12d • General discussion
Parakaya Pravesha Writing
Every writing teacher will tell you: show, don't tell.
Almost none of them tell you why it's so hard to do.
Here's why: you can't show what you haven't inhabited. If you're standing outside the scene — watching it happen, reporting on it — the only tool you have is telling.
These tell me what's happening:
- "She was sad."
- "The room was tense."
- "He felt afraid."
These show me what's happening:
- "Her shoulders sagged, and she sighed heavily."
- "Mr. Baker clenched his jaw and fists when Mrs. Fletcher walked in."
- "His body froze when he saw the figure emerge through the closed door."
Do you feel the difference?
In Sanskrit, there's a concept called parakaya pravesha — entering another's body. It describes a yogi who leaves their own form and inhabits another, not to control, but to understand from the inside. To know what can only be known by being there.
That's what writing a scene actually requires.
The philosopher Adi Shankaracharya — a celibate monk who had never known love or marriage — entered the body of a dead king so he could learn what he could not learn as a renunciate. He lived inside another life in order to know it truly. When he came back, he could speak of things he had never experienced. Not because he imagined them. Because he had been there.
That's the job.
Before you write the scene, enter it. Feel the floor under your feet. Smell what's in the air. Know what your character wants so badly they can taste it. Then write. You won't have to think about showing versus telling. You'll have no choice but to render what you lived.
The report comes from outside. The scene comes from inside.
Where in your current project have you been standing outside a scene you should have inhabited?
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Parakaya Pravesha Writing
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