Showing with Thoughts

I’ve betaed a lot of mss lately, and I keep finding this one thing in common in some of them: There’s room for more “showing with thoughts.” To make myself clear, take a look at this rough example that I wrote:

"The noise of breaking glass reaches my ears and the anti-theft alarm goes off. I clutch the sheets tightly and my heart races. Footsteps creak on the floorboards downstairs, and while I climb down the bed to reach the phone and dial 911, a shiver runs down my spine"

Here I’m not *telling* that the MC is afraid, right? With the heart racing and the shiver, I’m *showing* it, right? Right. But then why I don’t like this example of showing?

1) Because I think shivers running down spines and hearts drumming are becoming clichés. Just as jaws setting, nostrils flaring, and teeth clenching. (But hey, that doesn’t mean I don’t use them sometimes, lol!)

2) Because I have no idea what the MC is thinking. And I usually LOVE to be in the MC’s head.

If you do it right, you can show feelings (scared, sad, etc) with thoughts. But without making the character think something like, “Omigosh, I’m so scared.”

Okay so if I want to show scared, I might make the character think: 

“Where the hell did I leave my taser?” Or, “If I hide under the bed, would the killer see me?”

Or maybe I want to show angry: 

“I imagine my knuckles crunching against his nose, and I have to bite my lip not to smile.”

Well, I’m sure you get what I’m trying to say now, right?

I hope this post helped someone in some way!!

So how do you like to show feelings?

<3

Mónica

I'm BAAAAACK!!! :D And something about the Baker's Dozen Agent Auction.

Hey guys! So finally, I'm back from my blog hiatus. I'm so happy to see you again, and see what's been going on in the blogosphere while I was gone.

I had a great time on my vacay--in case you were wondering--and when I came back, I finished my YA Fantasy!!! 
SQUEE!!

Now it's in the hands of three lovely betas, and I'm biting my nails to nubbins. Really. I mean, I get sooo nervous knowing that my friends are reading my ms. Eek. Anyway, I'm still wondering if I need a couple of more readers. So in case you know a good beta with experience who is open to reading now, let me know, please! Thanks.

On another note, I wanted to say that I'm really excited that The Baker's Dozen Agent Auction is about to begin! I mean, you know I got my agent there, and I think it's a WONDERFUL opportunity for writers.

People are emailing or DMing me a lot asking about the auction, and I've told them something like this:

1) Be FAST. Last year, the contest filled up in a minute, I think. Maybe this year it will in seconds, who knows. So be there and email your entry right on time.
2) Polish your entry until it shines! And something else about this:

If some of you, my followers, are posting your YA entries on your blogs for your friends to give you suggestions, I wanna help, too! So, if you want, paste your links on the comments section of this post and I'll stop by your blog. I'll comment on the first, I don't know, 10? 15? links. I mean, maybe not many people are doing this blog thing, but in case I get many requests, I know somewhere along the way my brain might get fried (or my kids will want to eat, lol) and I'll have to stop. Still. I'll do my best! :)

<3
Mónica