# Let's Talk about Show Don't Tell



## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Nothing is more frustrating for a writer than the old adage of "show, don't tell."

The first time I encountered this terrible (well meaning) advice was at a writer's workshop for teachers about seven years ago. The instructor used the example of "the milk spilled." He told us that was telling, and we needed to re-write it as "showing"... what would it look like? Smell like? Sound like?

It all seems well and good and you come away feeling like it is a magical formula for writing immersive fiction... until you realize that if you show every single thing in your story it is going to be a million words long.

So now what? What do you tell and what do you show? What does show, don't tell actually mean?

For me, personally, show don't tell is big picture. Not the little line by line incidentals.

If a writer opens up with a scene showing two sisters nicely playing with dolls, but the writer then goes on to tell me "Suzie didn't really like her sister. She found her annoying." I might pause for a moment and think... well, why didn't you show me that? You have shown me something totally different than what you are telling me.

When I am planning a scene I make a list of scene goals. They might include something along the lines of "Show why the MC thinks her dad is lazy." "Show her frustration with having to look after him all the time."

Big picture stuff. Not the tiny, line by line details.

Another way I think of it is, as Dem puts it (thanks to Buzz Lightyear), showing is just _telling with style._  I love to use the first lines of American Gods for this example.

_Shadow had done three years in prison. He looked big enough and don't fuck 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 his wife. 
_
Gaiman could have spent four chapters showing life in prison. Showing Shadow sitting around feeling sad. Showing him taking coin trick books out from the library and teaching himself... but again, then the story would be ten thousand words long. This is where you need to use discretion as an author. About how long do you want your story to be? Be reasonable. Don't say "as long as it needs to be". How much sitting around moping is your reader going to tolerate? Sometimes you have to cut the showing so that you can get to the good parts. Show those. Show the stuff that really matters. For the rest, just use "telling with style." lol. 

What do you think Scribes?

How do you use the rule of show, don't tell? When do you know when to show and when to just tell?

How do you define the phrase?


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## skip.knox (Jan 16, 2018)

It's completely instinctive with me. Some things need 'splainin' and something things don't. I couldn't begin to tell you how I distinguish. I deeply doubt I'm consistent. This extends to crit work. I'll point it out readily enough, but danged if I can tell you what general principle I was following. I doubt I'm consistent there either.

Helpful, ain't I?


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## Penpilot (Jan 16, 2018)

Show don't tell was one of the first pieces of writing advice that I took way too far. Aside from making things waaaaay longer, if you go too far with it, things can get vague. But, there's no better teacher than failure. 

Any ways, I'm in agreement. Over the years I've come to realize the most important parts of showing take place in the big picture environment, scene and story level. A writer can make some very powerful statements this way.

I've mentioned this many times, but one of my favorite books that does this is Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. And my favorite movie that does this is No Country for Old Men.

At first I was scratching my head over the endings of these two stories, but when it finally clicked that they were telling me, it was like a light flicking on, shinning a light on to what the story as a whole was trying to show me, or at least what I think it's trying to show me.

For me, I try to design it into my scenes and overall story, but with the smaller stuff, I just play it by ear.


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## Night Gardener (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope I use the 'show, don't tell' adage to the same effect of directors using visual storytelling. If you can watch lengthy scenes with little to no dialogue, and still understand there is a narrative, _that's _'show, don't tell'. 

The best example I can give is the first 15 minutes of  "Wall-E".  Totally immersive, descriptive narrative with virtually no contextual dialogue from characters and no voiceover narrator.  Yet, the audience "gets" the story. 

There's some discretion and artistic license, for sure. Sometimes, it's absolutely necessary to voice-over (tell) because it's for the sake of structure, pacing, editing, etc. Your example of Shadow serving a prison sentence for 4 years is an excellent example. Or, when the (omnipresent) narrator is not a passive force/voice and can inform the reader to information/context that the characters cannot know, etc. I'm basically keeping to one point of view (for now) of the MC. 

I think 'visually' anyway, so 'showing' is a natural reflex. The only thing I try to keep in mind is the relevance of what I'm showing, so reader's don't get bogged down in too many details. In that regard, anything that I'm showing has to be purposeful to the story. I don't let myself elaborate too much on details that *I* the author find interesting. Details have to be worth knowing and remembering, for characters and/or readers. It's curbing my world building a bit, but I can always go back and write-in more information. I do elaborate on the details that [should] matter to the characters. 

Hopefully, I'm striking the right balance.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 16, 2018)

When I first came into contact with "Show, don't tell" as a writer, I too grasped onto this bit of advice a bit too hard. It took a while to learn that an over reliance on showing resulted in writing that was equally as troublesome as an over reliance on telling. The problem, I slowly came to realize, is that if you show everything, offer up active details and active description for every little bit, nothing stands out. Nothing.

I now view the "Show, don't tell" rule differently. I show when I want to draw the audience's attention to something, whether it be a character's emotional state, their perception of some object, or any other number of possibilities, in  a way that immerses the reader in that moment to a greater degree than just blurting it out would. 

Truth is, telling done well can be just as engaging if it piques interest (as your Gaiman example does, which I also adore as a novel and as an opening). Telling is a broad brush that gives a picture its shape. Showing is a fine point that draws the eye.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 16, 2018)

I often think about it as I'm about to write something to the effect of ~ _She felt X._ Then I cut to dialogue, either internal or with another character and let the scene be carried that way (although I do leave_ felt _behind sometimes).


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

I have never had the audacity to say so, but I've always viewed Show, Don't Tell as..... well, middle school english class stuff.

_"Okay class, this time we're going to write a story instead of an essay.  That means you have to show me what happens instead of tell me what happens. I'm going to circle and take off points for anything that strikes me as telling, so please get into the narrative."
_
Or, it's like if somebody asks, "Do you know anything about physics?" and somebody answers, "Of course!  Gravity pulls things down."

Yes, _show don't tell_ is one of those fundamental building blocks to a narrative.  But it's so fundamental and so basic that as writing advice, out of some kind of context, it's almost absurd.

Gravity pulls things down, sure. And up, because it actually pulls things to the center.  But it also keeps the planets in orbit circling around the sun, and there's so much other gravity in our solar system that sun moves a bit too, pulling everything with it.  But yes, gravity pulls things down, and Isaac Newton got hit in the head with an apple.  Let's award you with a degree in physics.....


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Devor said:


> I have never had the audacity to say so, but I've always viewed Show, Don't Tell as..... well, middle school english class stuff.
> 
> _"Okay class, this time we're going to write a story instead of an essay.  That means you have to show me what happens instead of tell me what happens. I'm going to circle and take off points for anything that strikes me as telling, so please get into the narrative."
> _
> ...



In some ways it is.... in some ways it isn't. I think that symbolism and metaphor and imagery tie into the "show" aspect of thing. 

A masterful writer will be able to find symbols and metaphors to show certain themes. A great one I read recently was a family drama. The woman and man had been trying, unsuccessfully to conceive. The woman went for groceries, and pulled over on a cliff to ponder the predicament. In her rage she started throwing groceries off the cliff. She threw twelve eggs over the edge... exactly the same number of eggs she felt she "wasted" on the IVF. 

This takes some serious skill. This isn't basic level stuff, IMO. This is the sort of "showing" that takes a higher level of expertise.


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

I should probably apologize for my tone above - I tend to go through phases of wind up and release, and right now I'm finding myself inclined to vent a little.



Heliotrope said:


> In some ways it is.... in some ways it isn't. I think that symbolism and metaphor and imagery tie into the "show" aspect of thing.
> 
> A masterful writer will be able to find symbols and metaphors to show certain themes. A great one I read recently was a family drama. The woman and man had been trying, unsuccessfully to conceive. The woman went for groceries, and pulled over on a cliff to ponder the predicament. In her rage she started throwing groceries off the cliff. She threw twelve eggs over the edge... exactly the same number of eggs she felt she "wasted" on the IVF.
> 
> This takes some serious skill. This isn't basic level stuff, IMO. This is the sort of "showing" that takes a higher level of expertise.



As with a lot of advice and perspectives, people have to find what works for them.  If _show, don't tell_ takes somebody's writing to a place like this, then by all means.  Honestly, the last thing I want to do is ruin anybody's mojo.  I think most of us feel that there's a certain type of energy we have to maintain as writers, and that protecting that energy is one of the most important parts of learning to write.  If show don't tell helps keep somebody going, honestly, that person should ignore the hell outta me in this discussion.

For me, show don't tell doesn't suggest anything like the scene above.  To me, I'd be more worried about having to cut the small amount of telling it would take to establish the symbolism between the eggs and the IVF.

Show don't tell doesn't work for me at all.  I personally avoid it as a writing perspective even in those cases where it's appropriate because it feels so excessively... simple.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

So what do you do instead?... How do you present your story to the reader if not with showing and telling? And without symbolism, metaphor, or imagery?


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> So what do you do instead?... How do you present your story to the reader if not with showing and telling? And without symbolism, metaphor, or imagery?



Again, I don't _not _show, I just don't think about my writing in terms of showing and telling.  It's not a perspective that works for me at all.

I think about the heart of the scene, and then the flow of different pieces that lead into to it. Sometimes there's layers - like I'll write the dialogue first (if it's that kind of scene), then isolate the big payoff moments to develop them a little more, then fill in the narrative and character voice so that it runs together.

Show don't tell just isn't useful for me to think about at all.

I don't really agree that symbolism, metaphor and imagery is showing.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Devor said:


> Again, I don't _not _show, I just don't think about my writing in terms of showing and telling.  It's not a perspective that works for me at all.
> 
> I think about the heart of the scene, and then the flow of different pieces that lead into to it. Sometimes there's layers - like I'll write the dialogue first (if it's that kind of scene), then isolate the big payoff moments to develop them a little more, then fill in the narrative and character voice so that it runs together.
> 
> ...



Okay. But how do you know what is important to present to the reader? How do you know what parts of the story are relevant to the _story, _and what ones are not? How do you choose what to present?


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## Chessie2 (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> So what do you do instead?... How do you present your story to the reader if not with showing and telling? And without symbolism, metaphor, or imagery?


How about with engagement?


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Right. So what does that mean? Elaborate on engagement....


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 16, 2018)

As an aside, symbolism, metaphor and simile might be showing. They could also, in their simplest forms, be telling.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> As an aside, symbolism, metaphor and simile might be showing. They could also, in their simplest forms, be telling.



For me it is all either showing or telling. Setting, dialogue, characterization, symbolism, metaphor, simile, imagery.... it can only be either shown or told in my mind. This is why I'm intrigued by how Devor and Chessie see it. I'd love them to elaborate more so I can see it a different way.


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Okay. But how do you know what is important to present to the reader? How do you know what parts of the story are relevant to the _story, _and what ones are not? How do you choose what to present?



Okay, here's a scene I wrote recently.  It's the third and last scene in a chapter of Ladybug fanfiction.  If you want, you can think about what's showing, what's telling, and what's kind of neither while you read through it.



> Chat Noir sat perched on the roof of Notre Dame, looking over the river with his baton between his legs and one claw flicking occasionally on his bell.  Ladybug watched him from the distance, taking a nervous breath before throwing out her yoyo and swinging in beside him.  “I knew you’d be out,” she said, trying to be casual.
> 
> “I wish it was a happier night,” Chat Noir muttered in a tone that was unlike him. He didn’t look at her but stared into the night sky. “Plagg said transforming would help with the pain. I’ve never seen him so shaken up. How is Tikki?”
> 
> ...



In this scene, I knew I wanted to do three things:

 - Get through the plot stuff about the kwamis as quickly as possible.
 - Establish that Chat Noir has really given up on pursuing Ladybug.
 - Demonstrate that Ladybug is sad about this without ever admitting it to herself.

I'm ignoring the kwami stuff at the beginning for our purposes (it makes more sense in light of the rest of the chapter).

The first thing I wanted to focus on was Chat Noir's sadness.  He's decided to give up on pursuing the woman he loves, and is telling her. It's not something I want to _show_ or _tell_, it's something I wanted readers to _feel, _constantly, throughout the scene, like there's no escaping it. It's in the way he looks at her, or doesn't. It's in his words and pauses. It's there in Ladybug's observations and reactions. It's the heart of the scene.

