# Show don't Tell?



## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

I, first, need to premise this post by saying that I don't read a lot of epic/action fantasy or sword and sorcery. I had no idea who Lovecraft was before I started reading this forum. I barely finished Lord of the Rings, and have never read it again since. (Sheepish face) 

I LOVE books with fantastical elements, or supernatural elements. I love sic-fi, dystopian and speculative fiction. I love magical realism. I can enjoy George RR Martin's low fantasy. High fantasy is just not really my thing, though I have started reading it to broaden my horizons. 

So, with that said, I feel like in the realm of the books and shorts I have been reading recently I have seen a shift away from the old adage "show, don't' tell." 

Correct me if I'm wrong. Please. Perhaps these authors are 'showing'… just not in the way I'm thinking. 

I have just started reading American God's again. I love Gaiman, personally. But this is the beginning of the book: 

" Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don't-****-with me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife. 

The best thing - in Shadow's opinion, perhaps the only good thing - about being in prison was a feeling of relief." 

Ok, so to me, while I love it and it pulls me right in, it seems like telling? Am I wrong? And I feel like if he had started it with 'showing':  "Shadow lay across his thin prison cot expertly passing a coin through his thick fingers…" would not have been as strong of a beginning. 

I recently read a short story on Crazy Horse with a similar intro: 

"Wallace went all the way to Florida to fight a Brazilian middleweight he’d never heard of for ten thousand dollars. That’s what it had come to.
The Brazilian’s name was Thiago something, but everyone called him Cavalo. From what Wallace had gathered, it had something to do with a movie or a TV show that only Brazilian people knew about. No one cared enough to explain it any more than that and anyway Wallace wasn’t overly interested. Everything he needed to know about the guy’s game he could tell just from looking at him. He had shoulders that looked welded on, a neck that existed mostly in theory. The kind of guy who’d be hell on wheels in a street fight." (Fowlkes, Ben. You'll apologize if you have to. Crazy Horse issue 85). 

Again, telling? Maybe am I confused about what telling vs. showing is? 

One of my favourite books From the Corner of His Eye by supernatural author Dean Koontz starts out like: 

"Bartholemew Lampion was blinded at the age of three, when surgeons reluctantly removed his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer, but although eyeless, Barty regained his sight when he was thirteen."

Again, this does not start out with anyone 'doing anything'.

I feel like I'm trying to push myself to do more 'showing' in my stories, but I find that sometimes it does not have the impact of simply 'telling'. 

Am I confused about the difference?


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## FifthView (Oct 26, 2015)

Well, first things first.  The "show, don't tell" adage should never have been considered a rule not meant to be broken.  Both showing and telling are important and useful in their own ways.

For instance, telling usually will take up much, much less time than showing, and sometimes you just want to get information out quickly so you can move on to other things.  For instance, you don't need to "show" a 3-week journey between cities if you know that not much happens during those three weeks.  (If, however, much does happen or drawing it out is important to the story, then maybe you could show a lot.)   And in the examples you've given, the authors are starting with a baseline from which they'll build.  No need to show all these things happening.

I also think this is interesting in your first two examples:  They give, off the bat, a limited 3rd-person P.O.V.  What's interesting about them is that they do, in a way, "show" the character of these characters, even if they are telly when considered abstractly.  In other words, how people think, the things they think, the way they tell about themselves or think about themselves or tell about others, is a way for the author to show something about them.

Perhaps others will come along and break down a little more re: positives of telling and limits of showing.


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## Svrtnsse (Oct 26, 2015)

I think you're right, and it's pretty much all "telling" here. 

It's not wrong to tell though, it's just that in many cases showing is more efficient for connecting with the reader.
What all of your examples above have in common is that they seem to take place over an extended period of time. What exactly happens during this time isn't all that relevant to the story, it's more there to give us a quick rundown of the character's past so that we have a bit of a base to build our impressions on.

I'm pretty sure I'm in a similar situation to you. I'm overdoing the showing and doing nearly no telling. The tricky part is in deciding when to use what.

If connecting with Shadow's three years in prison had been a significant part of the plot and we really needed to identify with that, then the book would probably have been a lot more about it (I don't remember, it's years since I read it), but now it's about different things, and what the description really does is give us an impression of what kind of a person he is.


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## Russ (Oct 26, 2015)

Agreed that is all telling by fine authors.

The interesting feature is that they are all from the beginning of the book/story.

David Morrell, and others, suggest the the place to break from the general rule of tight 3rd person POV and showing not telling is at the very beginning of your novel so that you can quickly set the scene for the reader and give them a little perspective.  While it is a good idea to start as close as you can to either the initiating action, or the turning point action, he and others suggest there is value in giving enough background quickly so the writer cares about the character or understands why the scene is important.

