Rick Stepp-Bolling's Blog

Okay, so the title is just a come-on. If there were steps, I would have gone down that path many years ago, but the journey I took hasn’t made me a world famous writer . . . just a published one. So how did I get there? What helped me become addicted to the art of wordsmithing?
Step One: Read, read, read. You can’t be a good writer or even a mediocre one without a reading background. For me, that started with DC Comics. Yes, I’ll admit it, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, Batman . . . these were all my constant companions at a very early age. From them I learned super powers always came with a weakness, a vulnerability. It meant all characters had a fatal flaw. It meant even super heroes were human. I couldn’t get enough of these super heroes and my room became piled high with comic books. Of course, they were the hook, and soon I ventured into the world of Tom Swift Jr. These were my introductions into the world of science fiction and I would spend hours with a book in hand enjoying my journeys underseas in submarines or overhead in giant aircraft or under the earth in mammoth tunneling machines. And I couldn’t wait until the next book was published. From these serial adventures, it was an easy transition into the realm of mythology. I started with Hercules, Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, and Greek heroes of mythic proportions. Then I traveled north to visit Odin, Thor, Loki and the darker realms of Norse mythology. They welcomed me into strange, new worlds inhabited with unpredictable gods and human heroes who often defied them. Finally, I was ready for the worlds of science fiction and fantasy created by groundbreaking writers: Tolkien, Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, LeGuin and Herbert. It was here I learned about world building and what it meant to expand the boundaries of my imagination. All these books, all these writers created a foundation for my future writing career.
Step Two: Prepare Yourself Academically. Reading set the stage for my next journey, but in order for me to become a real writer, I first had to know how to write. Okay, I learned the basics in elementary, secondary and high schools, but it wasn’t until I was established in college (UCLA and UC Santa Barbara) that I discovered academic writing and creative writing don’t exist in the same world. Yes, I could write a paper on the uses of symbolism in Ionesco’s plays, but actually writing a play was quite different. However, knowing how to vary sentence length and structure, how to utilize strong verbs and nouns instead of adjectives and adverbs, and how to describe something using multiple senses were writing strategies that worked well in both the academic and creative settings. Analyzing pieces of literature also helped me to understand the difference between effective writing and crap. That’s not to say I haven’t written my fair share of crap. Every beginning writer goes through the purple-prose, too-many-generalizations, not-enough-concrete-images, too-many-to-be-verbs stage. So if you haven’t analyzed your own writing, I suggest you start. And, of course, college will give you the tools to do just that.
Step Three: Don’t Give Up. So now it was time to see if anyone, other than my current girlfriend, thought I was writing decently. I began as a poet. I liked words. I liked to manipulate words. I liked to play with words. I decided to test the waters, so I gathered my courage and gave a sample of my poetry to my college English professor. Big mistake. What I thought would be a friendly feedback session turned out to be a roasting. My professor told me my poetry was reminiscent of what a Victorian housewife would write. Yep, in those terms. Humbled and angered I slunk back to my apartment not knowing what I should do next. I could either throw all of my poetry in the circular filing cabinet and forget about my future as a writer, or I could take this as a challenge—a slap in the face—but a challenge. I chose the later, and that has made all the difference. I was determined to show this professor I was better than a Victorian housewife, at least in writing poetry. I looked closely at what I was writing and how I was writing it. Yes, I could see what he meant, but I could change. The first step to changing was to read some modern poetry and see what these poets were doing with their structure and themes. Then it was back to the drawing board to create my own voice and my own style. The point is, don’t give up on yourself as a writer. Keep striving to improve. Never, ever take one professor’s critique as the final say in the matter.
Step Four: Send Stuff Out. Maybe you’ve heard this a few dozen times, but it bears repeating. You’ll be rejected more times than you can count. It goes with the territory. If you weren’t rejected, you wouldn’t be a writer. You’d be a freak of nature. Writers have to have strong egos because most publishers take metaphorical swings at them. Swings like: “This doesn’t fit our needs at this time,” and “Read a sample of what we publish before you send in crap like this.” I think I still have the uncashed $3.00 check I received for my first published poem. It’s a time to celebrate for a couple of minutes. Then, it’s get back to work.
Step Five: Find a Support Group. When I retired, I was ready to get back to trying to become a “World Famous Writer.” I was ready to write my first novel, but was I any good in the fiction writing world? I’d really only done poetry, and fiction, well, fiction was all about lying. So how good of a liar was I? I decided it was time for some feedback from other writers. I googled writing groups in the area and found the Coffee House Writers Group in my very own city. I visited the critique group the next week with some fiction pieces I had written. As nervous as I was in letting others critique my work, I found it strangely exhilarating and beneficial. After a few sessions, I knew the writers I could trust with their comments and I listened closely to the feedback they gave me. Not only did I learn a great deal, but I also made good friends with writers who have now gone on to become well known in their genres. I have continued to use them as beta readers and I pay close attention to what they have to say. The concept of writers supporting writers is not new, but it is important. Find other writers (on-line if need be) to give you the support you’ll need at the next level.
Step Six: Help Others So They Can Help Themselves. Once I became more comfortable with my writing group, I began to take a leadership role in the organization. For me, it wasn’t enough to just make my writing better. It was important to help other writers with their craft and with their voices. I started as a critique group leader, became a presenter at Shop Talks, organized a writing program for the elderly at a rehabilitation center, found publishers, editors, bloggers and writers to speak at monthly meetings, and became the Educational Director for the Coffee House Writers Group, a nonprofit organization. I helped set up a small scholarship program for high schoolers hoping to become writers themselves. I guess what it all boils down to is making a difference in the world for others. If you can do that, you will have officially become “A World Famous Writer” even if no one has ever heard of you before.

