Finally cracked the 'show don't tell' rule after 2 years of writing

I kept reading prompts where everyone describes a character as 'angry' or 'sad' and it just kills the scene for me. Last week I tried a prompt that said 'write a character who just lost their dog' and instead of saying they cried, I wrote about them leaving the food bowl out for three mornings. That tiny shift made the whole piece feel real, and two people in the comments actually said it hit them hard. Has anyone else had that moment where a writing rule finally clicked after seeing it done right? What prompt got you there?

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nancy3015d ago

The food bowl detail is exactly the kind of thing that makes writing click. I had the same breakthrough with a scene about a character who lost his wife, and instead of saying he was lonely, I wrote about him making coffee for two people out of habit.