I would agree with him (and them) that if you want to break from close 3rd person POV and do some telling, that the very beginning is the logical and optimal place to do that.

The posters above me also make some points I agree with so I won't bother repeating them.

I think the idea that one should "show and not tell" is a good guideline for the vast majority of one's fictional prose.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 26, 2015)

You should Show, not Tell except in those instances where you should Tell, not Show.

As a new writer, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether I should Show or Tell or if I was Showing or Telling or something.  Truthfully, I think all that worrying was good for me.  I learned a lot about the benefits of each method, and I think that all writers need to understand how to Show (which comes much less naturally than Telling).

So my advice to a new author is:

1. Show. A lot. Learn how to do it instinctively.
2. Once you've got that down, experiment.  Does Telling or Showing work better for your scene?
3. Eventually, you'll build up an intuition about what's working best for you, and you'll be able to just write without worrying about it so much.
4. Even when you reach the point of 3 above, pay attention to beta readers when they tell you you're Telling too much.


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## Incanus (Oct 26, 2015)

I'm finding that there is a pretty good sized discrepancy between the 'rules', and what is found in professional novels.

I have no credentials, and no one has any good reason to listen to me very seriously.  But, for what it's worth, I think you're going about this the right way.  Read, and read more.  And pay attention to what you're reading.  Ask questions and think things through.  Experiment with your own writing.  And don't ever become complacent.


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## Chessie (Oct 26, 2015)

Telling=passive voice, which is necessary in your narrative at certain times (you'll learn what those are as you hone your craft). I tell when connecting/transitioning scenes, for example: 

_Twila went to bed early that night. She tossed and turned on the uncomfortable straw bed, wishing she were back in the palace where she belonged. When morning came, her back couldn't have been any stiffer. (This is mostly telling, right? But for whatever reason, I, the author, believe it needs to be there for now. This can also be turned into a scene during edits, but that's for another discussion.)

Someone rustled in the loft and Twila said, "hello? Who's there?" (here, I would transition into showing since I'm at the right spot) _

This is a loose example showing you can work it from whatever angle you believe tells your story the best. Learning how to show rather than tell on instinct is important if you want to improve (ninj'd by Brian). Sometimes you just have to think about the sentence you've just written and ask if whether it's showing or telling, then rewrite it. It's okay to have passive voice more in the first draft but train yourself out of that with practice. That way there's less for you to edit out later.


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## Steerpike (Oct 26, 2015)

There's nothing wrong with telling.


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## Gospodin (Oct 26, 2015)

Whether one _shows_ or _tells_, whether there is _narrative_ or _dialogue_, whether the writing is terse or waxes rhapsodic, whatever the mode, manner or method, it should always be done with deliberation and intent.  None of the aforementioned is any better or worse or more or less correct than the others.  They each have their place in maximizing how and what you want to get across to the reader.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Yeah, I think my issue right now is mostly confidence. I can read it from others… 

Like Russ, I read your first sentence in the first sentence post… the one about how the third try (or second try at AI) was a disaster. And I felt that it was perfect. It was such a great sentence. Such a great opener. It opened the door to so many questions and made me go "oh… cool… what happens here?" 

If I try to write a sentence like that I will really love it, and then I will second guess myself… "Oh, should it be more showy? There isn't any action here. Nobody is doing anything. I'm just telling and that is a big no-no." Etc. I feel, a little bit, the more I have read about craft the more paralyzed I have become. I used to just write, then fix it all in editing. Now I find I can't turn the rational side of my brain off. I sit down to start things and then all the craft books and tips I have learned come flooding into my mind and I find myself too restricted to even start.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 26, 2015)

One additional point:

It is widely thought that a lot of new writers tend to tell when they should be showing. After all, telling is the way we've been taught to write since grade school (what I was taught, at any rate) whereas showing is a whole 'nother thing. Since we don't know any better when we're starting out, we tend to stick with what we know.

That tendency of new authors is part of the reason you see Show, don't Tell bandied about so much.  It's not that a seasoned author shouldn't do it; it's that new authors aren't doing it, as Gospodin said, "with deliberation and intent."

Maybe the particular style you eventually develop will end up with telling as a main technique, but I think that any author who doesn't learn to show is going to be working with a severe handicap.


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## Steerpike (Oct 26, 2015)

Incanus said:


> I'm finding that there is a pretty good sized discrepancy between the 'rules', and what is found in professional novels.



It's a huge discrepancy.

The "rules," including "show don't tell" serve one primary purpose - to stop new writers inadvertently screwing up things new writers commonly screw up. 