I also wanted readers to feel the jumble of Ladybug's feelings about all this. She comes into the scene thinking she owes him a chance to get to know him better, and that's the moment she's getting what she had always wanted - for him to move on.  She wanted to open up just as he finally decided to pull back. How does that make her feel?  I needed that confusion to come across so that she can later realize that this moment was a terrible mistake.

Now, I'll admit, I did type out the above, realize I used the word "show" at one point, and then changed it because, you know.  But I don't think of any of this in, what strikes me as a weird battle between showing and telling. I want readers to experience something, and I use every moment in the story that I can to try and drive those feelings home, whether it's narrative, or dialogue, or a character's voice, or a clever turn of phrase, or an awkward narrative insert.  The reader's experience is what matters.


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## Chessie2 (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Right. So what does that mean? Elaborate on engagement....


It seems pretty straightforward. I don't feel like elaborating. Sorry.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Devor said:


> It's not something I want to _show_ or _tell_, it's something I wanted readers to _feel, _constantly, throughout the scene, like there's no escaping it.



This is lovely, and I think this is where a lot of our miscommunication is coming from  

When I write a post about show and tell I'm leaving out the "feel"... I had to think about why this is. I think for me, the "feel" is the given. I think we all want our reader's to feel something. 

Now, we differ slightly in how we make that work. I don't believe I can make my reader's feel anything. I think they are going to feel what they are going to feel. It will hopefully be something close to what I want them to feel, but mostly I just present (or show) the story, and my character's emotions, as best I can and hope they feel _something. 
_
You, on the other hand, are trying to craft specific emotions in your reader. Which is totally good and not wrong. It is a noble quest. 



Devor said:


> In this scene, I knew I wanted to do three things:
> 
> - Get through the plot stuff about the kwamis as quickly as possible.
> - Establish that Chat Noir has really given up on pursuing Ladybug.
> - Demonstrate that Ladybug is sad about this without ever admitting it to herself.



This is interesting, because we go about planning our scenes in a very similar way. Only the language is different. Where you use "get through the plot stuff as quickly as possible" I use "tell". 

Where you use "Establish that Chat Noir has really given up on pursuing Ladybug" I would say "Show that Chat Noir has given up on pursuing ladybug." 

Seriously, the only thing different is semantics. 



Devor said:


> Now, I'll admit, I did type out the above, realize I used the word "show" at one point, and then changed it because, you know.



No. I don't know? Why? Because you are opposed to the word? Or because you are opposed to the fact that maybe we have more in common than you would like to admit? 



Devor said:


> I want readers to experience something, and I use every moment in the story that I can to try and drive those feelings home, whether it's narrative, or dialogue, or a character's voice, or a clever turn of phrase, or an awkward narrative insert. The reader's experience is what matters.



Agree. 100% agree. I have never argued this. When I'm writing I'm not trying to tell a dry, boring, zombified story. I also am trying to show a vast range of truth and humanity, and trying to get the reader to "feel" along with my characters. 

Whether that emotion is fear, anger, sadness, grief, or joy.... I purposely choose what to "show" and what to "tell" to make that happen. Just like you choose what to "Get through quickly" and what to "establish or demonstrate".


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> No. I don't know? Why? Because you are opposed to the word? Or because you are opposed to the fact that maybe we have more in common than you would like to admit?



No... because for the purposes of the conversation I didn't want to conflate what I saw as two different uses of the word.  I did want to _show _readers that Chat Noir felt sad, but on the actual tactical level there was a lot of _telling_ involved in doing so.  It wasn't _show as opposed to tell_ but _show_ as in _this happens to be a word I use sometimes when listing things I want to establish (by any means necessary) in the scene._

You can, you know, make of that what you will.

By the way, did you like the scene?


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Devor said:


> By the way, did you like the scene?



I did like the scene.



Devor said:


> I didn't want to conflate what I saw as two different uses of the word. I did want to _show _readers that Chat Noir felt sad, but on the actual tactical level there was a lot of _telling_ involved in doing so.



bingo.

And this is exactly where the "show, don't tell" advice gets tripped up. What I've seen is that a writer (usually newer writer) on forums will get his or her hands on this advice and go crazy with it. Someone will post something like the snippet you posted above and ask for a critique.

The new writer, all armed in his "show don't tell knowledge" will start highlighting sentences left, right, and centre saying "this is telling. Show this instead," without any thought to the bigger picture. Without asking what the point of the scene was. Without considering what the goal of the writer was for that scene.

In my mind, Show and tell have to do with the big picture stuff. The structure of the scene. The point of the scene. The larger, over arching goals of the scene. Not the tiny incidental lines. HOW you show that goal is up to you. You may "tell it" lol. But you are still showing what you need to show.

I think it is this double meanings of the words that confuses people.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 16, 2018)

Show don’t tell isn’t simple, it just looks that way, in part because it is story-telling, not story-showing. Showing in print really only takes place in graphic novels, comics, or other related media. Advertising. I have seen so many people bicker amidst the weed of SdT that I finally settled on my own way of looking at it.

Disclaimor: When I’m writing or editing I never think of show or tell. Ever. Never have.

My basic principle for what is and isn’t showing is simple in the micro: Does it paint a picture? But of course, it really isn’t that simple. It’s the level of detail that folks will often consider for whether it is show or tell, hence the “showing with style” comment. Let’s say you write this.

_James stood and stared as a car driven by Bob squeeled around the corner without stopping for a red light.

James said, “That bastard needs to die.”_

Well, there is sort of a picture there, yeah? But in a vaccuum it will likely be labeled “telling”. Why? Because it’s not much of a picture. This leads to telling with style...

_The glass packs of the canary yellow Mustang rumbled down Fifth Avenue, and roared to life as the lights turned red. The driver howled and gave James the bird as tires squealed through the turn.

James said, “That bastard needs to die.”

#_2 paints a more vivid picture, and would go read unmarked by “show don’t tell”. I hope.

A macro example has at least three levels, and a typical situation might go a bit like this. You are starting book 2, and the core of the events take place 5 years after the end of book 1.

#1= Pure Telling — It’d been five years since the Battle of Five Forks and today was the first time Francesca had seen LeRoy clean and oil his revolvers since that bloody day. They’d married and brought five chidlren into the world together in peace, but the look on his face now reminded her of their haunting, bloody past.

#2= Blended or partial showing— Francesca slipped through the cabin’s front door with a smile on her face and an arm full of flowers, but the smell of solvents and oil dropped her lips to a frown. She tossed the bouquet onto the table at the sound of a wire brush and strode into the living room. LeRoy sat hunched over his pair of Remington revolvers, which had sat stowed and unused in the sock drawer since the Battle of Five Forks. Five years of peace to build a home and family.

LeRoy turned, his expression dour. “Why, Mrs. Levington. You’re early.”

Junior trotted through the door, the eldest of their three children, and almost four years old.

#3 Pure Showing= You kick book 2 to book 3 and spend book 2 writing the entire story of the five years, heh heh. Or 150 pages, whatever.


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> In my mind, Show and tell have to do with the big picture stuff. The structure of the scene. The point of the scene. The larger, over arching goals of the scene. Not the tiny incidental lines. HOW you show that goal is up to you. You may "tell it" lol. But you are still showing what you need to show.



From where I'm standing, I think you might possibly be the only person who interprets it that way.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Devor said:


> From where I'm standing, I think you might possibly be the only person who interprets it that way.



Nope. Penpilot sees it that way too. Lots of courses I have taken also present it that way. (which why it is useful to get out and take courses or go to workshops instead of reading questionable advice on the internet.)


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## Svrtnsse (Jan 16, 2018)

The advice of "show, don't tell" was one of the first writing rules I came across. The other one was "don't use passive voice." I learned both of these rules here on the forum and they had a lot of impact on how I developed as a writer.

I'm probably still doing way too much showing in my stories, but I'd like to think I've curbed the worst of it. Thing is, I kind of enjoy writing in a showing way. It feels good to me. 

I looked at the discussion in this thread, and either I'm too unfocused to really get into it, or it's a bit above my head as far as theory goes. I didn't have the energy/focus to read all of the posts (no offense intended).

What I get though, is that the advice of _show don't tell_ is a lot more complex than it would seem at first. There are times when it can be applied, and there are times where it's better ignored. 

I've written a lot about descriptions, and about how I try to _show_ things to my readers when I write. A point I try to make a lot is that any image the reader creates on their own in their mind is a lot stronger to them than anything I can describe in words. I also focus on the importance of first impressions and how long it takes to make one.
Keeping this in mind it's quite easy to give the reader a vivid image without wasting too much time describing details. 

What I haven't thought much about is when it's better to tell than to show.

In Emma's Story I got around this by swapping between to different narrative voices. One is all _show _and is mainly used for conversations and other important events. The other voice uses a lot more telling, and moves the story from one "important event" to the next. It was fun to write, but I don't think I could apply that to every single story.

Apart from that, it's only just recently I've started reflecting on overuse of showing. I bumped into an article on "good telling" a while back (I shared it in a thread), and I thought a little about it at the time, but got distracted and forgot about it. 

I'm sure I've been doing way too much showing in the past, but I like to believe I've reached the level where I can recognise that something I'm describing just isn't relevant and doesn't need to be added. I guess that's a step in the right direction.


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## skip.knox (Jan 16, 2018)

One problem I have with the phrase is it pretends to a dichotomy. The words are just words. What we say about them is an abstraction of the direct experience. This is fine; it's how we talk about story. But that phrase implies that there is showing, which is wholly separate from telling, and together they represent all there is to narrative. I don't really buy that. As others have noted, it can easily lead a writer (or editor) into looking at the prose in these mutually exclusive terms, driving out all nuance and subtlety, and forcing the writer into a false choice. Bang that drum loud enough and the writer begins to get tone deaf.

That's not to say there's no there there, but I look at it more in terms of distance. If the words create too much distance, I start to lose the reader. This most often happens when I myself am too distant during the writing. Especially with emotions, when I'm not fully engaged I find myself using labels--"he was baffled"--over descriptions. It happens in other description as well. Crowds filled the marketplace. I'll write that because I'm headed on to the next thought or sentence and am not fully *in* the marketplace. On a rewrite, I may decide the crowd and the marketplace weren't really important and will drop the sentence. Or, if they are important, a few phrases may suffice. Or I may have to describe actually traversing the space, complete with noises, smells, and encounters. 

The only place where I can imagine a show-don't-tell comment being useful is if I and my editor have agreed on it as a kind of shorthand. As advice to novice writers one will never meet, I'm too aware of the damage it can do.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> kind of shorthand



This is the way I see it too. Like a "universal language" so we can know what we are talking about... however, it is so nuanced and convoluted it wouldn't matter anyway. The problem, as I see it, is that it has sort of distilled down to mean a singular thing, and lost all it's nuance. When that happens it makes for cut and dry editing, which is a problem IMO. 



skip.knox said:


> Crowds filled the marketplace. I'll write that because I'm headed on to the next thought or sentence and am not fully *in* the marketplace. On a rewrite, I may decide the crowd and the marketplace weren't really important and will drop the sentence



This is how I work too. Weeding out what needs to be there. If it does, I expand. If it doesn't, I cut.


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## skip.knox (Jan 16, 2018)

That's why I mentioned an editor. I could see such terms being used between two individuals, or even within a crit group, if they were of long acquaintance. It becomes less useful as it becomes more anonymous, and downright harmful when it appears on those pestilential blog lists.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 16, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> That's why I mentioned an editor. I could see such terms being used between two individuals, or even within a crit group, if they were of long acquaintance. It becomes less useful as it becomes more anonymous, and downright harmful when it appears on those pestilential blog lists.



Yeah, it could easily be defined for a writing group... Most times I think it would be more accurate to say “more show” than show don’t tell.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 16, 2018)

Oh yes, totally forgot... Chat Noir and Ladybug, fun stuff! My daughter watched that show on Netflix, so I enjoyed this piece. It is well written, and I suspect it works for the TA and genre. At least it does for me.

Another side point: A poorly written show will probably get called out for “show don’t tell” faster than a well-written tell, LOL.


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## Penpilot (Jan 16, 2018)

For clarity, I thought I'd share an example of what I consider showing. There's bits of telling, but what matters is what that telling shows. Please excuse some of the heavy handedness. It's just something I came up with on the fly.