How often do beginning and even experienced writers get red penciled for a POV change in the middle of something they are writing? Okay, I can raise my hand along with the rest of you. POV or point of view lapses are not uncommon. Usually, those mistakes are minor, say changing from one character’s perspective to another on the same page when you are writing in third person limited (I’ll explain that later). The more grievous error would be switching from first person to third person, or utilizing second person when you meant to use third person objective. So does any of this make sense? Let’s take a deep breath and review some of the basics of creating an effective persona for your story.
Persona, as I am defining it here, is your storyteller. In other words, who tells your story to your reader, or your narrator. Here’s something to remember: the author and the narrator are not the same. The author distances himself from the story by creating the persona of a narrator. Think about this a moment because it is an important concept. You, the author, create someone to tell your story. That someone is not you, the author (unless, perhaps, you’re writing an autobiography, and even then, the narrator is distanced from the character of the autobiography by time). Your choice of a narrator, or persona, will make a dramatic influence upon how you tell your story. If you’re following this so far, then you’re way ahead of the game, and way ahead of where I was when I first started writing. Next, let’s look at some of the more commonly used narrators or points of view along with some of their strengths and weaknesses.

First Person or the “I” Point of View

Probably the most popular and most commonly used persona for writers is the one that intimately links the narrator and the main character of the story. This is called first person. One important point to take into consideration if you’ve decided to tell your story in first person is verb tense. Are you going to tell your story in present or past tense? What difference does it make, you might ask. Well, if you’re using past tense, then you are re-creating the story through the character’s eyes and experiences. In other words, the story has already happened, and the “I” narrator is simply retelling it. That means the narrator and the main character (“I” of the story) are different. How so? The narrator has already experienced the series of events that has occurred, so he/she has prior knowledge. It means that persona can influence how the story is to be retold. This can make for some fascinating stories, especially if the narrator is not a reliable one (untrustworthy because the narrator may be a liar, perhaps naïve, or even insane). An example of this kind of story telling occurs in Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Tell-Tale Heart. In the story, the narrator explains to the reader why he chose to kill a man and dismember him. If you take the events literally, then you see the motivations of a killer being revealed. However, if you interpret the story as one being told by a madman, then perhaps there was no beating heart underneath the floorboard and this character should be locked up in an asylum. An unreliable narrator can add spice to your story because the reader is never quite sure what to believe. However, if the story is told in present tense, then the action folds before the reader’s eyes; it is happening right now. Using present tense means there is a closer connection between the narrator and the “I” persona of the story. This doesn’t preclude the idea that the narrator is insane or unreliable. It just means the reader is viewing the action of the story as it is taking place.
Why is the first person point of view so popular? There are a number of reasons for this, including the most obvious: it’s easier to write using first person. The author creates a character that he/she can identify with closely and tells the story from that perspective. The reader understands the emotions, motivations, idiosyncrasies of that character because the “I” tells us those things. It brings the reader into a closer, more intimate, relationship with the character. This emotional bond between reader and character is what often sells stories. As humans, our brains connect more with emotion than with logic, so it is only natural for us to want to be connected emotionally with the character telling the story.
So what’s the problem with first person? If readers like it so much, why aren’t all stories told this way? Good question. What if you want a character that is more mysterious, more difficult to understand? Do you want to expose everything about the character to the reader? Maybe some stories are more interesting if there is mystery about the main character (think, The Great Gatsby). Here’s another problem with first person: the narrator must always be where the action is. There is no cutting away to another scene happening somewhere else or to another character unless that character is right there with the “I.” See the problem? The narrator has to continually be where the critical action occurs. This can limit the scope of the story. And what about what other characters are thinking? Nope. The narrator can guess what those other characters are thinking, but can’t know, and neither can the reader. In addition, descriptions of the “I” character have to come in sneaky ways (many of which are clichés): mirrors, reflections in the water, other characters describing that person through dialogue, well, you get the idea.
Another thing to consider if you plan on using first person: do you tell your story using first person major character (the main character of the story as in The Tell-Tale Heart) or minor character (Nick Caraway is the narrator of the novel, The Great Gatsby, but Gatsby, not Nick, is the main character of the novel). The minor character can describe the main character better (physical, emotional, mental attributes), but always has to be around the main character because that’s the main character and the plot revolves around the main character, not the minor character.
So before you leap into first person, be sure you are doing it for the right reasons: you want the reader to make a stronger emotional connection with the character, you want to create an unreliable narrator to keep the reader guessing, or because you can relate to the character easier that way, making it easier for you to write the story.