Once you realize that's what they're for, you can understand why so many professional authors deviate from the so-called rules and are nevertheless successful. As Gospodin noted, above, they're being deliberate about their choices rather than stumbling blindly into that territory because they don't know better.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Thanks Brain. Yeah, I get that. I teach writing in a High School, had to do a lot of it in University (both in my BA and Ma) and you are right, it was drilled into us. Show don't tell, Show don't tell. Show don't tell. 

For a long time (10 years) I wrote mostly non-fiction, literary criticism and Historical non-fiction. Mostly essays and magazine articles and helped a lot of historians write educational material. Now that I'm focussing more on fiction I am paying more attention to what I'm reading. Doing my degree in English Lit we read a ton of old stuff. The old guys used to tell all the time. They did a lot of lovely description, but it was a lot of telling. I love Hemingway, and even though he was short on description he was pretty long on telling. 

Now I'm paying more attention to contemporary authors as well and I'm seeing a lot of what might be considered "literary authors" doing what seems like a lot of telling. It works for them, and they have a good balance of showing and telling. 

I'm finding that I'm trying too hard to "show" and it is coming off forced (I think) or I'm adding in paragraphs of material that might just be better suited to a few sentences of telling. Does that make sense? I think I'm too far on the showing spectrum now that it is almost sort of cheapening my writing? 

I'm not sure I'm explaining this clearly enough….


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## FifthView (Oct 26, 2015)

What's amazing is this:  Those new writers have probably also read a lot, but not _read well_.  They've read for enjoyment but not for learning the tools of writing; so, they've missed all the distinctions, the deliberate use of language.  

If you take for example your favorite authors, you can also notice, while reading, when they have and when they have not used _telling_.  Noting the different cases can help as a guide, so that one doesn't fall into the trap of "Always show! Don't tell!"  But even so, organizing and categorizing what you see in a published novel may not be an easy task—because we are used to reading for enjoyment but not accustomed to analyzing it. For instance, *Chesterama's* comment above about using telling for transitions was like a lightbulb going off in my head as I realized that, yes, the start of a novel/story (as in the examples in the OP) _is_ a kind of transition.  Also, transitioning between scenes may often naturally occur when a certain length of time has passed.  So the "3-week journey between cities" that I mentioned above as an example may relate to this transitioning between, for instance, night and day.  And succinctly put, telling puts forward information in order to get it out of the way (whether new information or a touchstone reminder) before the action is taken up with new _showing_.

So noting where telling is used and what it's doing, making a personal list of different types of use for telling, can help out the new writer far more than merely sticking to "Show, don't tell."

[Edit:  Wrote the above before Heliotrope's latest comment.  Yes:  Paying attention while reading.]


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Yes. I think that is helpful. Thank you Fifthview. I was also thinking of Chesterama's comment, and how she noted that there was a section she might turn into a scene… and I think I'm having the problem of taking things that really shouldn't be scenes and trying to turn them into incredibly boring, wordy, descriptive scenes just because I think I'm not supposed to 'tell." 

Again I was reading Gaiman and one transition was literally: 

Time passed. 

I'm having trouble being so clear and concise. I appreciate it in other writers, but have a hard time thinking that way myself. How much of that is "show vs. tell" and how much of that is just style? (simplistic/minimalist vs. heavy detail and description? or Cold vs. warm writing?)


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## Russ (Oct 26, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> If I try to write a sentence like that I will really love it, and then I will second guess myself… "Oh, should it be more showy? There isn't any action here. Nobody is doing anything. I'm just telling and that is a big no-no." Etc. I feel, a little bit, the more I have read about craft the more paralyzed I have become. I used to just write, then fix it all in editing. Now I find I can't turn the rational side of my brain off. I sit down to start things and then all the craft books and tips I have learned come flooding into my mind and I find myself too restricted to even start.



Allow me to offer you some unsolicited advice, after I thank you for the very kind words.

There is actually good scientific and anecdotal evidence that the very best creative writing is done immediately after you wake up or just before you go to sleep when you are quite tired, when you brain is in an in between space and your rational mind is not fully running the show yet.  I  heard several authors talk about that and later say a couple of articles on that.  That might be something that works for you.  Some people can meditate their way into that state but I am not one of them.  Give it a try and see what happens.

Secondly, some writers think of the first draft as the "vommit draft" and the goal is to get is all out and go back and clean it up later.  One very successful Canadian spec fic author (Robert J. Sawyer) says that his craft work only begins once the first draft is done and that the first draft serves like an uncut stone for the sculptor.  That philosophy might help you as well.

Personally I find what has helped me avoid the paralysis of analysis is developing a sense of humour about my faults.  When I write a section and go back to it later and find some piss poor writing instead of kicking myself I now laugh about how funny it is and fix it later.  Writing can be torture but you have to have some fun with it as well.