> Lathias pushed into the brothel. He immediately noticed a thief glancing at the medallion around his neck. It was bronze, but he kept it so polished that many mistook it for gold.
> 
> A wench came up to him and brushed a finger over the scar on his cheek. “A big soldier’s scars makes me quiver,” she said.
> 
> ...



This shows the following:

It show what type of person Lathias is now.
It show what type of person Lathias was.
It show what he's been through.
It show how much the promise to his mother means to him.
It show that Lathias has broken his promise.
It show that he doesn't realize he's broken the promise.

I do some of this by telling the reader details, and I do some of it by showing actions. To me, this is what scene and story level showing involves.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 16, 2018)

I can see where you’re going with the “show” here, a larger sense show, but I’d call it telling, almost straight out. Not bits. This isn’t a criticism, telling is just fine.



Penpilot said:


> For clarity, I thought I'd share an example of what I consider showing. There's bits of telling, but what matters is what that telling shows. Please excuse some of the heavy handedness. It's just something I came up with on the fly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Nope. Penpilot sees it that way too. Lots of courses I have taken also present it that way. (which why it is useful to get out and take courses or go to workshops instead of reading questionable advice on the internet.)






Heliotrope said:


> This is interesting, because we go about planning our scenes in a very similar way. Only the language is different. Where you use "get through the plot stuff as quickly as possible" I use "tell".
> 
> Where you use "Establish that Chat Noir has really given up on pursuing Ladybug" I would say "Show that Chat Noir has given up on pursuing ladybug."
> 
> Seriously, the only thing different is semantics.



This is what I don't understand, though.  How are you using _telling_ in this context?

It's true I wanted to get some information across - a quick explanation of why the two kwami dropped in pain in the previous scenes so I can set up a future villain - but having drafted many scenes now for this fanfiction, I think it may be the first time one of my goals was a flat out info drop.  If we're going to categorize our scene goals on a show-or-tell dichotomy, that just seems needlessly limiting to me.


((edit))

By the way, I'm not avoiding the other threads you've started, Heliotrope, but five is just too many at once for me.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Devor said:


> If we're going to categorize our scene goals on a show-or-tell dichotomy, that just seems needlessly limiting to me.



Yeah, I don't see how it is limiting? Some stuff I have to breeze through quickly, like how much time has passed (like the American Gods example), or  how she got dressed and ate breakfast, or how she got to school... that is stuff I can tell. I don't need to show her sitting at the table eating breakfast. I can just tell the reader "After shoving cheerios in my face and throwing on some pants, I left for school." Other stuff I know I want to spend more time on because it is important to the plot or the development of the character arc. That is the stuff I have to take my time with and show.

I don't see it as limiting. I see it as being specific about how I'm crafting my story. I am picking and choosing what moments are pertinent, and which moment are not. 

So my chapter outline might look like: 

- get to school. 
- Show how devastated she is at missing the contest. 
- introduce best friend. Show her skill at gymnastics.


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Yeah, I don't see how it is limiting? Some stuff I have to breeze through quickly, like how much time has passed (like the American Gods example), or  how she got dressed and ate breakfast, or how she got to school... that is stuff I can tell. I don't need to show her sitting at the table eating breakfast. I can just tell the reader "After shoving cheerios in my face and throwing on some pants, I left for school." Other stuff I know I want to spend more time on because it is important to the plot or the development of the character arc. That is the stuff I have to take my time with and show.
> 
> I don't see it as limiting. I see it as being specific about how I'm crafting my story. I am picking and choosing what moments are pertinent, and which moment are not.



I don't still don't understand - before I listed three goals for a scene, and you said this is where we're discussing show vs. tell.  But I wouldn't list "explain that she had breakfast" as a scene goal.  I wouldn't think about that at all except in the question of, "Ohh, I need something here about breakfast to keep the flow going" and then, "does this read right?"  Whether it's showing or telling, again, is on that tactical, micro-level (and frankly, I don't really care if it's showing or telling).

I'm asking about this double meaning of the phrase you were talking about earlier.  Okay, most scene goals can be described as _show the readers that this is happening._  Okay.  But I don't understand how telling is a part of that or why it would've been in any way useful to write "Tell readers about the kwami backstory" instead of the more descriptive and in my mind more useful (and actionable, if you want to get into the science behind good to-dos......), "Get through the kwami stuff as quickly as possible."

Again, simple question, I get where show can have a double zoomed-out scene goal meaning, but I don't understand it for tell, and I don't understand why we would even want it to??


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Devor said:


> Again, simple question, I get where show can have a double zoomed-out scene goal meaning, but I don't understand it for tell, and I don't understand why we would even want it to??



I don't think you have to? When planning there is no reason why you would have to put in the "tell" parts, unless you are a crazy detailed plotter like me. But there is seriously no reason at all why you would have to.

Where it might come up in this context would be like Skip suggested... Let's pretend I was doing a critique for a friend. They started the story with an action packed scene of a guy going to rescue a girl. He goes on and on about how much he loves this girl... but it is all him _telling _me this. He may be _telling in great detail, _but I have never actually been "shown" the relationship with the girl. I'm just expected to take the narrator's word for it that the relationship is there. As a critique partner, I might suggest to the writer that I didn't feel a connection to the relationship. I felt like I was supposed to take it for face value, but actually, if they had included a previous scene "showing" the relationship it might offer more substance to the scene. If I could see the two lovebirds doing something together... having fun, laughing, sharing a joke, in a previous scene, I might be more invested in her rescue.

So the language, in that context, is valuable in those sorts of situations. I find this with my own writing a lot. I write a scene a few chapters in and I realize I'm "telling" the reader stuff and expecting them to just believe it. I think... Hmmmmm, It would be better if I showed the relationship earlier. It would give this scene more depth.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

A concrete example I have of this is with a partner I have who had a great scene about a woman who was protecting a young girl. The woman was at a party, and to protect the girl had her locked up in a bedroom. The MC went on and on, _telling_, the reader about all the horrific things that would happen to the girl if she were to be allowed at the party. It was a decent scene. There was a lot of emotion. It definitely _showed _the writer's goal, that the woman looks after the girl... but as a reader I was expected to take the words of the MC at face value. I was expected to simply believe what she was telling me because she was telling me. It didn't sit right. My partner and I decided to explore _showing _it instead. So the writer had the girl sneak out and come down to the party. Well, the shit hit the fan. All the stuff the woman was afraid of happened... right infant of my reader eyes. This gave the MC much more credibility, and it _showed_ me WHY she had to protect the girl, instead of just _telling _me.


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## Hallen (Jan 16, 2018)

This isn't a contest -- it's not one verses the other. Writing is difficult and how you decide to portray the story to the reader is your choice. Some ways are more readable and immersive than others. Showing and telling is just a way to think about how you present the world to your reader.

If you can get the reader to immerse themselves in your characters and your world, then it's working. 

What typically does not work is to leave out so much detail that the world and characters come off very flat. 

What I see a lot from new writers is the lack of anything but description and explanation of character actions/reactions. It does make the writing stiff and generally boring. 

Jack worked hard as he completed digging the hole.
or
Jack's hands ached and his back burned. The heavy clay held so much water that each shovelful was becoming torture. Two more feet to go.

Either way can work depending on the situation. The more "telling" form certainly speeds up the pace and that can be very important in certain situations. But, the more "showing" form allows the reader to experience the situation from the perspective of the character. 

In either case, they are just tools to use.


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> I don't see it as limiting. I see it as being specific about how I'm crafting my story. I am picking and choosing what moments are pertinent, and which moment are not.
> 
> So my chapter outline might look like:
> 
> ...



Okay, let's go for another scene.

Below is the first-half of a scene before the one I posted above.  Adrien (who is really Chat Noir) is second guessing whether it was a mistake to ask his friend Marinette out and try and move on from Ladybug (yes, the girl he mentioned taking out in that scene... was her.  Those heroes nowadays and their crazy secret identities.).



> Ladybug sat in a blue chair on the theater balcony, at ease in a way that wasn’t, offering a pleasant half-smile without committing an ounce more of her joy to the moment.  She looked straight ahead, her hands and face oddly still, her eyes curious and calm.
> 
> “So Chat Noir is a huge flirt,” Alya’s voice came slowly, and Ladybug nodded in turn.  “Does he flirt with all of the girls or just with you?”
> 
> ...



My goal for this scene was to get across the following:

 - Adrien is and has always been kind of _desperate_ for information about whether Ladybug likes him or not.
 - After all this time they still don't know each other at all.
 - Adrien has always been heading towards this heartbreak.

I want that second point to come across even though it isn't true.  Marinette's scene was focused on this point, too, so later in other scene when she thinks, "Marinette knew the boy at her side....", it was a small but obvious hint that they're both totally wrong about this.

Okay, sorry, I know that was a lot of reading.  But here's the main point:



Heliotrope said:


> Where it might come up in this context would be like Skip suggested... Let's pretend I was doing a critique for a friend. They started the story with an action packed scene of a guy going to rescue a girl. He goes on and on about how much he loves this girl... but it is all him _telling _me this. He may be _telling in great detail, _but I have never actually been "shown" the relationship with the girl. I'm just expected to take the narrator's word for it that the relationship is there. As a critique partner, I might suggest to the writer that I didn't feel a connection to the relationship. I felt like I was supposed to take it for face value, but actually, if they had included a previous scene "showing" the relationship it might offer more substance to the scene. If I could see the two lovebirds doing something together... having fun, laughing, sharing a joke, in a previous scene, I might be more invested in her rescue.



The thing is, my goals for this scene and every scene are usually consistent, omni-present goals based on how I want the characters to think and feel, and in turn, how I want the readers to think and feel.  They are things that _flow_ and _develop _through the scene from the start to the finish.  *I don't have a point to make and a choice on whether to show it or tell it; I have to hit the same point repeatedly in a way that flows throughout the scene and builds up the reader's emotional experience.*  At every sentence I am thinking about all of these scene goals.  Adrien is desperate for information, so he watches, and rewatches, the one interview where Ladybug mentions it, because that's what a desperate person does.  He begs the only person he can talk to to tell him what he thinks.  And so on.

It doesn't matter to me whether I have to show or tell - and if someone critiqued me that way, I would think they missed the whole point.  Either the emotion is coming across or it's not - and if it's not, I probably have to rethink the whole scene, not nitpick it for the telly parts.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Devor said:


> It doesn't matter to me whether I have to show or tell - and if someone critiqued me that way, I would think they missed the whole point. Either the emotion is coming across or it's not - and if it's not, I probably have to rethink the whole scene, not nitpick it for the telly parts.



No, the is not what I'm saying. What I'm talking about is not nitpicking for the telly parts. I could care less about the telly parts. I'm talking about big picture goals.

Let's pretend you didn't put the TV into your scene. Instead you had Adrien sitting around moping about Ladybug. He has a long winded monologue about how he is desperate for information on her. He is doing a whole lot of telling the reader about how much he likes her and how much he wants to know stuff about her.

As a reader I will sit back and think... okay... So I'm expected to just "believe" that you want information about her, but you are sitting around on you butt doing nothing. So you are telling me one thing, but showing me another.

Then you rewrite the scene. You think.... how can I show this? How can I show him desperate for information? Eureka! He will be watching her on TV! Great idea! Great way of showing his need for information!

So it is not a nitpicky thing. It is about really thinking about the best possible way to show the goal. In the examples I gave above they were "telling" the reader "this is really important!" but they hadn't thrown the TV in. They had missed the showing part.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Whenever I talk about this I think of the song “Show Me” from My Fair Lady.


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## Devor (Jan 16, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> No, the is not what I'm saying. What I'm talking about is not nitpicking for the telly parts. I could care less about the telly parts. I'm talking about big picture goals.
> 
> Let's pretend you didn't put the TV into your scene. Instead you had Adrien sitting around moping about Ladybug. He has a long winded monologue about how he is desperate for information on her. He is doing a whole lot of telling the reader about how much he likes her and how much he wants to know stuff about her.
> 
> ...



