Can I ask a question about showing not telling?

[whereiscaroline]

I've signed up to a Coursera writing course. All feedback is given by peers, and I've had some feedback and I'm not sure if it's correct, but I could be wrong.

The phrase I wrote is:

"She felt the sting of tears pricking at her eyes".

The feedback I got is:

"Using felt is a passive sentence and is considered telling instead of showing. To show the emotion, take out what she felt."

Am I right in thinking that a character feeling a physical sensation is ok?! Or is the peer reviewer correct?

Did she just want you to change it to, "Tears pricked her eyes."?

It wouldn't worry me if I read that. If I were doing a peer review I'd be looking at a lot more than that sort of detail. It depends where you're up to in your work, I suppose. Is this something that you'd thought was ready to send off, so she was just doing a line by line edit?

I would say that it's more of a problem using 'felt' with emotions ie 'she felt angry' - that would be telling not showing. I think it's less of an issue with physical sensations although of course your sentence would still work without the 'she felt'. I think your reviewer might be applying a bit of a blanket principle there that's not necessarily helpful in your case.

There's no absolute rule, and your sentence is grammatically correct as it stands. However, for my money "Tears stung the backs of her eyes" is sharper and more immediate than "she felt tears..." I always find loads of "she felt" type constructions in my first drafts, and I always weed them out at the first edit!

If you prefer the first way, by all means leave it Good luck and keep writing.

I'd write The sting of tears pricked at her eyes

Ok, thanks all!

And @hollowtalk this is just my first chapter. Even the thought of having something to submit one day a very long way off.

Thanks for your suggestions, I'll amend the sentence.

I agree with what @Wilding says: "'she felt angry' - that would be telling not showing"

It sounds as though the reviewer has heard this and it's formed a rule in her head so that the word 'felt' can never be used.

I do think at this point, though, you're better off thinking about the plot and characters and their motivation. There's plenty of time to edit in the way she suggests. Get the story down before you start to fiddle around with line edits is my rule!

OP, I think what PPs have said is helpful as is, to some extent, the original feedback. It's a style point rather than a fixed law hence someone who is also learning might give feedback on it in a binary fashion. Passive voice does slow things down but can be used. Many published authors use it consciously or unconsciously -

mbweston.com/2009/12/18/on-writing-how-to-break-the-no-passive-voice-rule-get-away-with-it/

In your OP, you asked about the reader understanding how a character is feeling. Readers need to understand but saying how they felt isn't the only way to achieve this. At the risk of getting it wrong, some one angry can 'throw a bottle at her boyfriend's head' or they 'can feel furious because he met the OW again'.

Good luck.

If I can throw my two pennorth in here, I would have worded the sentence something like 'she blinked her eyes rapidly as tears welled up' or even just the blinking part, something that showed what was happening. There is a book called The Emotions Thesaurus which is brilliant for describing what happens to people when they feel different emotions. So for instance if your character is angry you can look that up and it will give physical characteristics that people do.

Look up "filtering". Words like felt, seemed, thought etc remove the action one step from the character and can remove the reader from the action. It's not wrong but removing filtering from writing can improve a piece immensely.

Thanks all for your advice. Just reading up on filtering now!

I've loved reading about this - and I've just gone through my WIP and changed many of those bits and I think improved it.
Thank you!

This is really helpful. I’ve done a ctrl+f and found I used the word “felt” 15 times in my MS. Time to see if I can improve any of those bits.

filtering advice sounds good

I've also heard that writers have tics, ie, mine is actually, I think. Words they don't need but use a lot. I use 'felt' too - but I guess she means, to show the emotion, more than say felt. I see what she is saying, but what you are saying too.

@Spodge is spot on about filtering. Think about the difference between ‘She felt that she hated Billy’ and ‘She hated Billy’. Or ‘Billy was a bastard, there was no denying.’

So much good advice above.

Look also for stating the bleedin' obvious, eg.

"Tears pricked her eyes" - where else would they prick? Try "Ignoring the prick of tears" - adds in what she's doing. Responding to, Blindly, amidst etc.
"Feeling the hair on her head blow in the wind"....you get the idea. God forbid it's the hair anywhere else that's blowin' in the wind...

Keep writing, people.