Thread: Show and not tell in a letter

I got a question about showing and not telling (just like Lord Raiden did).

I have an assignment to write a story through letters. It will be letters from a woman to her unborn baby. I want to try as to show rather than tell, but clearly I can't describe the behavior of the person by writing "Lizzy felt her heartbeat increase as she watched the lion approach her" (just an example)

Any advice on how I could show and not tell emotions in a letter?

A curriculum of actions and events; what Lizzy would do each day - where she would do it, how she would do it, how often, etc. Perhaps Lizzy walks along a dirt road, her hands straying from the long grass to her belly every so often. She walks without shoes on. It is through these details that you can utilize and portray emotional resonance. Letters that overly state how one feels are boring, anyway. You can say that you're freaking pissed off, or you can say that you went to the shed out back, sharpened an axe, grabbed a 30-pound wood round from a sawed-up tree trunk and went to town on it, thinking of your cheating husband with every destructive stroke.

Lizzy can show her emotions with gestures, with stories about things she's doing (like "I spent all day rifling through baby name books today for the girl name that will best describe my hopes for you. Katharine means noble and Ava means bearer of light." or "Today, I was supposed to be working on my new novel but instead I shopped for your first outfit. I didn't know what to tell the shop owner when she found me on the floor of her store surrounded by miniature pink dresses, crying. Though, I don't think I really needed to explain." Good luck. Sounds like a fun assignment!