Give some of these a try, write fearlessly and I am sure you will get overcome your current woes.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

And actually, now thinking about transitions, so could the end of the chapter and start of the chapter count as transitions? Because I'm finding as I read I'm seeing that a lot of my favourite authors use those times to 'set the stage' so to speak. They start with sort of describing the scenery and the backdrop a bit to set the scene before focussing in on the characters. I find I like to do this too when I write, but then I cut it to get right to the nitty gritty right away and then I find my scenes aren't as rich as they could be….


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Yes, Russ, I have also considered my first draft to be like 'clay'. That's what I always tell myself. Just get the damn clay down onto the page. You can't shape something that doesn't exist. I literally picture myself throwing chunks of sloppy, wet messy clay onto the page, knowing it will dry and I can shape it anyway I like after it is done. Sometimes it is just hard to look at such a slippery mess.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 26, 2015)

> I'm finding that I'm trying too hard to "show" and it is coming off forced (I think) or I'm adding in paragraphs of material that might just be better suited to a few sentences of telling. Does that make sense? I think I'm too far on the showing spectrum now that it is almost sort of cheapening my writing?
> 
> I'm not sure I'm explaining this clearly enough….



I've been there.  Believe me, I've been there.

The only way I know of to get past it is to:

Write
Revise
Write
Revise
Write ...

Eventually, I kinda found what works for me.  While I'm still tweaking that style, in general, I don't get caught up in the details any longer.  I truly don't know, however, how to skip the step where you do get caught up in the details; that's the step where you develop a true understanding of those very important details.


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## Chessie (Oct 26, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> I'm having trouble being so clear and concise. I appreciate it in other writers, *but have a hard time thinking that way myself.* How much of that is "show vs. tell" and how much of that is just style? (simplistic/minimalist vs. heavy detail and description? or Cold vs. warm writing?)


Heliotrope, you're experiencing growing pains. I can't think of anyone here who probably hasn't beat themselves up when first learning to write fiction. The stage you're at is natural. You're going to be frustrated. But the only way you'll learn all of this is to just keep writing and studying. One day, you'll realize that now you do understand, it will make sense on its own time.

This isn't information that will switch on in your brain overnight. It takes patience and practice. When you write, be intentional about where the story is going. One thing that I find helpful is to write a short paragraph(s) of the scene I'm about to write before I begin. This way, it's imprinted in my brain and then I can make certain word choices and stylistic influences in the narrative. Telling isn't only nice for transitions, but it can be useful in impacting reader emotions during internal dialogue. Granted, this depends on your story, style, and skill level. 

When is it okay to tell? My suggestion is to continue researching this on the internet and comparing that information to fiction books, just like you're doing. Then apply it to your technique when you write.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Thanks Chesterama. That is encouraging.


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## Incanus (Oct 26, 2015)

Steerpike said:


> It's a huge discrepancy.
> 
> The "rules," including "show don't tell" serve one primary purpose - to stop new writers inadvertently screwing up things new writers commonly screw up.
> 
> Once you realize that's what they're for, you can understand why so many professional authors deviate from the so-called rules and are nevertheless successful. As Gospodin noted, above, they're being deliberate about their choices rather than stumbling blindly into that territory because they don't know better.



Yes.  Exactly.  This is the better, fuller version of what I was saying.



Russ said:


> There is actually good scientific and anecdotal evidence that the very best creative writing is done immediately after you wake up or just before you go to sleep when you are quite tired, when you brain is in an in between space and your rational mind is not fully running the show yet.  I  heard several authors talk about that and later say a couple of articles on that.  That might be something that works for you.  Some people can meditate their way into that state but I am not one of them.  Give it a try and see what happens.



Interesting how this squares with my experience of late.  I write first drafts at night, usually during the 2-4 hours just before hitting the sack.  I sometimes get a little first-drafting in on weekend days, but I'd guess about 95% or more is at night.

But editing I can seem to do at almost any time of day.


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## Gospodin (Oct 26, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> Thanks Chesterama. That is encouraging.



Allow me to add to the encouragement.  Having read your OP, you do seem to have a grasp of what show & tell are.  That's a huge advantage.  Don't know if you play in other writing forums, but the array of (mis)interpretations for what show & tell are can often be bewildering and seem like an insurmountable roadblock to even getting to a place where one can talk about when to use one or the other.  Take heart in that you are on the _other_ side of that roadblock.  You know what the _thing_ is.  Now it's just about when and how to use it.


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## skip.knox (Oct 26, 2015)

Telling is ok, or so I'm told. I have yet to be shown otherwise.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Skip that was awesome.


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## Incanus (Oct 26, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> Skip that was awesome.