Third Person or the “He/She” Point of View

Everything that’s not first person pov falls under the general category of third person. That includes third person omniscient, third person limited, third person objective and all their sub categories. Third person means your character is no longer an “I” (I did this and I did that), but a “he” or “she” (Harry did this, or Harriet did that). When you want to create a character persona in the third person, you move away from the more intimate relationship between reader and narrator offered in first person. You put a bit more distance between the two, and that can be good or bad. Remember: everything you do should be for a reason in writing, so let’s look at the reasons you should or should not select a third person pov for your story.
Next to writing in first person, using third person omniscient is probably the most common form of narration. The word omniscient means “all knowing or seeing.” This simply is a method of allowing the narrator to peek into everyone’s head and tell the reader what he or she is thinking. It’s an artificial device to help the reader understand what various characters’ motivations are. For example: Marge knew she was going to be in trouble for hacking into Norm’s computer, but she just had to see for herself what the big secret was all about. Now on the very next page you might see: Norm couldn’t wait for Marge to be alone with his computer. He even left it open to make it easier for her to find what she thought she would find. Both Marge and Norm have had their thoughts revealed to us, the readers. This makes it easier for the reader to understand the characters’ actions and relate to their personalities. Thus, the reader can view the perspective of the protagonist as well as the antagonist. Creating a great villain means understanding why that character is a villain in the first place. Another advantage of using an omniscient perspective is that any character can be described fully without having to resort to mirrors or other reflective devices. Problems? Omniscient is, as I said, an artificial device, and, as such, requires the willing suspension of disbelief. If the author delves into people’s heads too frequently, it becomes less and less believable and even somewhat irritating. The thoughts, emotions, motivations of the characters should be revealed with caution. As in cooking, add too much of anything and it can make the result hard to digest.
The counter to omniscient is third person objective. In this challenging point of view, none of the characters’ thoughts are revealed. Instead, the reader must try to understand the motivations of the characters through their actions or through what they say. The narrator must be strictly objective in the telling of the story, so it’s similar to a camera being strapped to the narrator’s head and allowing the reader to see what is happening without any additional commentary. Perhaps the best author to use this technique was an obscure writer by the name of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway wanted the reader to ferret out why a character did or did not do something based upon his/her actions in the story and not by the narrator spoon-feeding reasons and motivations to the readers. That obviously puts more pressure on readers to make their own judgments regarding the characters’ intentions. This is a good technique to attempt if you are over zealous in giving too much information to your readers. As I say, it’s challenging, but it can also be very rewarding when done right.
The last point of view I want to cover here is third person limited. This narration falls somewhere in between all of the others that have been mentioned. As with first person, third person limited allows the reader to view the thoughts of one character, usually, but not always, the main character. Unlike omniscient, no other character’s thoughts are revealed, only the one character’s. This sets up an intimate relationship with the reader because the reader can relate to this one character, his/her thoughts, feelings, motivations, etc. However, the narrator can also step back from this one character and describe the action that’s going on elsewhere in the story. The narrator can physically describe all the other characters in the story. He or she just can’t delve into their thoughts. The drawback? As with first person, readers are usually limited in their perspectives of where the action is taking place and why other characters do what they do. And because it utilizes a third person narrator, there is less subjectivity and a bit more objectivity involved with the character. Still, if you’re looking for a point of view that gives you the most freedom in creating a well rounded character without the artificiality of an omniscient perspective, then third person limited is the one for you.
In the end, deciding what point of view to use is a little like buying a car. Do you want one that says, “I’m rich, and I can buy whatever I want,” or one that says, “I care about the environment, so I’ll buy an eco-friendly vehicle,” or one that says, “I love to travel places.” You need to have point of view be useful to you and your story telling, and that’s why your story will be even better if you think about what to use before you write, so you don’t have to rewrite the whole story in a different pov in a rewrite. As an author, you will create a persona to tell your story. Just make sure it’s the one that can tell it better than any other one you might have created.

