Let's Talk about Show Don't Tell

[T.Allen.Smith]

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.

- 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.

 

[Devor]

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.

 

[Heliotrope]

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).

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

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.

 

[skip.knox]

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!

 

[Heliotrope]

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.

 

[Heliotrope]

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!

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

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.

 

[Steerpike]

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.

 

[Penpilot]

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?

 

[Heliotrope]

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.

 

[Heliotrope]

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

 

[pmmg]

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.

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.

 

[skip.knox]

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.

 

[Hallen]

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.

 

[Devor]

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.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

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.

 

[pmmg]

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.