Okay.... so if I was looking at mopey, whiny Adrien, I would simply say that I probably wasn't trying to do enough with the scene, and needed to focus more on the characters' actions, and may need to bring another element into the scene like another character so that there's more going on (the next line after I cut the scene, his father enters the room), unless I had somehow managed to achieve mastery over the whiny teen monologue (even I'm not that bold).

The thing is, I went into the scene already thinking, "She did an interview on the show and they didn't show any of it. I want to flash back to it, and this is a perfect place for it.  What did she say about him?  How can I make it extremely flattering, but still feel platonic, just to mess with him?"  If I didn't already have this element sitting on my itching-to-use hotplate, and I tried to show his feelings instead of telling them, I'm not sure where that would've taken me.  But I don't believe it would've taken me very far.  My instincts - add another element, focus on actions, find something that can hold the emotion in suspense - probably would've led me to a scene where he has a friend over (Nino) and is trying to talk in code, "How do you know if a girl likes you?  How do you know if she... doesn't like you," creating a bunch of confusion and tension because he's hiding the fact that he's talking about Ladybug.  I can't separate my instincts to figure out where "Show don't tell" would've led me - but I don't think it would've led me someplace that strong.

But at this point, where is the "don't tell" part of the advice? And this still feels, to me, like..... a remedial lesson on narrative.  "Show me something, don't just have the character sit there talking about it."   I mean, no, you don't want to have a character who just sits there monologuing, but certainly we can give better advice than "Show me something, here."


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## Heliotrope (Jan 16, 2018)

Yeah, I can’t speak to how that conversation would go, I was just pointing out how thinking about showing instead of telling works in the context of that big picture, scene planning stuff, not just the small scale line by line stuff. 

It may seem remedial. I still have moments where I realize I didn’t show as well as I could have. I relied too much on the reader to just “believe me” when I told them something. So maybe I’m still remedial. But that is how I find the terms useful. Large scale, scene planning level.


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## Gurkhal (Jan 17, 2018)

Excellent topic! I've also been wrestling with the question of how much to show instead of telling and the discussion has provided some good insight into this.


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## Devor (Jan 17, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> It may seem remedial. I still have moments where I realize I didn’t show as well as I could have. I relied too much on the reader to just “believe me” when I told them something. So maybe I’m still remedial. But that is how I find the terms useful. Large scale, scene planning level.



I'm sorry, I didn't mean that as a put down.  I said before that if somebody finds it helpful they should ignore me, and I meant that.

I've got to look at it from two perspectives - is it useful to me?  It feels weaker to me than the strategies I already employ.  And, would I find it useful in teaching or coaching or helping others?  I wouldn't.  I find "don't tell" confusing and "show something" to be unhelpful.  I try to look for more specific advice.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Devor said:


> And, would I find it useful in teaching or coaching or helping others? I wouldn't. I find "don't tell" confusing and "show something" to be unhelpful. I try to look for more specific advice.



I have found it helpful for critique for a few reasons, but this may be specific to my method of critiqing. My philosophy on crits has evolved significantly over the past few years.

I believe that stories should be a curation of carefully chosen scenes and symbols that build upon each other to deliver on a (hopefully) impactful and satisfying ending. Because of this, I don't believe in giving specific advice because:

1) Until I know the story in its entirety, I don't know what is crucial information and what isn't. This is why I've actually backed away from offering any advice other than "I like this" or "I don't get it" to my current crit group. Until I know the whole story, I have no idea if the scene is valuable to building up to, and delivering on, the ending. If a crit partner sends me a snippet, or a chapter, out of context and says "Is the dialogue weak?" My response will be "I have no clue, because I don't know how it fits into the big picture." I will no longer offer any specific advice until I read an entire manuscript, start to finish, first.

2) Even after I have read a manuscript from start to finish, I still avoid specific advice. I used to do it, and it was pointless. Party because it isn't my story, and I have no right to say what should go where. And partly because the author has a better idea of what their theme is, and what their goal is, than I do, and when left to their own devices almost always come up with a better idea than I could. What I can give is broad "feelings". I "felt" that this was a bit telly for me. I "felt" like I was expected to believe the narrator, but I didn't feel there was a good reason to. Perhaps try to think of a way of showing this more concretely. Consider using a symbol here to ground the reader in something real."

But, that is just my own personal philosophy on critiquing. It is not my job to do line by line crits. I offer large picture thoughts, and general, broad advice, and let the writer fill in the gaps themselves.


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## Malik (Jan 17, 2018)

There's no hard and fast on this. There's a time and a place for both. The key is understanding each to the point where you can recognize when you're doing which, and then using them when they're appropriate for what you're trying to do. Fledgling writers get wrapped around the axle because they don't know the difference, and it's one of those things that's like pornography: you know it when you see it.

I don't want to turn this into a You Must Go To School To Write thing (edit and spoiler: you don't), but an innate understanding of the difference between showing and telling is one benefit of a formal education in writing. A good writing course will do exercises on exactly this: "This week, you will write a scene telling, then rewrite the same scene showing." And then at the end of the week, your professor tears everyone's writing apart and explains who screwed it up, and who got it right, and how, so that you never get it wrong again. The same goes for voice, narrative, imagery, allegory, passive vs. active, etc. You learn what these things are, and then you just know. Trying to explain any of it with two or three rules that everybody can understand is like trying to explain to a virgin why sex is so fun.

Case in point of when to use which: I have a torture scene in _The New Magic_ that's serious nightmare fuel; one of these things that you hope your mother doesn't read and that halfway through crafting it makes you wish you'd used a _nom de plume_. I was writing it in detail over a few pages but it was just getting too damned gruesome and excessive--"gritty fantasy" is just so passe--so I cut it down to two, one-sentence paragraphs at the end of the chapter. It's clearly telling, not showing, but it's _purposeful _telling. It's much more powerful, because:

It's still dark as shit; the concept is enough to make GRRM blanch.
It comes in out of left field, so you're as surprised by it as the character is.
It's unseeable; you don't see it coming, so you can't say, "Ew," and skip ahead several pages. It's almost a jump-scare.
It leaves the details up to the reader's imagination, which is always worse.
The pacing on it is the same as the sex scenes, which fade to black after a few lines in the same manner, and I'm a sucker for resonance through parallel construction.
Individual mileage may vary. Tell, show. All you can do is practice until you know which goes where. And in the end, it's still likely that your editor will have you do it the other way . . .


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## skip.knox (Jan 17, 2018)

>Until I know the story in its entirety, I don't know what is crucial information and what isn't
Yep. Me2

>it isn't my story, and I have no right to say what should go where.
But not this. It's not my story, agreed. But I can and should say what worked for me and what didn't, *and why*.  That's not a matter of rights, it's a responsibility. The author has asked for feedback; by implication, for feedback they can use. I as an author don't know what to do with "I liked this".

Later in the paragraph Heliotrope explains further. She offers suggestion rather than dictum. I'm ok with that. Here again, with a crit group that has worked together, sometimes terseness edges over into bluntness, but everyone in the group understands you're just being brief. I'm more careful when working with strangers. It's one thing to tell a friend they absolutely should not wear those pants. It's quite another to say it to a casual acquaintance who asks if they look okay. I'm guessing I lean a little harder on specificity. But that's why you find yourself a group of trusted critics rather than just one voice.

Or you find the perfect editor. Good luck with that. Finding the right editor makes the dating scene look like kindergarten.


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## Hallen (Jan 17, 2018)

I think that there are many stylistic choices a writer can make. This is especially true if you are using strong themes in your stories. 

However, if you are using 3rd person close, or first person, there is a certain point where the character becomes a narrator describing the world rather than living in the world. When that happens, your readers will most likely start feeling a distance between the character and the world. 

I think it's really as simple as that. If your stories fall flat because readers cannot connect to your world or characters, then chance are, you are telling the reader what to think, rather than showing them the world. 

That's a bit different than the traditional "show, don't tell" admonition because you can "tell" as long as it aligns with your viewpoint, your character's personality, and your writing style.

When a reader asks themselves, "how does Jack know that Jill is mad?", then you have probably failed. 

Or, you read a passage and our POV character has just identified a thief, as in a previous example, but how does the character know it's a thief? Well, obviously, the character noticed something. Not showing or telling the reader how the character noticed that it was a thief robs the reader of the thrill of being a character who has the awesome skills this character obviously has. 

Leaving out detail and the reasons behind something is the form that is the "telling" part of "show, don't tell". But, it's really not a good word to use since so many people say it's story telling, therefore it's always telling. Maybe that's true, but it misses the point. I see it as a shortcut to an end state. It's great for outlining, but can make a story seem sterile and disjointed. 

Imagine a Sherlock Holmes who never explained to Dr. Watson how he knew that the suspect was innocent. Sherlock becomes very boring and does not become the archetype for virtually every other detective in the history of writing and movies if we do not know how he did it. We love Sherlock because he notices all these little things that normal people will never notices. Sherlock often just told Watson how he knew. Doyle obviously didn't go through some painstaking process of showing the reader everything that Sherlock notices as it happened. So "telling" is OK, depending on the situation, as long as it connects the reader to the characters, the world, and the story.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> But I can and should say what worked for me and what didn't, *and why*.



Yeah, I wasn't clear enough on that. I have some pretty in depth convos with my partners that can go on for pages and pages of emails or very lengthy skype conversations. I definitely say what worked and what didn't, and "why" I "felt" it didn't. but I tend to avoid detailed instructions on "how" to fix it. I find most writers will come up with their own, amazing ideas, that actually tie into the greater theme of the work, on their own.

When I give broad advice like "This seems to me to be a structural issue. Maybe if you showed the character's goal slightly earlier on..." I tend to get more of an open conversation with my partners, tossing ideas back and forth on how that might look, and where it might go, and how they might tie it in... or they come up with something else fantastic.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Yeah, I wasn't clear enough on that. I have some pretty in depth convos with my partners that can go on for pages and pages of emails or very lengthy skype conversations. I definitely say what worked and what didn't, and "why" I "felt" it didn't. but I tend to avoid detailed instructions on "how" to fix it. I find most writers will come up with their own, amazing ideas, that actually tie into the greater theme of the work, on their own.


I wouldn’t sell that side of yourself short. Not too long ago you gave me advice on my opening scenes, suggesting that I reorder them some for a better effect. 
I didn’t see it myself, but you were absolutely correct & I plan on implementing your ideas in the next (and final) draft.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Ha! Thanks T.Allan. I just added that edit to my post, lol! 

_When I give broad advice like "This seems to me to be a structural issue. Maybe if you showed the character's goal slightly earlier on..." I tend to get more of an open conversation with my partners, tossing ideas back and forth on how that might look, and where it might go, and how they might tie it in... or they come up with something else fantastic._


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

Hallen said:


> If your stories fall flat because readers cannot connect to your world or characters, then chance are, you are telling the reader what to think, rather than showing them the world.


I agree with this 100%.


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## Mythopoet (Jan 17, 2018)

My opinion on this subject is simply that I tend to enjoy stories more when the author knows how to use telling to their advantage and doesn't rely on an excess of showing. For instance I just read Beauty by Robin McKinley which consists mostly of telling. I also enjoy reading classic fantasy which often includes more telling than showing. It's not always done well, but just like anything, when it is done well it is  highly enjoyable to me. On the other hand, I have a very hard time immersing myself in most newer fantasy books because it seems to me that newer authors rely too much on showing. I encounter a lot of new books that, to me, read like they are trying to be movies and I very much dislike that. I would like my movies to be movies and my books to be books. Each should use their medium to their advantage without trying to be like the other. 

So, for me, I dislike the phrase "Show, Don't Tell". Partly because it is extremely simplistic and not all new writers have the ability to see past the generalization. (In my experience most new writers are just so eager to please anyone who is a so-called "expert" in the publishing industry that they will go to great lengths to incorporate any pithy advice they see on industry blogs and this one shows up everywhere.) Partly because I strongly believe not all readers like stories that rely strongly on eliminating telling in favor of showing and most people who dispense this advice ignore that. They tend to take it for granted that "showing" is simply the _best_ method of storytelling and telling should only be used in extreme moderation. (Well, almost all writing advice tends to ignore that different readers like different kinds of storytelling.) This leads to very, very few new fantasy books being written with a storytelling style that appeals to me. (And thus I seek refuge in the classics.)

