"Show don't tell" and why it annoys me.

[Kasper Hviid]

A rather nice book titled How to Write a Novel (1901) tell us this:

To say "She was a very wicked woman," is like the boy who drew a four-legged animal and wrote underneath "This is a cow." If that boy had succeded in drawing a cow there would have been no need to label it;

The author goes on a bit on this topic finishing with this conclusion:

Don't say what your hero and heroine are: Make them tell their own characters by words and deeds.

I like this. The writing feels passionate and inspiring. It proves its validity by showing instead of telling. By contrast, the phrase "show don't tell" left me cold. The tone sounds straight out of the Ten Commandments or a coffee machine instruction guide.

 

[Steerpike]

You can, however, find examples of very good books that might come right out and say "she was a very wicked woman," particularly if a book adopts a more fairy-tale style of telling a fantasy story. It's a matter of doing whatever you do effectively.

 

[Robert hildenbrand]

So I'm going to be blunt, this entire advice surrounding one's creative writing annoys me to no end. Lately I've been getting critiques about how my characters tend to be "bland" (I'm looking at you Ao3!) and how my descriptions fall short. And I just sit and go...how exactly? It's really frustrating.
I've been told by people in the past that you need to "show not tell." Now, I'm an individual diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. To me, showing something means holding up a picture and pointing things out on it, or pointing something out on the landscape. It's called "Storytelling" isn't it? It's not story showing. Such a phrase doesn't even roll off the tongue nicely.
So I try to understand it better, but let's face it, despite being an English major metaphors can absolutely baffle me. I'll read a poem about someone walking through a gate in the woods. Then I'm told they're not actually walking through a gate. I just sit and go...what!? But then I'm also told I can't just personally interpret it, I have to go by what it says. Uhm. Yeah that's British Literature for you, but more to the point...
The given examples I have seen, like for example when they compare two different descriptions. "Ralph was angry." and then "Ralph felt his face flush red like a beet and closed his hands to resemble balls," ok first of all, being the literal person I am, I'm going to imagine his fists literally turning into balls. To me, just saying "Ralph was angry" was enough. But to the rest of the world, it's bland. The more descriptive version gives me a headache. This is why I can't read Tolkien, even though I enjoyed the movies because they were able to shift through the heavy overwhelming details and actually find the story.
I don't mind some description to give a general idea of the story. JK Rowling I felt did a great job with Harry Potter, but there were times when her descriptions made me think of very cartoonish off the wall things. Then I watched the movie and go...oh. That's nothing how I imagined it. That's not how I pronounced the name.
Plus I think the editing process has made me so burned out, I'm having trouble enjoying writing. I have recently got a new creative streak, but deep in the pit of my stomach I keep thinking...alright. What are they going to say about this piece?
I think the big issue I have is...I want to tell a story. Not get so lost in details that I personally find are irrelevant that we get off track. I could care less what the leaf looks like. Just tell me it's orange and call it a day to tell me it's fall.
And also, I think there are some writers who agree that we can't always show a story, we need to tell it in some ways as well. Describing everything just seems so...tedious.
So what is your advice? Write, and edit in suggested descriptions later? or try to fit them into the first draft while painstakingly using a thesaurus like a Bible?
Thoughts?

His body shuddered as the toxin filled his lungs, his grip on the poisonous plant weakened with the blur of his vision. Vertigo set in, as the blood flow to his inner ear flowed with the ammonia, his leg over compensated to his inability to stand straight. He threw his open palmed hands to brace for his fall, and scraped open the palms of his hands on the black coal and sharp slate stone rocks that fell from the train cars leaving the local coal mines. He shook his head, and heaved fresh air, reached into his pocket for his water bottle, swished the clean fluid in his mouth, leaned his head back and gargled, leaned forward and spat. Leaned back, and poured the fluid over his face as he breathed in through his nose, and allowed the water to flow into his eyes. He peeled open his eye lids, clenched his jaw at the stinging pain, and poured more water into his eyes before he threw himself forward to stick his finger down his throat to regurgitate any swallowed poison. He heaved deep breaths of clean, fresh coal choked air, its leads and heavy metals less dangerous than the toxin of the plant he inhaled.

This is how you show. I depict the desperate actions of a man dying from poison. I depict his location to be someplace near to where there would be a lot of coal dust, and how he would prefer to breath that dust with its heavy metals in than the toxic of the plant. I depict his reasoning skills and his ability to adapt to and over come pain for the chance at survival. I could have just as easily said the following.

