Christopher Wright
Sage
This isn't so much a question as it is a post intended to generate discussion.
It is my opinion that the phrase "show, don't tell" is one of the single most over-used and unhelpful pieces of advice people give new writers. It will, in fact, HURT a new writer's development because it over-simplifies a very important and COMPLICATED set of decisions a writer will have to make when writing a story that requires exposition.
It is, in fact, a plea to editors and experienced writers to stop and think before they say that, because it might improve a specific piece of writing, but it will, in general, make the recipient's writing worse.
Before you reach for the flame-thrower, read the rest of this post.
It's not that "telling" isn't a problem -- it is, in fact, a problem. New writers fall back on telling because it's easier than showing. It's easier to write "she was overcome with grief" than it is to actually describe the grief, even when showing the character grieve will be more effective. And that's really how this piece of advice came about -- new writers tell so much that somewhere along the line it became easier to simply say "never do this!"
Except that the advice is wrong. "Showing" and "telling" are both tools. There are times when you need to show, there are times you need to tell. Learning when to do which is difficult, especially since the default setting for writers appears to be "tell..." but not knowing when to tell can ruin your story.
The advantage of showing is that it provides the reader a more visceral, emotional impact with the character, or the scene. But that advantage can also be a disadvantage, because it requires the reader to get more involved in that scene, and as such it might distract the reader from what you really want them to focus on.
Here's a high-level example: Say you have a chapter where Something Important Happens, but it requires some setup. You can TELL the reader what he or she needs to know and then get to the Something Important, or you can SHOW the reader what he or she needs to know and then get to the Something Important.
If you *tell* the reader, 9 times out of ten you'll devote two paragraphs to delivering the information, the information is delivered, then you move on to the important bit, and the important bit remains important. If you *show* the reader... 9 times out of ten "showing" requires more words because you have to convey the images, the actions, the details of the event in order to communicate what's going on. And after you get through all that, suddenly you have a scene that is competing with the reason you introduced the information in the first place. And you really don't want your setup competing with your delivery.
Telling works very well for setting up a show. It generally works better than using a show to set up a show. And readers will tolerate exposition as long as its going somewhere.
Another example, a big one, is writing humor. Showing is very good for conveying emotion, but a lot of humor requires holding emotion at an arms length in order to make it funnier. Most of the funniest parts of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is in the footnotes, or in the sections that quote the guide -- and those are all situations where the author is telling the reader something instead of showing it.
To grossly oversimplify, you show when you want to draw the reader in, you tell when you want to push the reader back a bit -- and sometimes you do want to push the reader back a bit. It's a tactical decision, and a hard one to make, but the writer needs to know all the tools that are available, and that no tool is appropriate for every situation.
Telling: if all you do is tell, it makes a book boring. It's harder for a reader to identify with characters when all you do is tell.
Showing: if all you do is show, the reader will get lost, because they're being forced to construct EVERYTHING in the story, ALL THE TIME. "Making the reader work for it" sounds satisfying, but to misquote Neil Gaiman, "the reader is not your bitch."
None of this is to say that people giving advice shouldn't point out when a writer needs to show instead of tell. This is what makes this particular discussion so difficult, because over-use of tell is a big problem with new writers, and even people who have been writing a long time slip back into it because it's so darn easy. But, and this is my (long, rambling) point, teaching it by using a phrase that implies that you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever tell will be detrimental to a new writer in the long run.
OK, you can all beat me up now.
It is my opinion that the phrase "show, don't tell" is one of the single most over-used and unhelpful pieces of advice people give new writers. It will, in fact, HURT a new writer's development because it over-simplifies a very important and COMPLICATED set of decisions a writer will have to make when writing a story that requires exposition.
It is, in fact, a plea to editors and experienced writers to stop and think before they say that, because it might improve a specific piece of writing, but it will, in general, make the recipient's writing worse.
Before you reach for the flame-thrower, read the rest of this post.
It's not that "telling" isn't a problem -- it is, in fact, a problem. New writers fall back on telling because it's easier than showing. It's easier to write "she was overcome with grief" than it is to actually describe the grief, even when showing the character grieve will be more effective. And that's really how this piece of advice came about -- new writers tell so much that somewhere along the line it became easier to simply say "never do this!"
Except that the advice is wrong. "Showing" and "telling" are both tools. There are times when you need to show, there are times you need to tell. Learning when to do which is difficult, especially since the default setting for writers appears to be "tell..." but not knowing when to tell can ruin your story.
The advantage of showing is that it provides the reader a more visceral, emotional impact with the character, or the scene. But that advantage can also be a disadvantage, because it requires the reader to get more involved in that scene, and as such it might distract the reader from what you really want them to focus on.
Here's a high-level example: Say you have a chapter where Something Important Happens, but it requires some setup. You can TELL the reader what he or she needs to know and then get to the Something Important, or you can SHOW the reader what he or she needs to know and then get to the Something Important.
If you *tell* the reader, 9 times out of ten you'll devote two paragraphs to delivering the information, the information is delivered, then you move on to the important bit, and the important bit remains important. If you *show* the reader... 9 times out of ten "showing" requires more words because you have to convey the images, the actions, the details of the event in order to communicate what's going on. And after you get through all that, suddenly you have a scene that is competing with the reason you introduced the information in the first place. And you really don't want your setup competing with your delivery.
Telling works very well for setting up a show. It generally works better than using a show to set up a show. And readers will tolerate exposition as long as its going somewhere.
Another example, a big one, is writing humor. Showing is very good for conveying emotion, but a lot of humor requires holding emotion at an arms length in order to make it funnier. Most of the funniest parts of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is in the footnotes, or in the sections that quote the guide -- and those are all situations where the author is telling the reader something instead of showing it.
To grossly oversimplify, you show when you want to draw the reader in, you tell when you want to push the reader back a bit -- and sometimes you do want to push the reader back a bit. It's a tactical decision, and a hard one to make, but the writer needs to know all the tools that are available, and that no tool is appropriate for every situation.
Telling: if all you do is tell, it makes a book boring. It's harder for a reader to identify with characters when all you do is tell.
Showing: if all you do is show, the reader will get lost, because they're being forced to construct EVERYTHING in the story, ALL THE TIME. "Making the reader work for it" sounds satisfying, but to misquote Neil Gaiman, "the reader is not your bitch."
None of this is to say that people giving advice shouldn't point out when a writer needs to show instead of tell. This is what makes this particular discussion so difficult, because over-use of tell is a big problem with new writers, and even people who have been writing a long time slip back into it because it's so darn easy. But, and this is my (long, rambling) point, teaching it by using a phrase that implies that you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever tell will be detrimental to a new writer in the long run.
OK, you can all beat me up now.