Perhaps one of the first traps beginning writers fall into is the desire to “tell” the story instead of allowing the story to evolve through its scenes. It was one of the mistakes I made when I first started writing stories, and I’m sure it will be a mistake future novice writers will make as well. It is only natural for writers to want to explain everything as quickly as possible because that’s how we get the information across to our audiences.
It is the same mistake college professors make in trying to communicate their course content to their students. They look at their watches and determine they have only 90 minutes to explain the theory of photosynthesis. What to do? They lecture. Lecturing is a highly condensed method of passing along information as quickly as possible, but is it the most effective? Brain research concludes it is not. Students who do not participate in the learning process soon become bored and turn to doodling or texting. Deeper learning comes from students discovering the information for themselves. Does this mean professors shouldn’t lecture? No. But just lecturing builds few dendrites in the brain(Dendrite building is what we call learning). Our brains beg for us to be involved in the process of information discovery.
The same can be said for writing. Technical writers and writers of textbooks are basically “tellers.” Fiction writers must know how to have their audiences involved in the discovery process if they hope to keep their audiences awake. Involvement with characters is key to keeping the reader’s attention. Let’s take a look at two different approaches to the same event. Here, I’m borrowing an example from one of my short stories, The Sorcerer.

Tracy saw the seriousness in Mot’s face. He was never very good at hiding his emotions and most of the time it got him into trouble. She, on the other hand, had learned to love him for who he was, even if he didn’t know who that was yet. It was a shame he was so involved with his own self-pity that he didn’t have time to recognize how much she loved him and needed him in her life.

As you probably have guessed, this summarization or telling of the events condenses the action and time of the story. It’s also not very involving either from the character’s or reader’s perspective. Now let’s look at the same information but this time in scene or showing format.

There was a knock on the door. "Come in, Tracy," Mot said.
The heavy door creaked open and Tracy stuck her head in.
"You sure it's all right?"
"I should never have shut it."
She saw the serious face he had drawn and said lightly, "What's a magician without a few secrets up his sleeve?"
Mot’s mood did not lighten. "That's not what I meant. I should never have shut you out."
"Ah, what's a sorcerer without an apprentice?"
"Now stop it." The red came surging into his face. "This is important."
"Self pity is never very important," she said quietly.
His eyes caught her direct gaze, but he did not look away. The anger left him. "No, it isn't much." He smiled a shy, toothless smile. "But you are."
She heaved open the door and came to him.
"Look out!" he yelled, but the warning came too late, and Tracy stumbled over the almost invisible pile of books. Deftly, Mot pulled her to the chair, but he found her laughing hysterically.
"Why is it I never seem to keep my balance around you?" she said between gasps. "Is this what life with you is going to be like?”
Her laughter left, melting into the room, spreading a warm, rich glow along the walls. (Rick Stepp-Bolling, 2014)

Notice some of the differences between the two examples? The most obvious difference is the use of dialogue. Dialogue creates action. It involves interaction between characters. It also keeps the reader involved in the story. But the use of showing also includes description, description that keeps the action moving and supports the dialogue. Can a scene be all dialogue or all description? Of course. But all of one thing or all of another is not very engaging to the brain and the brain is what you want your audience to activate when they are reading your story. A second difference between the two examples is the length. Showing takes more space, more writing. It shows the reader the events of the story as they are unfolding and, as a result, increases suspense.
To summarize, in fiction writing, it is necessary for the author to be both a teller and a shower. Telling, or summary, allows the author to explain or summarize an event or series of events. Usually, this is done in past tense and condenses time and slows down the movement of the story. Components of telling include description and narration. Showing, or scene, is an event in progress. The reader doesn’t know what will happen next, so showing increases suspense and makes the story more intense. Components of a scene include dialogue and description. Telling will distance the reader from the story and can be used to bring out the philosophy of the story or as a transition between scenes. Showing increases emotion and reduces aesthetic distance.

Okay, so having given you this information in basically a telling format, can you guess what blogs are good for? If this had been a presentation, you would now be actively involved in the writing process so you could experience for yourself the differences between the two elements of telling versus showing in writing. But in the conservation of time . . .