Agreed.  Skip is pretty consistently awesome.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Ok, so since I have this post up... Lets pretend this is a sample of my intro to my short I'm working on. (I obviously used some of the structure from one of the story's I posted.) I opted to not use this intro, but I was playing around with ideas and when I'm stumped I like to use the structure of something that exists to get me started. 

Would this be too much telling? 


I went all the way to As’bel with a tomb robber named Handsome to get my soul back from an undead priest I’d never heard of. 

Clutching my Anam lamp over the charred mummy at the tomb’s entrance, I suddenly wasn’t so sure I wanted it. I found out in As’bel that the priest who bought my soul was known as the Paper Man. From what I’d seen of him back in Willing Downs his name was apt. Layer upon layer of crumbling paper-thin skin encasing a dusty heart and petrified rib bones. Four thousand years dead does that to a person. It’s probably a bitch buying souls when your body won’t hold up. Someone should invent something for that. A high-end body oil. They would make a mint. I promised myself if I got out of there I would do some serious investigating into the undead cosmetics industry. _Abilene would have been great at that_, I thought. She used to make the best soap.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 26, 2015)

> Would this be too much telling?



I'm not sure it's "too much telling" that's the issue as much as understanding what information to include and where to include it and then the how to convey it (such as Show vs Tell).



> I went all the way to As’bel with a tomb robber named Handsome to get my soul back from an undead priest I’d never heard of.



Look at all the information you're throwing the reader all at once.  An unnamed protagonist, "As'bel", a tomb robber named Handsome, and an undead priest.  

I had readers complain to me that I introduced too many characters/concepts at the beginning, and mine were way, way more spread out than this.



> Clutching my Anam lamp over the charred mummy at the tomb’s entrance, I suddenly wasn’t so sure I wanted it.



Is it a thing that I don't know or is it something you made up? If the latter, is it important here?

In contrast to your opening, how about this for an opening line:

Clutching my lamp over a charred mummy at the tomb’s entrance, I suddenly wasn’t so sure I wanted my soul back.

That's a pretty killer opening, imo.



> I found out in As’bel that the priest who bought my soul was known as the Paper Man. From what I’d seen of him back in Willing Downs his name was apt. Layer upon layer of crumbling paper-thin skin encasing a dusty heart and petrified rib bones. Four thousand years dead does that to a person. It’s probably a bitch buying souls when your body won’t hold up. Someone should invent something for that. A high-end body oil. They would make a mint. I promised myself if I got out of there I would do some serious investigating into the undead cosmetics industry. Abilene would have been great at that, I thought. She used to make the best soap.



I get that you're trying to create this witty, snarky character voice, but you completely lost the thread of story.  I've got a guy (or girl, who knows?) in an interesting situation.  Then ... nothing.

To me, these kinds of character voice things are fantastic ... when doled out judiciously while the story is happening.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Right. Exactly why I didn't end up using it. OK, so I'm feeling better now. I think I'm sort of figuring it out a bit. 

Thanks for the feedback. It's exactly what I was looking for!


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 26, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> Right. Exactly why I didn't end up using it. OK, so I'm feeling better now. I think I'm sort of figuring it out a bit.
> 
> Thanks for the feedback. It's exactly what I was looking for!



Gotta say though that I really like the opening line:



> Clutching my lamp over a charred mummy at the tomb’s entrance, I suddenly wasn’t so sure I wanted my soul back.



IMO, the second best opening line I've read on these boards.

EDIT: In fact, if you're not going to use it for anything else, you really should do a challenge prompt or something with it.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Actually, the opening line I did end up using was similar. I was with you on too much info all at once


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## FifthView (Oct 26, 2015)

I'd say go back to the examples in your OP, and look at Chesterama's example, and see what else is going on.

Because, although I've mentioned several times using _telling_ to get info "out there" quickly so you can move on to the action, telling should never, ever, ever be merely about info-dumping.*

The first two examples in your OP set the stage but also, I think, give us some basic character development.  For instance, Wallace (the fighter) seems to me to be more trapped, by circumstance, than Shadow even though Shadow is in prison:

That’s what it had come to.​
That line is pretty strong for conveying this impression.  But we are also given "The Brazilian’s name was Thiago _something_" and "it had _something_ to do with" some show that only Brazilian audiences knew–and basically, Wallace "wasn’t overly interested" which was just as well because "no one cared enough to explain it" anyway.   In other words, Wallace wasn't too invested in the whole thing, even if "that's what it had come to."

Contrast that with Shadow.  He's not overly concerned with having to protect himself in prison, because his bases are covered there.  But while there, his mind ranges freely to the things he is interested in, his personal investments–"So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife."   And besides which, "The best thing...about being in prison was a feeling of relief."

Along with giving basic character dynamics, both of these beginnings also set a tone.  The tone will be reliant on the character traits of the two–or, say, their attitudes.