I think it would be far better if instructors and advice givers understood and taught that showing and telling are just two different kinds of storytelling and neither is objectively better than the other. Writers who enjoy stories with lots of showing should learn how to best utilize that method. Writers who enjoy stories with lots of telling should learn how to best utilize that method. And the writing community needs to stop pretending all readers are the same and there are objectively better ways of telling stories.


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## Devor (Jan 17, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> I have found it helpful for critique for a few reasons, but this may be specific to my method of critiqing. My philosophy on crits has evolved significantly over the past few years.
> 
> I believe that stories should be a curation of carefully chosen scenes and symbols that build upon each other to deliver on a (hopefully) impactful and satisfying ending. Because of this, I don't believe in giving specific advice because...............



This is running into a different topic, I think.  Again, I was only saying that "show" is too vague and "not tell" is confusing, and that I think most of us can find something more helpful than that.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

I don’t think anyone here has stated that telling is wrong & you must show to please readers. 

If anything, each contributor has stated a need for balance & a recognition that both telling & showing are effective tools.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I agree with this 100%.



Me too. I don't think it is remedial. I really do think it is something that happens a lot more than would like to admit, even in our own writing.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Mythopoet said:


> I encounter a lot of new books that, to me, read like they are trying to be movies and I very much dislike that. I would like my movies to be movies and my books to be books. Each should use their medium to their advantage without trying to be like the other.



I agree with this, as personal taste. I don't think it is wrong to write like that. I know a lot of people (myself included) who have very much enjoyed books written that way. But I tend to appreciate books that have a stronger narrative voice than the third person close narrative we see so often now. I love Kurt Vonnegut because it feels like he is telling the story, not showing it through a character. I loved that about Hemingway too.

And this is where I think the terminology get's murky. I like that I get to hear Vonnegut, or Hemingway "tell" the story... but when they do that, even when they are "telling" me... they know exactly what scenes, imagery, metaphors, symbols, and characters to "show" for maximum impact. This is why, for me, I use it to describe how scenes and goals are "shown", not the word choices or the POV the writer uses to make that happen.

This is where, I feel, "show, don't tell" has gotten confused. If we look at Vonnegut or Hemingway, or even Tolkein and say "It is telling. It is wrong." And we look at GRRM and say "this is showing, it is right", then I don't think we are really using the terms for all they are meant to be. We are narrowing them into only representing voice, or style. Both styles show, and both styles tell. You have to look at the big picture way the story is presented and get away from limiting the terms to just referring to voice or POV.

Oh god, it's all so convoluted, lol.


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## pmmg (Jan 17, 2018)

Opps. somehow I posted in the wrong thread... Sorry. I'll probably get back to this one, but there is a lot of reading to do to catch up.


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## Mythopoet (Jan 17, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> I agree with this, as personal taste. I don't think it is wrong to write like that. But I tend to appreciate books that have a stronger narrative voice than the third person close narrative we see so often now. I love Kurt Vonnegut because it feels like he is telling the story, not showing it through a character. I loved that about Hemingway too.
> 
> And this is where I think the terminology get's murky. I like that I get to hear Vonnegut, or Hemingway "tell" the story... but when they do that, even when they are "telling" me... they know exactly what scenes, imagery, metaphors, symbols, and characters to "show" for maximum impact. This is why, for me, I use it to describe how scenes and goals are "shown", not the word choices or the POV the writer uses to make that happen.
> 
> ...



The terminology is definitely murky.

One of the things about the whole subject that makes me laugh is that so many people condemn "exposition" as "telling" but in its strictest sense "exposition" is the act of "exposing" something and to "expose" means to reveal or make something visible. In fact, exposition IS showing.  Which is why the distinction seldom makes actual sense and attempts to create examples of the difference often fall flat. You almost have to go out of your way to write badly to craft an example of what people seem to mean by "telling". And among people who dole out this advice there is often little enough agreement on what it means beyond generalities. 

David Farland on his writing advice blog has talked about how "Show Don't Tell" makes sense if you're making a movie and thus need to tell the story visually. But it makes much less sense when you're writing a book which is not a visual medium. Your goal is to make the reader experience the story, but since the story only becomes fully formed in the imagination of the reader and the imagination is by no means restricted to visual input. And yet, it does seem that most people instinctively think about writing out actions that could (if this were happening in real life) be seen with the eyes when they talk about "showing". This has led to a trend for "cinematic" writing, or writing your story as if you were a camera lens recording what you see. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that "cinematic" writing is wrong, in itself. But it does feel, in my opinion, like a crutch. Writers start relying on it and never learn how to tell stories in any other way. And this leads to a shortage of books that appeal to readers like me. So, in the end, I do feel that this advice ends up crippling many writers. Writers who perhaps like the same kinds of stories I do, but get inundated with poor explanations (or no explanations) of "show don't tell" and feel that they have to follow the advice if they want a chance in the industry. I can't help feeling that without such shallow, over simplified advice there would be more writers who would feel freer to write in the way that they really want to.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Mythopoet said:


> You almost have to go out of your way to write badly to craft an example of what people seem to mean by "telling".



Yeah, this is my issue right now with trying to explain my examples to Devor... lol. I can't write an example to show what I mean by large scale "telling". It would have to be an entire scene, and for the sake of this thread that is just too much.



Mythopoet said:


> David Farland on his writing advice blog has talked about how "Show Don't Tell" makes sense if you're making a movie and thus need to tell the story visually. But it makes much less sense when you're writing a book which is not a visual medium. Your goal is to make the reader experience the story, but since the story only becomes fully formed in the imagination of the reader and the imagination is by no means restricted to visual input. And yet, it does seem that most people instinctively think about writing out actions that could (if this were happening in real life) be seen with the eyes when they talk about "showing". This has led to a trend for "cinematic" writing, or writing your story as if you were a camera lens recording what you see.



I really identify with this. When I first joined this site a few years back I had been teaching high school lit. I had just finished my masters in lit...I was used to reading a lot of "literary" stuff. Literary stuff is written in a very different voice than the cinematic fantasy we see so much of. It is the telly, old voice stuff that is so nuanced and convoluted and thick with metaphor and symbolism it almost never gets made into films (sometimes mini series, but never films). Thinking I was trying to write fantasy, I tried to teach myself this new way of writing narrative. This very showy, movie type third person style. "Through the eyes of the character"... I don't want to say it made my writing worse....but......

Anyway, after I realized it was just not working for me, I had to sort of un-teach myself showing. Go back to being okay with telling a story. Gaiman helped me to do this. I love Gaiman because he had the literary style I like (and am used to). He is okay simply telling a story, which is why you won't see Neverwhere in theaters any time soon. Lol.

I think this is why I'm so drawn to first person narrative, as well.

So it is like there are two definitions of "show, don't tell." The one that is referring to narrative, or "exposition", and is generally super misleading. And the one that is referring to "how a writer chooses to show the theme/character/message/moral of the story", which is much more nuanced.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 17, 2018)

Mythopoet said:


> The terminology is definitely murky.
> 
> One of the things about the whole subject that makes me laugh is that so many people condemn "exposition" as "telling" but in its strictest sense "exposition" is the act of "exposing" something and to "expose" means to reveal or make something visible. In fact, exposition IS showing.  Which is why the distinction seldom makes actual sense and attempts to create examples of the difference often fall flat. You almost have to go out of your way to write badly to craft an example of what people seem to mean by "telling". And among people who dole out this advice there is often little enough agreement on what it means beyond generalities.
> 
> David Farland on his writing advice blog has talked about how "Show Don't Tell" makes sense if you're making a movie and thus need to tell the story visually. But it makes much less sense when you're writing a book which is not a visual medium. Your goal is to make the reader experience the story, but since the story only becomes fully formed in the imagination of the reader and the imagination is by no means restricted to visual input. And yet, it does seem that most people instinctively think about writing out actions that could (if this were happening in real life) be seen with the eyes when they talk about "showing". This has led to a trend for "cinematic" writing, or writing your story as if you were a camera lens recording what you see.


I agree completely.


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## Penpilot (Jan 17, 2018)

Mythopoet said:


> So, for me, I dislike the phrase "Show, Don't Tell". Partly because it is extremely simplistic and not all new writers have the ability to see past the generalization. (In my experience most new writers are just so eager to please anyone who is a so-called "expert" in the publishing industry that they will go to great lengths to incorporate any pithy advice they see on industry blogs and this one shows up everywhere.)



I'm not a huge fan of throwing around the phrase willy-nilly either. Unless I know who I'm speaking to well, I try to avoid using it. But I think it doesn't matter what the advice is, when someone is new at writing, they'll go overboard with anything and everything. What's that phrase? When all you have is a hammer, the whole world begins to look like a nail.  



Mythopoet said:


> I can't help feeling that without such shallow, over simplified advice there would be more writers who would feel freer to write in the way that they really want to.



I think part of issue is that some writers only apply the advice in a shallow way and don't dig deeper into the other ways it's used. 

From the way I see things, here are some of levels of showing vs telling, going from least important to most, from shallowest usage to more deep, IMHO. 

Sentence level - Frank was angry. VS. Frank punched the wall.

Scene/Chapter level - Frank was a badass assassin. VS. having a scene or scenes where Frank does badass assassin stuff. 

Story level - Evil will always loose because they will constantly underestimate the strength of those it sees as weak. VS. the story of Frodo and Sam's journey in LOTR. 

Beginning writers tend not think or dig deeper than sentence level. 



Mythopoet said:


> This leads to very, very few new fantasy books being written with a storytelling style that appeals to me.



Have you read _Death of an Ancient King_ by Laurent Gaude? It's a great book told in a style like a fable. Unfortunately there's not preview on Amazon. 

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Ancient-Laurent-Hunter-Adriana/dp/B005M4TA0U


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## Devor (Jan 17, 2018)

Penpilot said:


> I'm not a huge fan of throwing around the phrase willy-nilly either. Unless I know who I'm speaking to well, I try to avoid using it. But I think it doesn't matter what the advice is, when someone is new at writing, they'll go overboard with anything and everything. What's that phrase? When all you have is a hammer, the whole world begins to look like a nail.



I do have to concede, it's as an aphorism that it bothers me so much.  It's the catch phrase, and the way that it's taken on out-sized share of thought and influence in critiques and writing advice.

I have no doubt that Heliotrope and I could continue arguing from opposite ends of the conversation and then start qualifying ourselves and mitigating our positions until we more or less agree on the principles.  I don't think we're quite there yet, but I have no doubt it would happen.

But as an aphorism, as the go-to-thought-in-your-head when you plan or write or critique, I mean, we can do better than that.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Devor said:


> go-to-thought-in-your-head when you plan or write or critique, I mean, we can do better than that.



It's _one of _the thoughts in my head as I critique. Not my go to. My go to is usually structure, lol.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jan 17, 2018)

Show don’t tell isn’t as cryptic as folks want it to be... Don’t tell me about the picture, paint it in words.

Anton Chekhov: Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.

A shining moon might paint a yawner of a picture, but the glint of moonlight on broken glass? In such a short line, it raises questions, it evokes a tiny emotional response in the reader.

From the words of a professor who was educated at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop (founders of  “show don’t tell”):
One of the most venerable tropes in the teaching of creative writing is this: Show, don’t tell. But what exactly does this dictum mean? When teachers of creative writing invoke it, they often mean that a scene or story was under-dramatized, or that the writing trafficked in generalities.

He also says that telling appeals to the rational mind, while showing appeals to the senses. Going back to a cheesy example I wrote down the other day:

_#1: James stood and stared as a car driven by Bob squeeled around the corner without stopping for a red light.

James said, “That bastard needs to die.”_

_#2: The glass packs of the canary yellow Mustang rumbled down Fifth Avenue, and roared to life as the lights turned red. The driver howled and gave James the bird as tires squealed through the turn.

James said, “That bastard needs to die.”_

#1 is less visual, that is a telltale warning sign for telling, heh heh. But what else is missing? It doesn’t simply not evoke a solid image, it does nothing to pull the reader in emotionally. It shows us James’ emotional reaction to this event, but it doesn’t make us feel it. #2, while a short example, attempts to both paint a picture of the event and through this additional attention to detail, attempts to make us understand a bit of where James is coming from... as the reader, we might harken back to being flipped off, relive some little emotions of dealing with a butthead driver in a muscle car, or whatever. It is evocation of the reader’s subconscious emotions... pulling the reader into the story without the reader consciously knowing they’re recalling these things or recognizing the technique... that makes showing more powerful than telling.