He coughed after inhaling the poison by mistake and felt its mind altering effects. Remembering he had fresh water in his pocket, he preformed basic life saving Technics taught in any shop class, to wash out the eyes, nose and mouth of a person who might have inhaled a poison. He did not anticipate the speed at which his body became weak and cut his hand on the discarded coal, and slate rocks from the local coal mine. He continue to purge his body of the poison the best he could.

This is why we show, not tell the reader. So that they feel what the character feels. The described fear, the rapid pulse, the gut wrenching pain, calling upon the reader's own experience of pain and fear.

 

[iramesoj]

I think “show don’t tell” is sometimes is a good advice, but not always. For example, when I started to write after years (since teenage years) without writting, I wrote:

Amara was the strongest girl in her tribe. Once, a friend gave her a rabbit and a bigger woman tried to steal it. Amara knocked her and became totally respected by all the other women

an user of a missing writting forum told me: show, don’t tell, show how her friend gave her the rabbit, show how the other woman try to steal it and show how Amara knocks her.

That helped me a lot to enrich both narration and story. I rewrote chapter 1 and the result was much better. Thanks to this, the narration is more dinamic (the original text is a bit like the Bible, “and then Samson took a donkey’s jaw and killed thousands of philistines”...that kind of narration is a bit tedious. Bible is an interesting book but is hard to read), and there are new characters: both the friend and the robber have now their own names, and the robber became an interesting villainess.

However, show every detail may be a bad idea. There are some things that should be shown, and other should be told.

 

[Azul-din]

A lot of this sounds like someone older trying to explain to someone younger how to make love. Writing also is a deeply personal act and your particular style is something innate that comes to the fore when you are inspired. I'm reminded (yet again) of the poem about the centipede, one version of which goes like this. ' A centipede was happy quite/ until a toad in spite/ said 'Pray which leg comes after which?/ this raised her mind to such a pitch/she lay distracted in a ditch/considering how to run.' I can't tell you the number of young writers I've seen in the same quandary.

 

[pmmg]

At the same time, telling too much and not showing is a common issue with many beginning writers. If enough people are saying it, it does not hurt to investigate it. We are all trying to improve in our craft, are we not?

 

[Plinto]

At the same time, telling too much and not showing is a common issue with many beginning writers. If enough people are saying it, it does not hurt to investigate it. We are all trying to improve in our craft, are we not?

One of the most common reactions to criticism from new writers is to rip their sword from its scabbard and defend the writing. Probably my favorite book on writing, "Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft" has a section about the writer's role in workshops, or in essence, any setting where your work is being critiqued. "The hardest part of being a writer in a workshop is to learn this: Be still, be greedy for suggestions, take everything in, and don't defend."

Of course this doesn't mean act on any and all feedback you get. Important to be able to recognize and discard bad advice.

"The thing you resist the hardest may be exactly what you need." So sayeth the book.

But man, sometimes it's so hard to hear that this personal and important work we've been worrying over for months is not the work of genius we may have begun to believe it was. That's been my experience so far, anyway!

 

[pmmg]

One of the most common reactions to criticism from new writers is to rip their sword from its scabbard and defend the writing. Probably my favorite book on writing, "Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft" has a section about the writer's role in workshops, or in essence, any setting where your work is being critiqued. "The hardest part of being a writer in a workshop is to learn this: Be still, be greedy for suggestions, take everything in, and don't defend."

Of course this doesn't mean act on any and all feedback you get. Important to be able to recognize and discard bad advice.

"The thing you resist the hardest may be exactly what you need." So sayeth the book.

But man, sometimes it's so hard to hear that this personal and important work we've been worrying over for months is not the work of genius we may have begun to believe it was. That's been my experience so far, anyway!

Months? thought it was years

 

[Plinto]

Months? thought it was years

Alright fine. It's decades at this point.

 

[pmmg]

Alright fine. It's decades at this point.

Actually, it is

 

[Azul-din]

Alright fine. It's decades at this point.

It's also a matter of separating advice on developing your craft, from advice on how to write a best seller

 

[Plinto]

It's also a matter of separating advice on developing your craft, from advice on how to write a best seller

Yes indeed. Two similar but different schools of magic, there. I consume lore from both schools. Hoping I'll end up in some happy middle of having honed my craft and written best sellers. That's probably too ambitious though. I'd really just be happy with "He finished a novel before he died."

 

[Devor]

At the same time, telling too much and not showing is a common issue with many beginning writers. If enough people are saying it, it does not hurt to investigate it. We are all trying to improve in our craft, are we not?

