Show don't tell and The Wheel of Time

I’m quite happy to say I finished A Blinding Light and the Wheel of Time series this week. Fourteen
books that created a world and story so vast, it’s difficult to imagine another
achieving what Robert Jordan has. But it was during the last two books of the
series—penned by Brandon Sanderson—that I gained a much greater understanding
of two of writings most common
dilemmas; show, don’t tell (spoken
of in the post below) and proper character development.

After reading a post on reddit regarding
‘show, don’t tell’, I noted one person’s comment about trusting your reader through
the use of character development and how new writers can make the mistake of
adding unnecessary, and at times, overwhelming amounts of description that can
take away from your reader’s experience.

Imagine you’re at the end of a story where
the protagonist sees the girl he loves kiss another man. The author continues
by adding line after line of how the kiss pained the protagonist; a mistake by
the author. By the end of the story—if the author has done their job and
developed their characters well—you as the reader have a connection with them.
You know how much the protagonist loves this women, how the two have been destined
for one another since the first page. You don’t need to be flooded with description
of how the protagonist is affected; you know how this will make him feel,
because you feel it yourself.

This really hit home with me because in
previous edits of Swords of Winter, there have been times where my beta readers
have felt less over a certain incident they I’d expected. And where it wasn’t a
case of telling rather than showing, it did come down to character development.
As the author you know your characters on a level more intimate than any reader
will ever experience and I think at times I’ve forgotten that.

How does this relate to finishing WoT? In
my opinion, Robert Jordan and Brandson Sanderson achieved these two things
perfectly. After fourteen novels, I knew the characters so well, that the
smallest of actions impacted them, and in turn me. Emotions were pulled from
me, not spread out on the page for my consumption.

In the end this perfect balance comes down
to the skills of two fantastic writers, but I know this insight will help me
along the way in the art of pulling the reader into the tale and in turn
knowing I can trust them.