Now look at Chesterama's example.



> Twila went to bed early that night. She tossed and turned on the uncomfortable straw bed, wishing she were back in the palace where she belonged. When morning came, her back couldn't have been any stiffer.



What this does is not only give information (transition between night and day; the fact that Twila slept), but it also sets her disposition for that day:  irritable, frustrated, achy.  We might actually have no need to know that her back is stiff this morning; that's not an info-dump.  But it is setting the tone, so that we may expect (I know I do) that there are going to be edges rubbed, some kind of friction or irritability or frustration etc., underlying Twila's experiences that day.  Actually, this may not happen; something could occur fairly early on in that scene that changes everything.  And for all I know, Chesterama could end the scene/chapter with Twila suddenly remembering how horrible she had felt only that morning.

So, in short, any passages that use telling need to accomplish more than mere info dump.  So....



Heliotrope said:


> I went all the way to As’bel with a tomb robber named Handsome to get my soul back from an undead priest I’d never heard of.
> 
> Clutching my Anam lamp over the charred mummy at the tomb’s entrance, I suddenly wasn’t so sure I wanted it. I found out in As’bel that the priest who bought my soul was known as the Paper Man. From what I’d seen of him back in Willing Downs his name was apt. Layer upon layer of crumbling paper-thin skin encasing a dusty heart and petrified rib bones. Four thousand years dead does that to a person. It’s probably a bitch buying souls when your body won’t hold up. Someone should invent something for that. A high-end body oil. They would make a mint. I promised myself if I got out of there I would do some serious investigating into the undead cosmetics industry. _Abilene would have been great at that_, I thought. She used to make the best soap.



That first line seems to me to be mere info-dump.  Now, if the info is particularly eye-catching or mind-catching, there may not be a problem in dumping info; so, something like,

I went all the way to As’bel to get my soul back from an undead priest named The Paper Man.​
–This, I think, would work.  But as Brian said above, you have dumped so much info in your first line, we readers will get lost trying to isolate what's important.  And if we can't isolate what's important, nothing can particularly catch the eye/mind.

I do like the sort of acerbic chattiness of the rest of the intro, although I think maybe it could be pared down. Plus, you need to hit the important points/ideas (see example of the first line I gave above).  And be sure that the ideas you want presented, the impressions and tone, are want you want to convey.  For instance, "high-end" and "make a mint" and "cosmetic industry" convey a modern environment or modern attitudes, which may be important for you to include early if you want to set your world up early for the reader.  But what is most important for you for your beginning, setting up that world or establishing, at the very beginning, your character's habitual attitude to things, her acerbic world-view?  I'm not saying you can't establish both, but only that you need to be careful not to spread your focus willy-nilly, which would be a little like giving too much info in your first line.




*I hate giving universal absolutes, inviolate rules, however.  So who knows, but maybe an info-dump could be used well in some oddball situations.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 26, 2015)

Those are excellent distinctions Fifth View. Thank you.


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## Bruce McKnight (Oct 26, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> Yes, Russ, I have also considered my first draft to be like 'clay'. That's what I always tell myself. Just get the damn clay down onto the page. You can't shape something that doesn't exist. I literally picture myself throwing chunks of sloppy, wet messy clay onto the page, knowing it will dry and I can shape it anyway I like after it is done. Sometimes it is just hard to look at such a slippery mess.



I feel the same way about writing and I always make it a point to keep this quote in mind when I'm revising:

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

To summarize other comments I agree with on this thread: understand the rules so you know why you're breaking them, then read with the rules in mind to understand why successful authors broke them.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 26, 2015)

One last thought on Show vs Tell (okay, you got me; probably not my last thought on the subject  ):

In the beginning, I wrote:

She was hungry.

And thought it was good.

Then I learned to show, and I wrote:

Her stomach growled.

And I thought: Word ninja!

Then I realized that, to really show hungry, I need a scene where my character shoves rats out of the way to get at the putrid remains of food at the bottom of a dumpster.

And I thought: Gross!

So which is correct?

I think the key to really being an author is that any of the three is correct depending on the circumstances, but my writing really took a leap forward when I finally realized that the third idea was an option.


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## Russ (Oct 27, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> Would this be too much telling?



Nope.  Looks fine to me from that aspect.


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## kennyc (Oct 27, 2015)

FifthView said:


> What's amazing is this:  Those new writers have probably also read a lot, but not _read well_.  They've read for enjoyment but not for learning the tools of writing; so, they've missed all the distinctions, the deliberate use of language.
> ....



Two books that address this (and that I highly recommend):

Reading like a Writer by Francine Prose

The Making of a Story by Alice LaPlante

The key to writing is narration, telling the story, engaging the reader.