Opportunities arise every now and then to observe similarities between human and animal behavior. While human brains are thought to be more complex, more cognitive in nature than animal brains, the basic instincts that manifest themselves in how we react to given situations are surprisingly alike. That was never more evident than when my eleven-year old daughter picked out her first mustang.
The Bureau of Land Management rounds up mustangs on a regular basis in the deserts of the Western United States. These mustangs are the ancestors of horses that escaped from or were abandoned by Spanish explorers (or exploiters, as some would say) and the United States Cavalry. Left to roam the deserts, their numbers increased and their genes changed (yes, this is an example of genetic drift). Unfortunately, human populations also increased, and mustangs and human ranchers often clashed over the availability and access of grazing lands. Left to otherwise starve in a sparsely vegetated environment, the BLM captured whole herds, branded, and adopted them out to potential horse owners. While this strategy has come under attack by certain animal activists, it has saved thousands of mustangs from slow starvation.
Seventeen years ago, my daughter dragged my wife and I to one of the nearby adoption areas. As we wandered through the pens admiring the confirmations of these beautiful horses, a skin and bones male mustang approached my daughter, put his head through the bars and into her hands. This four-year old male, beaten up by the other stallions in the herd, would, by all odds, soon be dead. He was the lowest of the lows in the herd hierarchy and was last in line for any available food. And that is how Goldust, or Dusty, became a part of our family. We went through the adoption procedures and Dusty was soon on his way to his new home.
What sounded like a happy ending rescue story was only the beginning of the Dusty saga. Wild mustangs, like older humans, are fairly set in their ways, and find it difficult to change. That’s one of the reasons why young colts and fillies are easily adopted out by the BLM, but older horses are less likely to find a home. Loading him into a trailer and unloading him into a stall proved difficult, but not impossible. What proved to be more difficult was getting him to accept us as herd members. In stressful/threatening situations, humans and animals tend to go their fight or flight mode. If they perceive something as threatening, chemicals, such as cortisol, are pumped into the animals’ systems to help them flee or fight the immediate threat. It is a survival instinct that has kept animals and humans alive and kicking since the dawn of man. Cortisol increases the heart rate, and as a result, the blood supply to muscles, which is very good for fleeing or fighting. What it doesn’t allow for is much cognitive processing (thinking). So the question was how to get Dusty to accept us in order for him to use his frontal cortex and beginning the process of learning about his new environment?
The solution was to reduce the threat or at least the perception of the threat. In order to do that, one of us had to become a member of his new herd. For hours at a time, my daughter, my wife or I sat on the railing and did nothing. At first Dusty moved as far away from us as his stall would allow. If one of us moved, he skittered, turned, and tried to escape. After awhile, however, Dusty saw that we were not a menace. We were not there to attack and eat him. After weeks of rail sitting, he gradually approached my daughter, not close, but close enough that she could scratch his rear. And with that the ice was broken. Dusty was an itchy horse and loved to be scratched. On a daily basis, my daughter sat on the rail until he came close enough to be scratched. Once the threat was eliminated, she could feed him carrots or apples. Soon, my wife and I fed him by hand as well. The fight or flight response was no longer necessary as Dusty now saw us as part of his herd.
Today, Dusty is alive and well thanks to someone who had the patience to understand the possible psychological responses of horses to threats and apply that knowledge in helping him overcome his fears. It is the same threat my college students see in a major test or a difficult paper. The cognitive or thinking part of the brain shuts down and the emotional response is to flee or fight. This may result in “brain freeze” in a testing situation, or avoidance in starting a research paper. So how are humans and mustangs alike with brain functions? Remarkably similar.

Because I am an atheist, I don’t believe in a supernatural power (other than science) controlling our destinies. However, having said that, there are certainly some strange coincidences in life that probably fall under the category of serendipity rather than fate. Such is the story of Luke, our rescue dog, who might more aptly have been named, Lucky.
Our family had just gone through the agonizing ordeal of losing one of our dogs to cancer. Glenn, a pure bred, red Poodle, was not a rescue dog. He was chosen by my six year old daughter at a mall pet shop and was undoubtedly born in a puppy mill of some sort, but we welcomed him to the family and he was an integral member of the Stepp-Bolling clan until he contacted brain cancer. We lost him a few weeks after Christmas in 2005. Such is the heartache of being a lover of animals. The day after Glenn died, we hiked into the San Gabriel Mountains that loomed up behind our house hoping to ease some of the pain and sadness we carried with us. We took our remaining dogs, Willow and Oakley and headed into the foothills on an early January morning. We had nothing but time and bittersweet memories to keep us company as we wandered through the awakening thistle and wild mustard adorning our hillsides. Just before it became a true road, the return path down from the hills took us through a fire gate near a boy’s camp. As we ducked under the big yellow gate, we heard a small yip from something in the underbrush. Coyotes are common in the area, so my first inclination was that a small coyote pup had been left on its own. After two more yips, we found a small white terrier cowering in the bushes. He was not afraid of us as much as he was afraid of being left alone. He couldn’t have been more than six months old and was probably someone’s Christmas gift. Covered in fleas and ticks, we wrapped him up and took him home.
After contacting the Humane Society, we discovered no one had called about a missing white dog. We diligently posted pictures of the dog around the neighborhood and city hoping someone would respond saying how grateful they were we found their missing dog. In reality, we suspected the puppy had been dumped in the foothills because it was simply an easier way to deal with an unwanted animal. Coyotes would take care of the evidence. No one bothered to call or contact us. Apparently, the life of this new found terrier was now in our hands.
After de-fleaing and de-ticking, the puppy was only too happy to make himself at home on our couch. Although not altogether pleased to share their household with a new dog, Willow and Oakley soon grudgingly accepted the newcomer as family. My daughter christened the puppy with his new name, Luke, after one of the characters on the television show, The Gilmore Girls, because of his unruly hair. For my wife and I, it was as though the spirit of Glenn had been reborn into this feisty white terrier who refused to die.

