How many times have you told your audience that your character wondered something, rather than actually allowed her to wonder it for herself?

Yes, yes, I hear the “Faith, now you’re really confusing me…” voices out there, so here’s what I mean…

Example:

Jennifer looked around the room. She wondered why her brother couldn’t be bothered to clean up after himself, even when he knew their guests would arrive later today.

Corrected Example:

Jennifer looked around the room. Why didn’t Chris ever bother to clean up?

See what I mean? Rather than telling the reader that the character is wondering, you show it through a direct thought or through the deep third-person POV. This kind of thing crops up with things like:

• he/she wondered
• he/she knew
• he/she thought
• he/she considered
• …etc…

I have a tendency to make this mistake ALL the time in first drafts, and spend a lot of time rephrasing sections of my character’s internal dialogue. It’s that pesky “tell” monster that I have to beat time and time again…

How about you… do you find your character ‘wonders’ and ‘knows’ a little too often on your pages?