Now, example #2 could’ve been much more intense, much more evocative, but I slapped it out quick, LOL.

EDIT: My brain is just now connecting this to Maass’ seminar on emotion... hmmm.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 17, 2018)

Penpilot said:


> I think part of issue is that some writers only apply the advice in a shallow way and don't dig deeper into the other ways it's used.
> 
> From the way I see things, here are some of levels of showing vs telling, going from least important to most, from shallowest usage to more deep, IMHO.
> 
> ...



Yes. This is exactly it. Thanks PenPilot  

It may seem remedial, but honestly, the higher level applications come up a lot in crits, even with more experienced writers.


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## Mythopoet (Jan 18, 2018)

Reaver said:


> Following the comparison model that so many others used in previous posts...Which sentence does more for the reader?
> 
> Frank was hit by the car.
> 
> The car hit Frank.



Ok first question, what reader? Again, this comes back to my point that readers are not a vast homogenous blob who all want exactly the same thing or relate to storytelling methods in exactly the same way. Second, can you tell me precisely and objectively which of these sentences is show and which is tell and why? Then can you tell me precisely and objectively which one is better and why?

To me, they amount to the same thing. Neither is really better than the other. And I don't think they are illustrating the difference between showing and telling either. They both reveal the exact same information. The only difference is active vs passive voice. BUT contrary to what some believe passive does not equate to telling and active does not equate to showing. That's another of the overly simplistic mistakes people make about this advice.



Demesnedenoir said:


> Show don’t tell isn’t as cryptic as folks want it to be... Don’t tell me about the picture, paint it in words.
> 
> Anton Chekhov: Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.
> 
> A shining moon might paint a yawner of a picture, but the glint of moonlight on broken glass? In such a short line, it raises questions, it evokes a tiny emotional response in the reader.



But what if there isn't any broken glass? What if there aren't any specific details the author wants to draw to attention? What if the author really just wants to tell you the moon is shining? This advice is all well and good for Chekhov. That's his writing style. And a lovely writing style it is, I'm sure. But not everyone is Chekhov. And not every bit of description has to hint at some deeper meaning or mystery. 

Some writers just like writing clear, plain prose. (I remember being impressed by how well Asimov could tell a story with plain, straightforward prose.) And that is another style that is perfectly good. It depends on what the author wants to accomplish. Neither style is objectively better than the other. 





Demesnedenoir said:


> He also says that telling appeals to the rational mind, while showing appeals to the senses. Going back to a cheesy example I wrote down the other day:
> 
> _#1: James stood and stared as a car driven by Bob squeeled around the corner without stopping for a red light.
> 
> ...



I suppose I am one of those rational minded readers then. Because example two is annoying to me. I prefer when writers get to the point rather than getting all flowery with their descriptions. The showing style of writing is really just getting wordy and flowery when describing actions. Which is perfectly fine, for those who like it. 

But the point is that when it comes right down to it, telling and showing are labels for different writing styles that appeal to different people. Neither is better than the other. Like just about everything in writing, it's a matter of taste. But the advice is doled out to EVERY writer as if every writer should ignore what their natural, preferred style is and conform to what the accepted industry standard is today.


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> It's _one of _the thoughts in my head as I critique. Not my go to. My go to is usually structure, lol.



When I critique I think about structure too, but not in a formal way.  Well, basically, the Mythwright critique prompts are more or less the way I think when I critique, only with a substitute for the prompts.

_*Concept *- _What is this piece trying to do?  Is it worth doing?  Do the character, plot and setting fit together and build it the way they should?
*Payoffs *- What about this story is supposed to be paying off?  Are those moments delivering the way they're supposed to?
_*Prose, Style, Structure *- _Does the writing, and the narrative, and the little details, and the scene structure - do these all flow naturally into supporting the payoff moments?  What's getting in the way?
*Entertainment *- Toss aside the thinking for a moment, was this piece worth reading?  Did it do anything for me?

And there are layers to it.  I try to focus on the two or three things that matter most.  Solve those two or three issues, and I can probably find two or three more that need to be worked on.  I don't critique based on the perfect story but based on where I see the writer as needing to develop their skills - which I _mask_ a little by talking about the story.


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

Demesnedenoir said:


> _#1: James stood and stared as a car driven by Bob squeeled around the corner without stopping for a red light.
> 
> James said, “That bastard needs to die.”
> 
> ...



I'm just going to drop this here, having removed my previous grumpy comment.
_
---------

"That bastard needs to die."

That's what James said when he saw Bob's yellow Mustang rumble down Fifth Avenue and squeal around the corner, ignoring the light that just turned red.  James had known Bob since he was the street bully sticking gum in Tammy Dew-something's hair and his tongue down her throat, since he was the gross school child pissing on James' shoes while they stood in the lunchline, since Bob was the high school dropout punching James out for refusing to tell him about the big after-party with the booze.

But it was the red light that did it.  James' father once got a forty dollar ticket for running a red light, and his damn driver's license points kicked in, and he paid for that ticket for three years.  And what were Bob's consequences for the same damn thing?  Looking cool, that's what.

That dumbfucked bastard.  He deserved more.  He got away with too much.  It was time for his ticket to come up red._


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

Devor said:


> When I critique I think about structure too, but not in a formal way.  Well, basically, the Mythwright critique prompts are more or less the way I think when I critique, only with a substitute for the prompts.
> 
> _*Concept *- _What is this piece trying to do?  Is it worth doing?  Do the character, plot and setting fit together and build it the way they should?
> *Payoffs *- What about this story is supposed to be paying off?  Are those moments delivering the way they're supposed to?
> ...



Ahhhhh, I see why you were saying that thinking about showing while criting is not as good as we can do. So what I mean, for myself, is that it is not what I'm thinking of, first and foremost... I'm not thinking "Make this piece fit structure," "Make this piece show more..." That would be silly and prescriptive. Instead I use them as diagnostic tools...

So I read a piece for the exact same reasons you do. I look at this stuff *concept, payoffs, prose/style, entertainment, *first. If the piece just doesn't quiet hit the mark for me, then I think about Why? Why doesn't it? What could the writer do to make sure things are fitting together and paying off as they should?

Could they rearrange the structure a bit? Could they find a more effective way of showing the goal? Could they spend more time developing the character first? Does the major event need some foreshadowing?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 18, 2018)

Mythopoet said:


> To me, they amount to the same thing. Neither is really better than the other. And I don't think they are illustrating the difference between showing and telling either. They both reveal the exact same information. The only difference is active vs passive voice. BUT contrary to what some believe passive does not equate to telling and active does not equate to showing. That's another of the overly simplistic mistakes people make about this advice.


This is true. Passive voice does not equate to telling. Often, it does, but not always. There are many uses, which some may consider passive voice/telling, where the writer is showing. One example would be where the author wants to show that some action is already happening when a character enters the scene.



> Mary was laughing at Jake when I rounded the corner.


This could be shown to a greater degree if you really wanted to focus the reader on her laughter, of course, but it isn't telling.



Mythopoet said:


> What if there aren't any specific details the author wants to draw to attention? What if there aren't any specific details the author wants to draw to attention? What if the author really just wants to tell you the moon is shining? This advice is all well and good for Chekhov. That's his writing style. And a lovely writing style it is, I'm sure. But not everyone is Chekhov. And not every bit of description has to hint at some deeper meaning or mystery.


There's no reason to show if you don't want to:
A) Ground the reader in a character's perceptions/emotions
B) Draw the reader's attention

If we're talking about a character's perceptions, the typical "tell" is done with filtering. Something like, "Rick felt..."  There's nothing engaging about, "Rick felt angry."

If instead, you were to describe the way Rick looks, sounds, acts, etc. and allow the reader to interpret on their own that Rick is angry... Well, now you've made the reader a partner in the storytelling. That is the engagement you want when you employ showing.
If you can supply an engaging piece of writing that frequently uses tells like "She felt", I'd love to see it.

Before you look for one, at the beginning of this thread, I did state that I've read plenty of stories that were mainly "told" and they were fantastic. I'm simply stating that this type of telling is what Chekov is warning against. He was trying to show writer's the value of giving the story world to the reader through a character's perceptions and involving the reader as a partner in the story telling. I think most would be hard pressed to argue that involving the reader in this manner is one way (not the only way) to enrich a reader's experience.



Mythopoet said:


> Some writers just like writing clear, plain prose. (I remember being impressed by how well Asimov could tell a story with plain, straightforward prose.) And that is another style that is perfectly good. It depends on what the author wants to accomplish. Neither style is objectively better than the other.


Agreed. This is one of the reasons that writers should read broadly.



Mythopoet said:


> The showing style of writing is really just getting wordy and flowery when describing actions.


While showing typically uses more words than basic telling (like the, "He felt" example above), showing can also be quick and to the point. Showing certainly does not need to be flowery.



Mythopoet said:


> But the point is that when it comes right down to it, telling and showing are labels for different writing styles that appeal to different people. Neither is better than the other. Like just about everything in writing, it's a matter of taste. But the advice is doled out to EVERY writer as if every writer should ignore what their natural, preferred style is and conform to what the accepted industry standard is today.


I think telling and showing are techniques more than styles. Maybe that's splitting hairs, but in the good stories I've read that are told more than shown, there's still plenty of showing. The opposite is true with stories that rely more on showing.

I think this advice is so commonly given because telling is usually the default. When someone just starts writing, invariably they start by telling. It's what people are accustomed to verbally and it's their only base of experience when it comes to relaying their personal stories. Have you ever listened to someone verbally tell a story where they "showed"? Maybe a bit through body language, but more often than not, it's telling that does the lion's share of work.

Showing, on the other hand, is not second nature. It's something that takes time to understand and utilize properly. In light of this, I'm all for writer exposure to the principle. However, even as a fundamental, it's important we balance that delivery, which is often the problem. I've been guilty of this very thing in the past (as both student and advice-giver). It's something new and fresh when you first learn the principle. It's an alternate approach that's often overdone at first. It's also an easy thing to latch onto when someone asks for you to review something, especially when your own experience is limited. However, if that person continues to write (and no amount of advice will change that if the desire is truly present), that writer will eventually come to their own personal understanding and usage for both show and tell.

Personally, I'd rather be exposed to a variety of ideas and choose for myself those that work and those that don't, rather than have someone limit my exposure because of their concern for me as a beginner.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Personally, I'd rather be exposed to a variety of ideas and choose for myself those that work and those that don't, rather than have someone limit my exposure because of their concern for me as a beginner.



This is my feeling as well.


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

The one time that you critiqued me, Heliotrope, you went well beyond _Show, Don't Tell.  _Your comments on structure went too far (IMO, critiquer to critiquer), but were still very useful to me in shaking up the way I saw the scene.  My attitude towards the phrase doesn't extend to those defending it.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

That's nice.... and here we are getting personal again.

You don't have to agree with me. I'm not trying to make you agree. I'm just showing how I see it and trying to understand how you see it. A simple. "I understand, but don't see it that way," would have been adequate.


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

I'm sorry, Heliotrope.  I don't know what I was thinking with that.

I still don't actually understand, though.  Nothing about the word "Show" suggests to me any kind of clear advice or direction to focus on.  Nothing about the words "Don't tell" make sense to me even as the most basic of guidelines (my own best writing interweaves showing and telling constantly). The only thing that makes sense to me is to dismiss the notion that they are two separate concepts, and instead suggest that "Show, Don't Tell" is a basic narrative framework separating prose from something like an essay - but that's what keeps bringing me back to that word, remedial, a concept so basic that for most people it's hardly worth thinking about, like the prologue to a textbook on writing that never needs to be mentioned again.

I am honestly confused in what way _Show, Don't tell _is supposed to be useful and actionable advice, except in the way that punishes perfectly valid telling for no good reason at all.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 18, 2018)

Devor said:


> I am honestly confused in what way _Show, Don't tell _is supposed to be useful and actionable advice, except in the way that punishes perfectly valid telling for no good reason at all.


How about:
Show, rather than tell, when your aim is to ground the reader in a character’s perceptions and/or draw the reader’s attention to details.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

Devor said:


> I'm sorry,
> 
> 
> Heliotrope. I don't know what I was thinking with that.



