• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

How good is my show don't tell?

MythicMirror

Dreamer
"The waterfall was thundering. Stan listen to it calmly. He leaned back without falling from the chair. The week was stressful enough. At Monday, his mom dated a new guy. At Tuesday, she was crying the whole day and Stan had to consoled her while she was eating vanilla ice cream. At Wednesday, she dated another guy – a British one. And at Thursday, he met this guy. His name was John. Stan hated him instantly. He hated his accent, his behavior, his black suit and his glasses. John looked like Harry Potter in a business man outfit. He gave Stan enough to call his aunt, who lives in Canada and asked her if he could live by her.

Stan didn’t want to destroy the pink moment his mom had. If he said he didn’t like John, his mom would have reacted like a girly woman, who lost a beauty contest.

Now at Friday, he sat in this little café near the Niagara Falls. He was waiting for his aunt. She wanted to pick him up. So, they could go to that stuff where he had to go to get this damn visa.

“Hey, Stan!” The waitress with a red coffee pot in the hand said. “Do you want another cup of coffee?”

Stan pushed carefully his cup away. “No thanks, Rachel. My aunt has to be here any minute.”

“Ok.” Rachel placed the coffee pot on the table. Then, she put her two elbows on the table and her hands on her checks. “Why do you want to move to Canada again. Is this guy such an idiot? You met him only a day.”

“Well. My mom always takes mean machos as boyfriends. So… I don’t need to take a better look. I could…,” Stan made a fist with his right hands, “… choke him with my hands. He is such an idiot. But he looks like a nice guy on the surface.”

“Oh ha. There has someone rage in his blood.”

“Yep. And before I do it in front of my mom, I should better avoid it. That’s why I want to move to my aunt.”

“Don’t you have any American relative?”

“Well… my uncle, who lives in New York, doesn’t really like me since I destroyed his favorite baseball. And my other aunt hates my sister generally. She is the second daughter and third child. So, she didn’t get much attention. My uncle is the second child and only son. And my mom is the eldest child of my grandparents. Do you understand why Canada is the only way?”

Rachel nodded.

The glassy door was opened again. A brunette woman with a denim jacket and leather pants went through it.

Stan stood up, grabbed his stuff and payed the coffee—$2. “See ya!”

Rachel waved back. “Bye! And good luck in Canada!”

Stan and the woman went away and enter a red convertible. The engine started and the duo drove away."

How good is my show don't tell?
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I'm only going to look at your first paragraph.

The waterfall was thundering.

Using words like was, is, were, and the like, tend to weaken the sentence, like you're explaining that the waterfall was thundering instead of putting readers into the moment. Try: The waterfall thundered into the lake nearby.

Stan listen(ed) to it calmly.

Words like listened, watched, saw, noticed, anything that suggest the character is "noticing this," also weakens the sentence. If you have a deep POV, it's implied that whatever sentence you use is getting noticed by the character. Try: Whenever Stan focused on the sound the muscles in back and neck would ease up a bit.

He leaned back without falling from the chair.

If he didn't fall from the chair it's not necessary to say so. Again, phrases like these keep the reader from connecting with the deep POV. Try: He leaned his chair back.

The week was stressful enough.

You're using was again. And stressful is the kind of sentiment that you would want to show more directly. Try cutting this line.

At Monday, his mom dated a new guy.

In a statement like this, you can deepen your POV and the extent to which you're showing by being more specific. Try: On Monday his mom came home with a new guy, Dylan.

At Tuesday, she was crying the whole day and Stan had to consoled her while she was eating vanilla ice cream.

Good twist and use of detail. You're using "was" again, and the flow is just a little awkward. Try: On Tuesday she cried the whole day while Stan consoled her over a pint of vanilla ice cream.

At Wednesday, she dated another guy – a British one.

Good. I'll just repeat it as is. At Wednesday, she dated another guy – a British one.

And at Thursday, he met this guy. His name was John.

Again, "was" suggests a narrator explaining something to us. That's not how a deep POV works. Try: And on Thursday he met this guy. John.

Stan hated him instantly.

Normally I would suggest cutting this phrase. It's the kind of sentiment you want to demonstrate instead of explain to us. But immediately is an important point, it suggests that it's almost irrational. And you can use hated to draw parallelism with the following lines. Keep: Stan hated him instantly.

He hated his accent, his behavior, his black suit and his glasses.

This is okay as is, too. Keep: He hated his accent, his behavior, his black suit and his glasses.

John looked like Harry Potter in a business man outfit.

The phrase "business man outfit" is awkward. The word is suit. If you don't want to use it again after the last sentence, you could try a more direct phrase. Try: He looked like a corporate Harry Potter.

He gave Stan enough to call his aunt, who lives in Canada and asked her if he could live by her.

He gave Stan enough.... what? So far the hatred isn't grounded in anything. Lots of kind, friendly, decent people wear suits. But it also sounds like this Stan really is just being irrational. This is the point in the prose which decides the reader's impression here, one way or another, rational or not. Try: He gave Stan enough irritation (OR: hidden sneers) that he called his aunt in Canada and asked to live with her.

It's normal early in a writer's career to need to look at changes line by line. But that gets better as you continue to learn. Look less at the specific examples and more on learning the underlying principles so you can extend them into your future work.

