Another old chestnut with a kernel of pure truth at the centre.  A good writer doesn’t tell a story, she shows it unfolding and that way the reader is drawn in, rather than remaining on the edge of the action.  “Re-reading the letter from her brother the girl felt sad.  It was not good news” is a colourless description compared to “She read the letter again, mouthing the words, the thin pages trembling in her fingers.  When she had finished it, she folded it in half and then in half again, as if the bad news could be shut away inside it, to be hidden in the back of a drawer and then forgotten.”