It's fine. I'm not offended. It's the nature of critiquing. Sometimes the suggestions fit. Sometimes they don't. That is trouble with not knowing the entire piece beforehand. Let's just try to stay on topic here, lol. If you want to critique my critiquing than PM me


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Personally, I'd rather be exposed to a variety of ideas and choose for myself those that work and those that don't, rather than have someone limit my exposure because of their concern for me as a beginner.



It's the phrase _Don't Tell_ that limits your exposure for concern for you as a beginner - 



T.Allen.Smith said:


> How about:
> Show, rather than tell, when your aim is to ground the reader in a character’s perceptions and/or draw the reader’s attention to details.



 - because you can do all of that with _telling_ just fine.  But nobody puts the work in because they've been told not to.

Did you note my sample passage on Des's scene?  It's all telling, and it does everything you think you're supposed to do with showing... doesn't it?



			
				Devor said:
			
		

> _"That bastard needs to die."
> 
> That's what James said when he saw Bob's yellow Mustang rumble down Fifth Avenue and squeal around the corner, ignoring the light that just turned red. James had known Bob since he was the street bully sticking gum in Tammy Dew-something's hair and his tongue down her throat, since he was the gross school child pissing on James' shoes while they stood in the lunchline, since Bob was the high school dropout punching James out for refusing to tell him about the big after-party with the booze.
> 
> ...


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

Okay, I'm going back to that first scene I posted.

For those of you who want to discuss showing and telling on the micro, line-by-line level, I've taken the Ladybug scene I posted earlier and color coded it.

This is showing.
This is telling.
And this a POV that's too deep to fairly call either.

I skipped the dialogue, some basic dialogue tags, and sometimes little transition words.

Are we more or less in agreement on what telling is in this line-by-line stage?  And if so, does the telling here work for you at all?  Are there trends we can point out in where it works or doesn't?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chat Noir sat perched on the roof of Notre Dame, looking over the river with his baton between his legs and one claw flicking occasionally on his bell. Ladybug watched him from the distance, taking a nervous breath before throwing out her yoyo and swinging in beside him. “I knew you’d be out,” she said, trying to be casual.

“I wish it was a happier night,” Chat Noir muttered in a tone that was unlike him. He didn’t look at her but stared into the night sky. “Plagg said transforming would help with the pain. I’ve never seen him so shaken up. How is Tikki?”

“She’s not taking it well,” Ladybug answered. “And Tikki’s in a fraction of the pain Schtitz must be in. I’m worried, Chat. What could do this to a kwami?”

“I figure it’s either something magical, like an akuma, or it’s something high tech, like a weapons lab.” He finally turned to look at her, and Ladybug’s stomach lurched when she saw the sadness on his face. Was it only about the kwami? Or had the morning affected him? “I saw on the tracker that you stopped by Master Fu?”

“I did… he said there hasn’t been any sign of Schtitz or the Dragonfly Charm since World War I. Unless the miraculous bearer comes forward, I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

“No,” Chat Noir lowered his head. “It’s going to be a long night for the kwami.”

That means a long night for the two of us here on this roof, in costume, with no Akuma in sight. So tell me about yourself, Chat.

“While we have a moment,” Marinette began, her Ladybug confidence beginning to drift. “I wanted to talk to you…” Wait, did that sound too forward? She didn’t want to put him on the spot. She just wanted to talk as friends, to get to know him a little better, to give him a fair shake after…, “after what Alya said.”

Chat Noir jumped up from his spot. “Right. No. You don’t need to say anything, Ladybug.” He ran his claws through his hair, looked at her, and smiled, his deep green eyes begging her to stop breaking his heart. “I, hrmm. I’ve decided to start dating.”

What? Start? …dating. She had tried to never think about it, but she knew. Chat Noir was the flirt of Paris. That’s what everyone believed. Every week he could pick a new princess for the night. And she usually played along as if that were really him. “You’re the only one, Marinette,” Alya had once told her. “People send in their stories to me all the time on the Ladyblog, and while everyone knows Chat Noir is a huge flirt, as far as I can tell you’re the only one he’s actually flirted with. Just you and Ladybug.” That is, in costume. Out of costume… Marinette knew the boy at her side, and he flirted the way he did because he was as nervous about relationships as she was.

“What do you mean start, kitty?” she asked, trying to keep casual and hoping to keep him talking. “I’m sure you’re the life of the town.”

“I mean what I said, Ladybug.” Chat Noir took two steps back and turned to look over the Paris skyline. His voice was shaky and he seemed determined not to look at her. “I’m taking somebody out, a friend from my normal life, and... I think you and all of Paris know how I feel about you, and that hasn’t changed yet, but I can’t just wait for the inevitable… so if I start acting a little differently towards you it’s because I want to respect her.”

And just like that, all of her fears faded away. She had spent a year dreading the day she would break his heart, and now, perhaps, he had taken the hint and spared them both. About time, Chat.

But this isn’t what she wanted tonight. And he looked so... heartbroken.

“I know I keep pushing you away, but I care about you, Chat, more than I know how to put into words.” He still didn’t look at her, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He deserved more than the sadness in his face. “This girl you’re dating had better be good enough for you.”

And then his expression lit up, and he turned to look at her with a smile, and his eyes, somehow, transformed him back into the optimistic kitten she had always known. “I can tell you that much for sure, Ladybug. This girl’s incredible.”

Chat Noir was moving on. Ladybug was so relieved. He should step back that annoying flirting he does. He might pay her less attention and focus more on the supervillains. It was a relief to be free of that burden of fearing his heartbreak. The cat could find a new human pet. Maybe he would finally take saving Paris seriously.

This is what relief feels like, right?

The weight was off her shoulders. He was going to be with somebody else. Ladybug tried to picture a normal guy, a normal girl, a boring conversation, a girl who would know the real person behind Chat Noir.

And she would have no idea of the incredible and selfless things he did all the time. For Paris. For everybody.

For her.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 18, 2018)

Devor said:


> It's the phrase _Don't Tell_ that limits your exposure for concern for you as a beginner -


Yes. Which is why I'm reaching to find an alternate expression for my own use, as well as any others who'd find it useful.



Devor said:


> - because you can do all of that with _telling_ just fine.  But nobody puts the work in because they've been told not to.
> 
> Did you note my sample passage on Des's scene?  It's all telling, and it does everything you think you're supposed to do with showing... doesn't it?


A fair point. And yes, it does, in a manner that I didn't intend. With your version of Des's excerpt, we see that perceptions might also mean: thoughts, opinions, or the inner monologue, if you will. I meant, sensory perceptions.

The difference I see between your offering (the telling) and showing, is that the reader is being told what James thinks and feels instead of coming to their own understanding based off the provided descriptive details. Both could work perfectly well depending on your aim. Telling offers the writer concrete clarity and brevity. It also offers those inner thoughts that can make us feel "in the head". While showing can still offer equal clarity when done well (it is trickier though), those inner thoughts become the reader's as well as the POV character's.

Let me try again.



> Showing can be employed to ground a reader in a character's sensory perceptions and/or draw the reader's attention to those sensory details, allowing the reader to interpret those details and come to their own understanding of the scene.


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

> Showing can be employed to ground a reader in a character's sensory perceptions and/or draw the reader's attention to those sensory details, allowing the reader to interpret those details and come to their own understanding of the scene.



That's fair.  I would say showing puts you in the present moment, helping readers to immerse themselves into the scene experience the events almost first hand, while telling can help put you more into the character's mind and perspectives, as well as take shortcuts in the prose both large and small ("when she saw the sadness in her face" - I really wouldn't want to describe his sad face).

I think telling is really important when you're dealing specifically with the relationship between two people.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

I'm going to put myself out there and embarrass myself by "showing" (lol) what I mean with an example of my own writing. It is long, but it sort of has to be to get across what I'm saying about "telling" on a macro level.

So, this is the start of chapter three of my WIP. Before this scene I never mentioned the firefly (you will see what I mean in a minute). This is the first glance the reader gets if it's significance. My critique partners didn't like it. For good reason. I'm telling them what to think.



Spoiler: Treasure of Sorrows 



When I turned the corner to my complex after school I half expected my dad to be gone. Instead I found him on the front porch, still half dressed.

Mme. Boucher was back, but she wasn't alone.

This time she had brought the police .




*Three *

*Songs and Hurricanes*



Boucher, grinning, held something in her left hand

The cops looked bored. One was poking into the mess of holes my dad had dug over the years in our lawn. He held a long stick, and a dog on a leash who seemed pretty frantic. The other cop stood on the sloping front porch leaning against our doorframe, scraping out his fingernails with a penknife. Betsy examined whatever it was she was holding.

The thing in her hand was shiny. And blue. And when it sparkled I knew exactly what it was and I knew, in that moment, that I hated my father.

She seemed pleased with her prize, nodded to the officers and made her way back to her car without so much as a smile at my dad.

He stood upright, a pleased look on his face. A slight smile on his lips.

I ran for the house, pushing past my father on the porch. I tried not to let the tears come. But they came any way.

I ran past him, into the front room. I ran past the table, past the stupid television and the stupid phone that never has anyone on the other line. I ran past the dark bathroom, down the grimy hall with peeling wallpaper to the room at the end of the house.

My father’s study.

And I found it. The book. The old book covered in stars.

My dad keeps cash stashed all over our place, sometimes in peanut butter jars, though he saves those for the yard. Sometimes he uses old tomato sauce cans, or shoe boxes. But often he uses carved out books.

He likes novels with nautical themes, like _Moby Dick_, or _The Pilot_, or _Das Boot_. He doesn’t actually read any of them; it’s just where he stashes his money. He carves out the pages so that the books are like little boxes when closed.

But one book is special. One book that holds something better than cash. Something cash could never buy.

I held the now empty tome in my trembling hands.  It had to have been hundreds of years old. The cover was made of a strange leather, cracked and worn. The title could barely be made out, the golden lettering mostly worn away. But where the gold would have been, indented in the faded leather, were the words _The Mariners Compass Rectified _among a galaxy of silver and gold stars, each with its own tiny name printed in Latin.

The book lay open on the desk, but usually it was locked. It was the only one of my dad’s books that had to be opened with a key.

But not just any key.

Across the cover all the stars the ancient mariners used for navigation were embossed in real gold. The ancient sailors used to read the stars to find their way on the open sea. There is the North Star, Cassiopeia, and Orion.

And there is also Andromeda.

My name.

The Andromeda constellation consisted of a cluster of five tiny pieces of gold, so small and so packed together they almost formed one large star.

Andromeda.

Brush you fingers over that cluster of gold

And you would hear a click,

And the lid would pop open,

And inside you would find two things:

A jeweled firefly.

And a note that reads:


_For Jack,_

_Because you gave me the stars._

_May the firefly light up the darkness _

_And lead you home._

_- Anne._


But on that day, when I stood there brushing away tears, only the note remained.

My father had given the only thing remaining of my mother, to Mme. Boucher.





[TB2]



Ok, so see how almost the entire scene is me telling the reader what to think? This thing is important! Believe me!

My critique partners were right in saying... this thing is obviously important to her... but we just aren't getting emotional impact here. You are telling us what to think instead of "Showing" us why this artifact is important to her. What I needed to do is have a scene before this, showing how this artifact was significant. Showing how she treasures it and values it and how it means something special to her. Once I had done that, then her dad giving it away to the landlady to pay the rent would have actually meant something real to the reader... instead of my simply telling them it important.

(PS - still in draft. Not edited. May be a few spelling/grammatical errors).


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Ok, so see how almost the entire scene is me telling the reader what to think? This thing is important! Believe me!


This would be a moment to draw the reader into those sensory details then, with showing. However, that showing would be most effective, as I'm sure you're aware, mixed with layers of thought...the telling.


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## skip.knox (Jan 18, 2018)

This is a lovely passage. There's some fine showing; e.g., as she races through the house past the stupid telephone that never rings. Maybe someone would call that telling, but honestly I don't care. It's concise and evocative. It's what I want from an author.