Nahh, you've got that backwards. When a critiquer says show don't tell the issue isn't a beginning writer, but a beginning critiquer. Even if it's a reasonable criticism, there are more specific and more effective ways to express the point. Show don't tell is a canned and loaded phrase. Let's do better.

 

[FifthView]

Nahh, you've got that backwards. When a critiquer says show don't tell the issue isn't a beginning writer, but a beginning critiquer. Even if it's a reasonable criticism, there are more specific and more effective ways to express the point. Show don't tell is a canned and loaded phrase. Let's do better.

True. Just look at how many words, across how many threads, we've spent trying to explain, describe, illuminate the differences between showing and telling. It's a fun topic for me because I like exploring those things, but in truth I would be better off doing than describing and explaining, heh.

 

[pmmg]

I'd say, half true. When a reviewer says show dont tell, the issue may be with one, both, or neither. But the right tool for the right circumstance. Not everything warrants the same amount of energy, and even a simple thing like a well worn phrase is enough to steer one in the right direction. If it is well worn, it ought to be easy to go find out what it means. If you dont have the energy for that.... How far are we really going to get?

I've been at it for many years, and put in a lot of energy. I've written much, and reviewed much. If I am saying show dont tell, and providing nothing to follow it up, it must be pretty glaring that the first stop is the one that matters most.

 

[Azul-din]

Yes indeed. Two similar but different schools of magic, there. I consume lore from both schools. Hoping I'll end up in some happy middle of having honed my craft and written best sellers. That's probably too ambitious though. I'd really just be happy with "He finished a novel before he died."

All very well if you can look at the current best seller list (I just did) and imagine yourself on it. How about 'he finished a novel that he was proud to have written'

 

[pmmg]

As an aside, in my earliest foray into having my stories reviewed by others, the very first comment I drew, the dude said something like.... 'I did my time with Jordan.' I had no idea what that meant. I did not know anything about Mr. Jordan, and why it would be similar. I found that a very irksome comment cause there was no way to interpret it, other than, I guess he did not like it. After much time, I came to get the gist of it, but to this day, I think what a jerk? Why make any comment at all if its going to be so un-useful? If he had instead said, something like, Show dont Tell, I could have gone straight to google, and looked that up. I would have gotten a ton of pages on what that meant with examples. Just sayin'...that one, I could have worked with.

 

[skip.knox]

>Be still, be greedy for suggestions, take everything in, and don't defend.
Absolutely this. There's a codicil to attach to the last bit. Don't defend, and also don't explain (unless specifically asked to do so). I often saw people defend some passage in the guise of explanation. The first clause is the most important. Be still. That has to happen before you can listen or accept.

>How about 'he finished a novel that he was proud to have written'
I tell you, by the time I got my first novel finished, I was proud simply to have finished it. And delighted that there was a way to "publish" it, for I'm quite certain that had only trad publishing existed, that completed novel would still be sitting in a drawer, and I'm not at all sure I would have had the emotional strength to produce book after book only to have them sit unread. Imagine painters never able to show their work. Imagine musicians who played only to an empty room. Self-publishing was a boon, for me. Knowing that was an avenue always open was one important factor in getting me through the years it took to get to that first completed work.

I'm proud to have written it ... at all.

Once written (and published), I at once set to work writing the next one better.

 

[russ82275]

Just write the stories that you want to write. There are plenty of great examples of stories that definitely lean heavily on "telling". The famous epic poems Beowulf and The Illiad are perfect examples.

There is no one way to write a good story.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

The key is to know what you're doing. And to even know what the hell "Show Don't Tell" means when it is all "storyTELLING." A prof from the Iowa Writer's Workshop was speaking about SDT once and gave examples... They were, at their most literal, both telling. And yet, one was Showing™. This was when I started paraphrasing Woody from Toy Story... That's not showing, that's just telling with style! Yup, that's what it really is in some cases. There are strata in telling that range from hardcore TELL! to what the Prof was doing, where his "telling" example depicting a car chase was a middle-of-the-road "Tell" and his final product was what he considered Showing.

This isn't to belittle the Show Don't Tell mantra, it's damned good advice for the modern market, but it's a more nuanced discussion than most people will ever make of it.

There is also something I call "Show and Tell" or "Tell and Show" which can be an effective technique, but it can also be flat-out redundant and bad writing.

Just write the stories that you want to write. There are plenty of great examples of stories that definitely lean heavily on "telling". The famous epic poems Beowulf and The Illiad are perfect examples.

There is no one way to write a good story.