Writing Workshop: Showing vs. Telling Using War and Peace

We've all heard of the adage, "show, don't tell" but in practice it can feel nearly impossible to implement. The truth is, all writing requires a delicate balance of both showing and telling. Leo Tolstoy employs both throughout the entirety of War and Peace. We will dissect passages and scenes that show examples of both showing and telling to try and understand why he chose to show versus tell, why that choice works (or doesn't), and how we can make similar judgement calls in our own work.

You will receive printed out passages from the book. No previous reading or knowledge of the book is required. Please bring pen and paper if you wish to take separate notes.

The workshop will be led by author and Liz's Book Bar owner, Maura Cheeks. Maura Cheeks is the author of Acts of Forgiveness, a novel published by Penguin Random House. Her other writing has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Paris Review. In 2019 she was awarded the Masthead Reporting Residency for The Atlantic’s first residency program where she worked on the feature article that would later inspire the idea for her novel.

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