Rebekka

[milo]

You do some telling here which can be shown through images. The shopping bags were a great image. If you let the reader infer some things I think you could be on to something. I don't know if this is autobiographical but truth often resonates with readers.

I never have anything in common with any of my narrators. Give me an example of where I "tell" instead of show through images.


(you are really mining the archives here)

I can't do line by line here, because I don't have a keyboard, but lines like "I will not betray you" or even word like tormented tell and not show. "Upturn the nothingness" why don't you describe the photos so the reader can make his/her own inferences. If you provide the right details the reader might empathize. Even when you refer to the coffee cup you could let physical descriptions demonstrate the metaphorical significance. After you say the cup is chinked and scarred the rest might degrade the image.

I think you are confused by the old "show don't tell" mantra. It is not axiomatic, it is a suggestion to use imagery in your writing, which I am comfortable that there is here.

Lines like "I will not betray you" precede a stanza of imagery that refers back to that. You have to trust you readers to either do some of the work themselves or languish. Also, you don't wasnt to get caught up in describing every detail unless there is a symbolic significance to the central metaphor. Here, the photographs are the image and the symbolism, describing them in detail would be distracting and not add to the poem in any way.