This post was first published in October 2012 and updated in May 2024.

Thinking of writing a novel? You might be wondering about how best to plan it … but before you figure that out, you need to decide how much planning you’ll want to do in advance.

Some novelists like to plan out every chapter before they begin. Others pick up a blank page, write the first line, and keep going from there.

Most, though, fall somewhere in between those two extremes. They might have a rough outline that touches on major events in the story. They might plan the first few chapters. They might have detailed notes on characters, but only a hazy idea of the plot.

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This post was first published in February 2012 and extensively updated in April 2024.

One of the most common pieces of writing advice is show, don’t tell.

It’s a neat little phrase. But you might wonder what exactly the “show don’t tell” rule means, and why it matters. After all, you’re telling a story … is that so bad? And what does it look like when you’re showing vs telling?

We’re going to dig deep into what the “show don’t tell” rule means, when to follow it (and when not to), and how authors use both showing and telling effectively in their work.

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