In just reading this excerpt, I would disagree with the crit  group. The narrator needed to tell us about this book. Trying to demonstrate through actions or even through dialog would have been ham-handed. You could set it up earlier, as you suggest, but I rather like the element of surprise here; it raises the stakes. It also raises expectations, in that I expect to be shown the book's importance as the story progresses, to see it in action, as it were. 

Thanks for sharing this. You did not embarrass yourself!


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> This would be a moment to draw the reader into those sensory details then, with showing. However, that showing would be most effective, as I'm sure you're aware, mixed with layers of thought...the telling.



True, but even then I don't think it would have the impact it needed. The reader still wouldn't have seen the value of the thing and felt the pang of having it taken away. On a larger, structural scale, when I give them that moment before hand... perhaps showing the girl taking it with her to a major event as a good luck charm, carefully taking it from it's box and having a ritual of care for it, and perhaps talking to it as though she were talking to her mother.... If I really _showed _the value of the thing first.... then it being gone evokes actual emotions in the reader. They can identify with themselves having a thing they loved and it being taken away. No amount of fancy sensory sentences in that chapter would have given that same impact.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> This is a lovely passage. There's some fine showing; e.g., as she races through the house past the stupid telephone that never rings. Maybe someone would call that telling, but honestly I don't care. It's concise and evocative. It's what I want from an author.
> 
> In just reading this excerpt, I would disagree with the crit  group. The narrator needed to tell us about this book. Trying to demonstrate through actions or even through dialog would have been ham-handed. You could set it up earlier, as you suggest, but I rather like the element of surprise here; it raises the stakes. It also raises expectations, in that I expect to be shown the book's importance as the story progresses, to see it in action, as it were.
> 
> Thanks for sharing this. You did not embarrass yourself!


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## T.Allen.Smith (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> True, but even then I don't think it would have the impact it needed. The reader still wouldn't have seen the value of the thing and felt the pang of having it taken away. On a larger, structural scale, when I give them that moment before hand... perhaps showing the girl taking it with her to a major event as a good luck charm, carefully taking it from it's box and having a ritual of care for it, and perhaps talking to it as though she were talking to her mother.... If I really _showed _the value of the thing first.... then it being gone evokes actual emotions in the reader. They can identify with themselves having a thing they loved and it being taken away. No amount of fancy sensory sentences in that chapter would have given that same impact.


Agreed. That would be more effective.


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## Steerpike (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> I'm going to put myself out there and embarrass myself by "showing" (lol) what I mean with an example of my own writing. It is long, but it sort of has to be to get across what I'm saying about "telling" on a macro level.
> 
> So, this is the start of chapter three of my WIP. Before this scene I never mentioned the firefly (you will see what I mean in a minute). This is the first glance the reader gets if it's significance. My critique partners didn't like it. For good reason. I'm telling them what to think.
> 
> <snip>



An example like this only intensifies the debate, in my view. This is a perfectly good excerpt--in fact I like it quite a lot. It establishes (or, presumably, continues to establish) voice and character. It is particularly fitting to deliver the scene this way because it is in first person. I like this narrator. You aren't telling me what to think, _she _is telling me what she thinks and feels. It works.

I agree with Skip that if you try to move into pure showing here, this gets ham-fisted in a hurry, particularly if you retain the first person. To me, it is a very good example of how strong telling can make a scene work.


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## Penpilot (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> I'm going to put myself out there and embarrass myself by "showing" (lol) what I mean with an example of my own writing.



I really liked the passage. Even out of context, for me, it evoked a lot of emotion. 

I may be off base on this, but I'm not sure you need to necessarily show what the book means to her by taking it with her to places etc. I think if you've convey what her mother means to her and her father somewhere in this, then the rest should fall into place. The book represents that relationship/connection to the mother. Establish that relationship to her then the importance of the book becomes understood, no?


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

Yes, for sure... to be clear, it is the firefly that she uses as the good luck charm... not the book... though the book is super important to the plot. But yes, so long as that mother relationship is there previously, it would still work. Having her use the firefly as her good luck charm, though, helped to solidify that relationship in a concrete way.


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## Heliotrope (Jan 18, 2018)

Ps, side note... thanks for the positive comments on my draft people  that is so nice of you all!


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## pmmg (Jan 18, 2018)

Well, I think I might have to sum up my thoughts on this as writing is an art and not a science. So when the question comes up as to when I should use one over another, the only answer is what does your artist's eye tell you?

This advice though, show and don’t tell, is one I might hand out to a piece I was reviewing if I felt it was called for. I think I tend to hand this out to beginner writers as a way of pointing them in the right direction without having to do all the heavy lifting for them. I may use it at times as something that I feel is understood by both me and they to mean something without a lot of additional parsing. I think the degree to which I would apply this in a review, or expound upon to add additional comments, though has a bit to do with how useful I thought it would be based on the work I had read, and my knowledge of the writer.

This is also something I am sure all aspiring writers will have come across in their early days and is probably a staple of all those many tools we stuff in our toolboxes.  As they grow and become more proficient with the craft, they will learn on their own when and when not to use it.



Mythopoet said:


> So, for me, I dislike the phrase "Show, Don't Tell". Partly because it is extremely simplistic and not all new writers have the ability to see past the generalization. (In my experience most new writers are just so eager to please anyone who is a so-called "expert" in the publishing industry that they will go to great lengths to incorporate any pithy advice they see on industry blogs and this one shows up everywhere.) Partly because I strongly believe not all readers like stories that rely strongly on eliminating telling in favor of showing and most people who dispense this advice ignore that. They tend to take it for granted that "showing" is simply the best method of storytelling and telling should only be used in extreme moderation. (Well, almost all writing advice tends to ignore that different readers like different kinds of storytelling.) This leads to very, very few new fantasy books being written with a storytelling style that appeals to me. (And thus I seek refuge in the classics.)



Mytho, I think you make the best posts, cause there is always something to comment on.

Thing is, I think part of being a new writer is getting advice like this, discovering what it means, and growing from it. And I think we discount the acuity of new and young writers by deciding for them what they can and cannot see past. If this, or any advice, was to send them off in a stray direction, well, that is just part of their journey. And maybe it’s one they need to make to get to where you are, and in thinking it’s too simplistic.  I think this is one of those 'here is what you need to walk before you can run' kind of phrases. As someone in the place of reviewer, I don’t make comments designed to hurt a young artist or not relevant to the piece at hand, but I gotta work with where I think this is really at. If their journey has not taken them beyond this, then broader statements will more likely help than specific ones. Coarse adjustment over fine tuning. The teacher/student relationship is just that, a relationship. If I have the role of teacher, then I am trying to guide young skulls full of mush to wherever it is I think their talents can take them, and those simple comments, well they will get refined over time.


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## skip.knox (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> Ps, side note... thanks for the positive comments on my draft people  that is so nice of you all!



We ain't nice. We is honest.


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## Hallen (Jan 18, 2018)

Steerpike said:


> An example like this only intensifies the debate, in my view. This is a perfectly good excerpt--in fact I like it quite a lot. It establishes (or, presumably, continues to establish) voice and character. It is particularly fitting to deliver the scene this way because it is in first person. I like this narrator. You aren't telling me what to think, _she _is telling me what she thinks and feels. It works.
> 
> I agree with Skip that if you try to move into pure showing here, this gets ham-fisted in a hurry, particularly if you retain the first person. To me, it is a very good example of how strong telling can make a scene work.



But is it "telling" if it's the POV character thinking it, or feeling it? How do you "show" what the POV character is feeling? Do you pop up a magic mirror and then describes her facial expressions? Nope. The character thinks which, by necesity is description.

There are definitely sections of that scene that is like the character describing things that she already knows. That's when it starts to get a little telly. But the sections where she's running past things, it gives insight into who this character is and how she feels about her world. It's coming from her so it's quite good. And, the pacing is very fast which also increases the tension. Right up to the point where she starts describing the book-banks. 

I think the telling we are mostly concerned with is the stuff that comes from no POV, generally, and tells us what is. The section about her father's hollowed out books are an example of that. She knows this stuff. Why is she repeating it? It takes her from a person to a narrator with a flip of a switch. By telling this thing, it pulls the reader out of the story long enough to digest the background information. And that's where I see the danger. 

You can get away with it from time to time, especially when there's no good way around it, but I think you should have a good reason for it and understand exactly what that is before you do it too much.


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## Devor (Jan 18, 2018)

Heliotrope, I do think the scene has sort of a transition-suspense problem at the moment your critique group is talking about.  The point of the scene, as written, as I take it, is that you're not supposed to realize why she hates her father in that moment until it's revealed what the item is in her hand at the end.  There's just something a little off in the execution - it was jarring because I thought I was supposed to understand why she hated him already.  But I think it's a relatively small but important wording change, not something that needs a whole lot.

This is the section in question:



> The thing in her hand was shiny. And blue. And when it sparkled *I knew exactly what it was* and I knew, in that moment, that I hated my father.



If it were me, the little part that I bolded is the part I would want to fix. It's like the audience surrogate thing backfiring on you - "yes, _you know_, but I don't, so what are you talking about already?"  Literally cutting that phrase makes it so much less jarring:
_
And when it sparkled I knew, in that moment, that I hated my father.
_
^ This by itself screams, "I'm about to drop some drama on you readers."

That's not to say the scene couldn't use some deeper POV to pull out the emotion - but if there's a problem in the scene, it's that one phrase.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jan 19, 2018)

I'm in the camp of not caring much for the "show don't tell" advice. I assess the first chapter of my WIP as 0% "showing," and not exactly 100% "telling." I don't want to change my first chapter to fit someone else's rule about show-don't-tell, using their definitions of "showing" and "telling." My first chapter is a short chapter, only 160 words, written in first-person POV. The MC introduces herself to the reader in a conversational style that establishes her as the narrator, introduces other characters and defines the MC's relationships to them, and gives a hint at the setting and history of the story world.

Before editing, this chapter didn't exist. All the "showing" in what is now Chapter 2 felt confusing and needed some basic info to ground it, especially since the relationships between the MC and other characters are unlike any a reader could be expected to have experience with. I felt I needed to explicitly state: these are my relationships with the other characters you're about to meet. It's not likely the reader will fully understand these relationships from my stating what they are. They'll learn more about them through the "showing" in Chapter 2 and later chapters.

I took inspiration from the opening sentence of Herman Melville's _Moby Dick_. You know the line: _Call me Ishmael_. Many writing experts think this is the best-ever opening sentence, and they can spout all sorts of reasons for this that I don't necessarily agree with, but can respect. I don't consider that sentence as "showing." It's debatable as to whether it's "telling." But it is "story." It immediately establishes the narrator character and creates a connection with the reader. That's what I strove to do with my opening sentences.

Like others who've posted on this topic, I don't think about show-don't-tell while writing my first draft. I only think about it in editing, and only when I read a passage that I feel needs work. If I feel a passage works as-is, I don't try to change it just to comply with a rule. When I feel it isn't working, I'll consider whether I'm "showing" or "telling," and consider how the passage would work if written another way, which might be "showing" or "telling" or something else.

Part of my problem with "show-don't-tell" is that everything seems more like "telling" to me than "showing." I look at the color-coded example that Devor provided, and I'm thinking to myself, what he thinks of as "showing" could be construed as "telling." But Malik says that if I'd received the right training, I'd know by looking what's "showing" and what's "telling." So maybe that's why I don't care for the advice much, because I don't have the training to look at a phrase and know whether it's "showing" or something else. But I know what I like to read, and that's what I want to write. So I go with how I feel about a passage, and let that be my guide, and let the students categorize my lines as "showing" or "telling" or something else if they want.


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## pmmg (Jan 19, 2018)

Ya know, a comment in a review saying show and not tell is usually reserved for writing that is below the calibur of that I have come to encounter on this site (so far), but it is a valid thing to comment when the writing warrants it. It does tend to be something that beginner writers encounter, but some writers need to hear it. If I felt the writer would not understand the comment, I might be inclined to go further and explain it a bit further. But its a two way street, my energy is valuable too. I need to be shown that it would make a difference if I did, or have some reason to believe more would be helpful.

The example above with all the red and green and blue text, I really think that is taking things too literally. That snippet of story would not draw such a comment. Perhaps if it was written so that there was no green and more red, it might, but you would have to write something pretty poor to do that. I am sure such a comment would not be useful to you, you are already demonstrating we are past that point.


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