To Show Or To Tell: Options For Developing Skills Discussions

While writing business eBooks that focus on teaching others the arts required in developing skills for use in their daily lives, there will be times when you find yourself at a loss. You know what you want to tell your readers, but somehow, telling them just doesn't feel right. You've probably heard that old writer's saying of "show, don't tell". It seems like a simple enough concept, but when you're struggling to create the difference in your writing, you know that showing your readers how something is done is far from simple.

There exists a distinct difference between telling your reader something and actually showing it to them. When writing for SkillBites, however, you must do one or the other. With filler being something that we forbid in our eBooks, you must determine how you can get your message across without repeating yourself in circular discussions and multiple examples.

Because of this, you must work to narrow down exactly what you want to show, or to tell, your readers before you begin the writing process. Here are a few tips to help you in writing your business eBooks without needlessly repeating sections on developing skills.

1) If you're going to tell your readers something, make sure you tell it in a logical order. Take some time and map out, step by step, everything that needs to be done, and in the order that it must be done in. Follow this map while you write to make sure you don't leave any steps out.

2) Remember to break up long strings of sentences into multiple paragraphs. While it is technically possible to corral every sentence about a certain step into a single paragraph, these long paragraphs tend to scare readers. Pick a logical point in the discussion and break it into a new paragraph. You may use as many paragraphs as necessary to get your point across.

3) When you choose to show your readers something, it does not necessarily mean including a picture. Including a discussion for developing skills in your business eBook can take the form of a short story in which your characters perform the skills in detail. It may also include comparisons to other common skills that your readers already know how to do. Showing your reader just requires some creative thinking.

4) Break the different sections of your entire description up into different chapters if you need to. Using the chapter break is a time-honored means of cementing the process of shifting gears between steps in an activity. Just make sure that you break the instructions for developing skills like this into natural chunks, such as preparation, detail work, or bringing it all together at the end.

If you can keep these four tips in mind while you're describing a new skill set to your reader, you will be able to convey even the most complicated tasks as sets of simplified and easy to comprehend instructions.