I hope it helps.
 
I also heard somewhere to remove words ending in "ly" but I just can't remember if it had anything to do with show don't tell or passive voice.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I also heard somewhere to remove words ending in "ly" but I just can't remember if it had anything to do with show don't tell or passive voice.
Adverbs.
The idea is that when you use an adverb to describe how something is done, you're telling the reader how they should feel about it, instead of letting them form their own impression of it.

There's a time and a place for them, but if they show up too often, it might be a sign that the prose isn't expressive enough.
 
About -ly adverbs, I'd add this in tandem with what Svrtnsse said: They are often evaluative. By this, I mean that the impression they create is of an outside or distant observer assessing what is happening in the world. Such adverbs are abstractions created to describe a general impression of events and things from above the situation. So using those -ly adverbs creates some kind of distant narrator. They are telling, so...who is telling?

Devor mentioned having a deep POV. I think your writing here is a more distant POV, although I suspect that wasn't intentional.

Stan listen to it calmly.

Who is evaluating Stan's internal and external state? Stan himself seems so focused on his mother and her dating habits, I doubt he is the one assessing the manner of his own listening. Calmly. So this strikes me as an outside observation; someone else is telling me that he's listening calmly.

“Hey, Stan!” The waitress with a red coffee pot in the hand said. “Do you want another cup of coffee?”

Stan pushed carefully his cup away. “No thanks, Rachel. My aunt has to be here any minute.”


These lines accentuate this impression. The first gave me the impression that Stan didn't know the waitress. "The waitress with a red coffee pot in hand" seems like the sort of assessment that might be given by someone who is merely distinguishing a waitress from the general wait crew in the café.

But in the next line, he calls her by name, Rachel. Since there's been no mention of noticing her name tag, I'm left with the impression that Stan knows her.

These two lines wouldn't be much issue if the intent is to have an outside narrator, a sort of omniscient narrator—or even, if you were to switch to first person. Omniscient storyteller narrators and first person narrators can get away with a little more telling, since in both cases we are meant to become accustomed to a specific person who is telling us the story—i.e., a person who is evaluating events and things. So, the disconnect between describing the waitress the way you have in the first of these lines and the mention of her name afterward would strike us as the way/method of telling that a particular narrator has chosen on purpose.

A deep, close third person narration, on the other hand, requires more attention to how the character experiences his surroundings and himself in the moment. Would Stan, in the state he's in, think of himself as listening calmly? Probably not. Especially since he seems agitated at that moment, thinking about his mom's dating habits.

You can sharpen your showing if you keep this in mind, work on your narration, decide if you want the closer POV through Stan's eyes/mind or if you want to keep a more distant omniscient storyteller.

If you keep the more distant style, your writing will still improve by showing things more often than simply telling. Have you ever listened to a friend who is telling you about a past event, and your eyes start to glaze over? Probably they were just giving some abstractions, some general impression of events. It's the same thing with a storyteller narrator. If we can't often feel we are there, where things are happening, with concrete and objective descriptions, we begin to lose interest.
 
Last edited:

Rkcapps

Sage
Valuable dissection Devor and Fifthview. Awesome stuff, thanks. Thanks for offering your work MythicMirror. You'll go a long way with an attitude that's willing to take on constructive criticism. Good on you.

This is from a book i just finished:

Because verbs are the strongest and most dynamic part of language, by definition adverbs are almost always the weakest word choice ... Using a more specific verb clarifies the meaning and eliminates the need for a modifier. This is why so many authors and editors loathe adverbs—since verbs provide the energy in any sentence, adverbs only exist to hamper and distort that energy. Stephen King claims, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Actually, adverbs are so weak they can even modify other modifiers. Similarly, William Strunk Jr. called adjectives “the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words.”26 A stronger noun can make any adjective irrelevant.

Suede, Damon. Verbalize: bring stories to life & life to stories (live wire writer guides) . Evil Mastermind, LLC. Kindle Edition.
 

Royal

Acolyte
I admit I didn't read a lot, but I gathered that it seemed to be in a "present" tense - actions are described as happening as close as possible to 'right now' versus in the past tense. It's something that necessitates a lot of 'throw in back story' for artificiated tension.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
The waterfall was thundering. Stan listen to it calmly. He leaned back without falling from the chair. The week was stressful enough. At Monday, his mom dated a new guy. At Tuesday, she was crying the whole day and Stan had to consoled her while she was eating vanilla ice cream. At Wednesday, she dated another guy – a British one. And at Thursday, he met this guy. His name was John. Stan hated him instantly. He hated his accent, his behavior, his black suit and his glasses. John looked like Harry Potter in a business man outfit. He gave Stan enough to call his aunt, who lives in Canada and asked her if he could live by her.

'Stan leaned back in his chair as the waterfall thundered into the lake, its violence a reflection of his turbulent state. His mom's Monday date had resulted in a tear filled ice cream eating binge Tuesday. Wednesday, she jumped back into the dating pool with corporate Harry Potter, whom Stan detested the moment they meant on Thursday. That brought Stan to this cafe at Niagara Falls, waiting for his aunt to whisk him away to Canada. He wished his mother well - he really did - but he just couldn't stand her taste in men.'
 
Top