficult, challenging, painful, or exciting. But these are all your judgments. If you want your reader to truly understand how it is to climb Mount Everest, he or she must have an experience. They must feel the ice forming on their eyelashes and hear the crunch of frozen snow under their boots. Then they can form their own opinion that it is difficult, challenging, painful, or exciting. Here’s a simple exercise in “Show Not Tell” that practices getting rid of judgment words and replacing them with experiential details. Describe a room in your house, perhaps the room you are sitting in now. Describe everything and anything in it – without using any adjectives or adverbs that imply opinion (such as pretty, or dirty...