As a writer, I know inspiration can come from the most unlikely sources. I’ve written poems based on tragic events in our country’s recent history, a short story whose theme was guided by the gridlock I found myself in on the 210 Freeway, and a novel inspired by the addictive quality of computer games. So it is not very far fetched to imagine stories about the influential lives of those around us, and at our house, that means animals.
Tess and Cole—names taken from the Old West outlaws Cole Younger and Tessie James(wink, wink)—were twin rescue dogs who entered our household in a most unusual way. They were abandoned on the doorstep of a local pet shop just after their birth. The pet shop owners, with no real medical background, did the right thing and delivered them to a veterinarian clinic whose lead veterinarian was well acquainted with us. Not only did we supply her with more work than her office could possibly handle, we also gave her a rare Indian Star tortoise because she was a kind and caring doctor for all of our animals. My wife happened to be in our vet’s office to euthanize a pet rat dying from cancer the day the twins were delivered. As serendipity would have it, upon seeing my wife in the office, our doctor asked if she would be willing to foster the twins until weaned. Understand this: my wife does not know the meaning of the word “No,” when it comes to animals. “Yes, I’ll be glad to help out,” is what she said instead. The vet checked to make sure the pups were healthy, and sent them off with a large bag of puppy formula and a few small bottles.
The small hairs on the back of my neck prickled when I heard that two newborns would be joining our motley crew of three other rescue dogs, three rescue horses, three rescue cats and a few dozen snakes recently rescued from unscrupulous former owners. “It’s only until they’re weaned,” she said softly.
“And how long would that be?” I asked trying to sound angry while I watched these two balls of fur squeaking in their box.
“Six weeks. Six weeks and they go back to the vet,” she said. “I promise.”
I gave her my best harrumph and went out to clean horse stalls.
What, of course, she neglected to mention, was that these motherless puppies would need to be hand fed, hand cleaned, and pretty much hand handled throughout the six weeks. That meant midnight feedings, as well as hand feedings every two hours during the day. It was like having a baby again, except these twins would not be staying for twenty years. Six weeks . . . max! The small bottles lasted only a week before larger ones were needed. Francie, my wife, managed a majority of the feeding and cleaning tasks for the pups on a twenty-four hour, seven days a week basis. Believe me, Francis of Assisi never had such stiff competition for sainthood.
A couple of problems arose for the pups-without-a-mother. Tess developed vaginitis because she was never licked and cleaned by her mother. Cole, without a mother to feed from, acquired a need to suckle a blanket as a substitute for a teat. As the two puppies grew older, they did what all twins seem to do . . . they developed a special bond. The one rarely strayed far without the other right behind. At first it was difficult to tell who was who. Their markings and distinguishing features didn’t become obvious until later, so while they were still young, we would have to look long and hard at what made them different (other than their genitals) . . . and that was their personalities.
Tess loved the outdoors. Once she was old enough to use the dog door, she spent most of her time in the backyard. The horse trailer became her special place and it was where she spent most of her time during sunny days. Tess was also the less sociable. She tended to stay away from the other dogs. But what she lacked in pack-socialization, she more than made up in her bond with humans. Tess, to this day, is my special friend. She is also the hunter of the two, as the rats around our yard will testify. I have no doubt that if left in the wilderness, she would survive just based on her hunting skills.
Cole, on the other hand, loves people, loves other dogs, loves the horses, and strangely enough, loves Penny, the pig. Penny and Cole have a symbiotic relationship. When Penny comes out of her pen to get her apples and Cheerios, Cole waits patiently until Penny has tossed all the Cheerios out of her rubber ball. Then he happily eats along side of her, the two grazing like old chums. While the other dogs back away from Penny’s enormous size and girth, Cole hangs with his friend, knowing she will share her food with him and he will share his friendship with her.
As you might have guessed, the six weeks turned into six months, and the six months turned into four years. When my wife asked if we should return the pups because they were weaned, I said something like, “Over my dead body!” Sometimes I think the love we receive from our animals is like getting a second chance in life. Just when you think your emotional gas tank is on zero, a warm hug and a wet kiss from your best bud can change your whole attitude, and suddenly the world looks rosy again. Oh, by the way, Tess and Cole made the front page of the Bonelli Park magazine last year. It seems they were destined to become stars, even if they started out life with a real question mark.