There is ton of confusion and bad advice about Showing vs Telling it had me confused for a very long time and I still have plenty to learn.


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## kennyc (Oct 27, 2015)

Incanus said:


> ....
> Interesting how this squares with my experience of late.  I write first drafts at night, usually during the 2-4 hours just before hitting the sack.  I sometimes get a little first-drafting in on weekend days, but I'd guess about 95% or more is at night.
> 
> But editing I can seem to do at almost any time of day.



Reminds me of a song. 


Spoiler: Words


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## evolution_rex (Oct 27, 2015)

'Show don't tell' usually applies, at least for me, with the current emotions, feelings, and thoughts of the characters. I think implication of a deep universe is great by showing instead of telling as well, but sometimes you just have to throw some history lessons in there.


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## Penpilot (Oct 27, 2015)

It's not about showing or telling. It's about knowing when to show and when to tell. And how the two work together to convey the story in a compelling manner. (What ever the hell that means) 

When you think about it, you could consider every sentence telling. "Bob punched the wall." Well that just told me he punched the wall. But what matters is what it's indirectly telling me. He's also mad.

Why is this good? Because that one sentence is doing two jobs. It's conveying an emotion, and it's showing me the expression of that emotion in action. If it's just "Bob was angry", it's stating a fact, which is pretty static and only convey's one thing. 

Showing is indirect. Thus, not always clear. And there's a chance the reader may misinterpret something. Showing is generally longer, but it generally conveys more with less words. See Bob example above.

In its simplest form it reveals something simple, like anger in that sentence with Bob. But this is also in some ways the least important form of showing not telling. The concept applies to higher level things like scenes, chapters, and the whole story itself.

On a story level. You could tell the tale of LOTR as so. Frodo and Sam left the Shire with the one ring, met some interesting people and threw it into MT. Doom. The End.

But that's not too engaging. People tend to want have the story shown to them in a way that makes them feel like they experienced it themselves.

Another partition to story level show don't tell is what are you trying to show me with this story as a whole?  How good always triumphs? How there's always a price for victory?

Every story shows an idea, a concept, a theme, etc. And the telling of the tale is an argument for or against those things.

On a chapter/scene level

You want to show things about your world, your plot, and your characters to the reader, not tell them about it.

Here's an example I gave in another thread in regards to designing a scene where you want to show the reader a bunch of things. 



> For example, lets take a random bunch of elements and see how they can be stitched together into one scene.
> 
> -comic shop owner
> -has trouble with his supplier
> ...


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## Russ (Oct 27, 2015)

Beside PP's excellent points on the subject, showing has another value.

It gives your reader the sense that they have figured something out for themselves rather than having been spoonfed the point.

People don't like being spoonfed, they get a sense of satisfaction from figuring things out for themselves.

It also helps maintain tight 3rd person POV which is very popular these days.


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## kennyc (Oct 27, 2015)

Penpilot said:


> It's not about showing or telling. It's about knowing when to show and when to tell. And how the two work together to convey the story in a compelling manner. (What ever the hell that means)
> 
> .....



Narration.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 27, 2015)

PenPilot that was amazing. I have always played around with having scene goals for myself (not just the character). I usually start with a list just like you showed, especially for the beginning when I need to develop a sympathetic yet interesting character asap. 

I guess what I am struggling with is what you said about "He punched the wall" and what Foster said about 'showing' her shoving away rats to get to food. If I showed every single detail my 6000 word short would be 10,000 words of boring showing scenes, but I will write "He punched the wall" and I feel 'guilty' about it, like I'm cheating. I'm not allowing myself to just tell sometimes. 

But I'm finding that in intro's particularly, telling achieves a lot in a short amount of time. 

It's finding that balance between what the reader needs to know _now_ and info dumping. 

I'm also finding, though that in the contemporary fiction that I'm reading, writers are doing more and more telling, not just at the beginning of the story... So, here is the Crazy Horse story again. This is a few paragraphs from the middle of the story: 

"Wallace spent the next three days alone in his condo, sitting in the dark and feeling sorry for himself. He let his cell phone ring until it died and then made a point of not plugging it in. He watched whatever was on TV. He made a couple attempts at getting drunk, but it wouldn’t take. He iced his head until the swelling started going down, leaving behind a darkening triangle of tissue along his temple. It looked like he’d had an accident while ironing.

After three days he’d had enough. He had to do something, get outside, take a walk. Look, he told himself while standing at the sliding glass door to his deck. It’s a beautiful ****ing day.

He put on his shoes and rolled a joint to keep him company. He didn’t want to risk it on the beach, where there might be people, so instead he headed off into the estuary that started in back of the condos and ran all the way down to Mexico like one long green finger pointing the way out. 