Perhaps one of the first traps beginning writers fall into is the desire to “tell” the story instead of allowing the story to evolve through its scenes. It was one of the mistakes I made when I first started writing stories, and I’m sure it will be a mistake future novice writers will make as well. It is only natural for writers to want to explain everything as quickly as possible because that’s how we get the information across to our audiences.
It is the same mistake college professors make in trying to communicate their course content to their students. They look at their watches and determine they have only 90 minutes to explain the theory of photosynthesis. What to do? They lecture. Lecturing is a highly condensed method of passing along information as quickly as possible, but is it the most effective? Brain research concludes it is not. Students who do not participate in the learning process soon become bored and turn to doodling or texting. Deeper learning comes from students discovering the information for themselves. Does this mean professors shouldn’t lecture? No. But just lecturing builds few dendrites in the brain(Dendrite building is what we call learning). Our brains beg for us to be involved in the process of information discovery.
The same can be said for writing. Technical writers and writers of textbooks are basically “tellers.” Fiction writers must know how to have their audiences involved in the discovery process if they hope to keep their audiences awake. Involvement with characters is key to keeping the reader’s attention. Let’s take a look at two different approaches to the same event. Here, I’m borrowing an example from one of my short stories, The Sorcerer.

Tracy saw the seriousness in Mot’s face. He was never very good at hiding his emotions and most of the time it got him into trouble. She, on the other hand, had learned to love him for who he was, even if he didn’t know who that was yet. It was a shame he was so involved with his own self-pity that he didn’t have time to recognize how much she loved him and needed him in her life.

As you probably have guessed, this summarization or telling of the events condenses the action and time of the story. It’s also not very involving either from the character’s or reader’s perspective. Now let’s look at the same information but this time in scene or showing format.

There was a knock on the door. "Come in, Tracy," Mot said.
The heavy door creaked open and Tracy stuck her head in.
"You sure it's all right?"
"I should never have shut it."
She saw the serious face he had drawn and said lightly, "What's a magician without a few secrets up his sleeve?"
Mot’s mood did not lighten. "That's not what I meant. I should never have shut you out."
"Ah, what's a sorcerer without an apprentice?"
"Now stop it." The red came surging into his face. "This is important."
"Self pity is never very important," she said quietly.
His eyes caught her direct gaze, but he did not look away. The anger left him. "No, it isn't much." He smiled a shy, toothless smile. "But you are."
She heaved open the door and came to him.
"Look out!" he yelled, but the warning came too late, and Tracy stumbled over the almost invisible pile of books. Deftly, Mot pulled her to the chair, but he found her laughing hysterically.
"Why is it I never seem to keep my balance around you?" she said between gasps. "Is this what life with you is going to be like?”
Her laughter left, melting into the room, spreading a warm, rich glow along the walls. (Rick Stepp-Bolling, 2014)

Notice some of the differences between the two examples? The most obvious difference is the use of dialogue. Dialogue creates action. It involves interaction between characters. It also keeps the reader involved in the story. But the use of showing also includes description, description that keeps the action moving and supports the dialogue. Can a scene be all dialogue or all description? Of course. But all of one thing or all of another is not very engaging to the brain and the brain is what you want your audience to activate when they are reading your story. A second difference between the two examples is the length. Showing takes more space, more writing. It shows the reader the events of the story as they are unfolding and, as a result, increases suspense.
To summarize, in fiction writing, it is necessary for the author to be both a teller and a shower. Telling, or summary, allows the author to explain or summarize an event or series of events. Usually, this is done in past tense and condenses time and slows down the movement of the story. Components of telling include description and narration. Showing, or scene, is an event in progress. The reader doesn’t know what will happen next, so showing increases suspense and makes the story more intense. Components of a scene include dialogue and description. Telling will distance the reader from the story and can be used to bring out the philosophy of the story or as a transition between scenes. Showing increases emotion and reduces aesthetic distance.

Okay, so having given you this information in basically a telling format, can you guess what blogs are good for? If this had been a presentation, you would now be actively involved in the writing process so you could experience for yourself the differences between the two elements of telling versus showing in writing. But in the conservation of time . . .

Ever since I married a woman who owned a horse, a dog, a chicken and a few crawly creatures, my life has been filled with animals of one sort or another. That sort almost always refers to rescue animals. It baffles me that people can be so cruel to helpless animals, animals that only want to love unconditionally, as long as they can get an occasional meal in return. But that’s the world we live in, not unexpected, but disappointing. So to say my household is occupied by a few animal orphans would be an understatement. We have rescued horses that were on the verge of starvation, dogs left in the hills as coyote bait, and turtles that were smuggled into this country illegally and came to be adopted by us after a sting operation left the perpetrators in prison, but perhaps our most interesting rescue story is about Penny.
Penelope, you see, is a pig. Perhaps that’s unfair. She’s not just a pig, but a Russian Boar whose mother was killed by a mountain lion. Five years ago, one of my wife’s karate instructors, Scott, was on a hunt for Russian Boars when he came across the body of Penny’s mom. Searching the area, he found a small tail wiggling from out of a rabbit hole. Once he dug the day old flea covered piglet out of the hole, she bit him. Scott dropped her on the ground saying, “Fine, you can make it on your own.” But Penny, being both feisty and determined, followed him back to his truck. Scott decided that fate was on the side of this pig that day and loaded her into his cab. He didn’t even hesitate before driving to our house and dropping her off with us.
We didn’t name her until we were sure that she would survive, which meant bottle feeding and hand nurturing, but eating was never a problem for this little one, and before long, Penny was off the bottle and eating soft foods. Because she was raised with dogs, Penny assumed she was one. She learned how to use the dog door, go on walks, and sleep on the couch with the other dogs. She interacted with the dogs who sniffed her up and down before deciding she was some kind of wiry black-haired terrier. My wife, a kindergarten teacher, took her to school so the kids would have an unusual subject to write about. Needless to say, the kids fell in love with Penny and Penny fell in love with whatever the kids were eating that day. On our dog walks, she was leashed and trotted along with the other dogs. People who passed us would comment, saying “Oh, what a nice group of dogs” before the inevitable, “PIG!” I suppose it was safe to say that not many people had seen a pig on a leash before.
We soon learned that pigs double their weight every week, so as the days passed, Penny grew larger and larger until one day, she no longer fit into her dog harness. Even buying an extra large harness didn’t help. Penny’s curiosity knew no bounds. Once she had a direction in mind, it was difficult to maneuver her 100 pounds, so walks often became interesting side trips of sniffing flowers, chasing leaves, and looking for leftovers. More than once she dragged us over to a neighbor’s yard when she wanted to root. Knowing our neighbors probably took a dim view of a pig rooting in their yard, we decided it was time for Penny to forgo her dog walks and stay at home. We still left her the run of the house when we were gone, but with enough time on her hands, Penny found enough mischief to be renamed Loki.
One sunny morning in May, for example, we came home from our dog walk to a house reeking of some strange smell. “Dad, I think you need to see this,” my daughter said as she tracked down the odor. As it was nearing the holiday, I had just purchased a case of Bud Light beers but hadn’t put any in the refrigerator yet. While we were gone, Penny had discovered the box of beers and proceeded to open and drink each and every beer. We found her snoring on the couch, dead drunk. Having learned her lesson early in life, Penny has not touched a drop of alcohol since that day.
As with all animal stories, dark moments come with the lighter ones. When Penny became too large to fit through the dog door, we built her a shelter in the back yard where she could root to her heart’s content. She shared the enclosure with the tortoises, who also shared their leftovers with Penny. It was a bucolic existence until the day I found Penny lying beside her untouched food. She was running a fever and we knew we would never find a vet who would be willing to get close to this teenage 300 pound sow with sharp teeth and an attitude. We started her on a course of antibiotics and anti-acid medication. From outside her gate, our vet diagnosed the problem as the beginnings of an ulcer. Pigs, like humans, have very sensitive intestines and Penny’s were badly inflamed. For a while, we thought Penny wasn’t going to make it. She was listless, wouldn’t eat, and her temperature was still running high. I spent a number of days sitting in a lawn chair reading stories to her while she lay in a coma-like state rarely moving and never eating. Even the shots my wife had to give her barely evoked a response. I had almost given up hope when the next day her fever broke. The following morning, Penny was up and standing at the gate. The day after that, her appetite returned. Now we are very careful what she eats and we eliminate as much stress from her life as possible. Twice a day, morning and evenings, she is fed and free to roam about the back yard. She visits the horses in their stalls and occasionally plays with the dogs. She roams over to apple tree and wistfully looks up at the young apples waiting for them to ripen. Then she plays with her dog toy that is filled to the brim with Cheerios and waits for me to spray her with the hose.
At over 500 pounds, Penny no longer goes on dog walks, but she enjoys life with her friends the tortoises, horses and dogs. She has been the inspiration for many of my short stories and occasionally I will get her opinion by reading one to her. We never have to worry about burglars breaking into the house through the back yard, but we do have to worry about the holes she digs in the lawn so she can stretch out and wait for her favorite activity . . . the belly rub. I wouldn’t recommend a pig as a pet for everyone, but for us, Penny has been someone very special in our lives.