There was a dirt path that dead-ended in about a dozen places, depending on the water level, before eventually snaking its way to the big houses with ocean views on the other side. People didn’t go back in the estuary often. The people in the condos looked out on it every day and the people in the big houses on the other side probably never did. They hadn’t paid all that money to be close to a salt-water swamp." 

And it goes on and on and on like that, until we do get to a showing scene, but I would say 'most' of the story is in narrative/telling voice, and yet it works. 

What is going on here? Is it just the writers style? I like it though. That's what bothers me. It is so simple and clear and easy to read. 

PenPilot, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps the author is 'showing' just in the 'he punched the wall' sort of way instead of the "he lifted his arm and rammed it directly into the drywall. Dust swirled around the room... blah blah blah". 

Russ... your point about close 3rd person hit a nerve with me. lol. I absolutely hate writing in first person and I changed my entire narrative to close third last night because I just couldn't stand it.


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## Penpilot (Oct 28, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> PenPilot, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps the author is 'showing' just in the 'he punched the wall' sort of way instead of the "he lifted his arm and rammed it directly into the drywall. Dust swirled around the room... blah blah blah".



This scene is definitely showing. 




Heliotrope said:


> "Wallace spent the next three days alone in his condo, sitting in the dark and feeling sorry for himself. He let his cell phone ring until it died and then made a point of not plugging it in. He watched whatever was on TV. He made a couple attempts at getting drunk, but it wouldn’t take. He iced his head until the swelling started going down, leaving behind a darkening triangle of tissue along his temple. It looked like he’d had an accident while ironing.



Let's look at this section. First it tells us how he felt, then it shows us how that emotion is played out. If you wanted, you could remove the tell part ("and feeling sorry for himself") and you'd still get the feeling sorry for himself feel from the description.

This is a gray area in show and tell. By removing the tell part, things become a little more unclear. So do you err on the side of clarity or on the side of letting the showing do all the work?

Neither answer is right, it's an authorial choice. 



Heliotrope said:


> After three days he’d had enough. He had to do something, get outside, take a walk. Look, he told himself while standing at the sliding glass door to his deck. It’s a beautiful ****ing day.
> 
> He put on his shoes and rolled a joint to keep him company. He didn’t want to risk it on the beach, where there might be people, so instead he headed off into the estuary that started in back of the condos and ran all the way down to Mexico like one long green finger pointing the way out.



Notice in this section the same pattern is executed. The emotion is told to us and then how it's played out is described.



Heliotrope said:


> There was a dirt path that dead-ended in about a dozen places, depending on the water level, before eventually snaking its way to the big houses with ocean views on the other side. People didn’t go back in the estuary often. The people in the condos looked out on it every day and the people in the big houses on the other side probably never did. They hadn’t paid all that money to be close to a salt-water swamp."



On the surface here, there's a lot of telling. But on a higher level, it's showing us a lot. It shows us the class division between the condo people and the big house people, and that's shown by how they view the estuary. The big house people have a choice. They can look at the ocean or the estuary, and they choose the ocean. The people in the condos don't have a choice. They can only look at the estuary.  

In a subtle way this is showing us that people with money have choices and people who don't have to take what they got. And those who've moved away from the condos to the big houses don't want to return.

I may be reading a lot into a small section, but hopefully this helps.


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## FifthView (Oct 28, 2015)

Penpilot said:


> On the surface here, there's a lot of telling. But on a higher level, it's showing us a lot.



This is similar to the first two examples in the OP.  I think that on some levels telling shows and showing tells.  Even if the authors are telling us about Shadow and Wallace, we are also being shown their predicaments, their attitudes, and what draws their attention.  I think that a close third-person approach will often _show_ us something about the characters when that writing tells.  (I suppose first-person will do this also.)  I also think that telling can be just as descriptive as showing; i.e., not merely abstract telling.

An example Brian used:  A girl digging in a trash bin for food, out of hunger.  We might use an active showing to draw that activity, or we might use a descriptive telling.  In other words, "She was hungry" is not the only way to _tell_ about it.


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## Heliotrope (Oct 28, 2015)

Thanks again pen pilot, that was exactly the analysis I was looking for. You weren't reading into it too much, you were exactly right. Right from the beginning of the story with "that's what it had come to" we see that Wallace has very little choice in what is going on in his own life. 

Ok. You have been (you have all been) terribly helpful. So basically I'm taking away "show when you can, tell when it's meaningful." And hoping for the best that eventually it will all come more naturally.


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## kennyc (Oct 29, 2015)

kennyc said:


> Two books that address this (and that I highly recommend):
> 
> Reading like a Writer by Francine Prose
> 
> ...



And BTW there is an excellent discussion of Showing vs Telling in Chapter 5 of the LaPlante book!


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